Chapter 15

Chapter 15:

For the first time in my life, I felt safe.

And that was far more dangerous than fear had ever been.

Dallas

The morning sun cut through the glass walls of my office in Marshall Tower, but it did nothing to warm the ice in my veins. I stood overlooking the city, the world below arranged like a chessboard I had already won. Yet my mind wasn’t on the empire I had built—it was on the woman sleeping in my penthouse three floors above.

Adelia.

Even her name tasted like rain on my tongue.

My solitude shattered without warning—a mental intrusion so sharp it felt like a physical blow. Azalea.

𝘉е 𝘵𝗁e fi𝘳ѕ𝘵 𝘁o 𝗋eаd o𝗻

Dad. Her voice through the Mind-Link was trembling, not with fear but with a rage that mirrored my own. He’s here. In SoHo. Braydon Hyde just sat at my table.

I didn’t move, but inside me, Ragnar rose from his slumber, hackles raised. Is he threatening you?

He’s trying to buy me, Azalea spat. Through the link, I saw what she saw: a velvet box resting on a white tablecloth beside her mimosa. Inside lay a tarnished silver locket embedded with a clouded moonstone. He says it’s a token of goodwill. He says he found it in the rubble of the Rogue attack years ago.

The air in my office grew heavy with ozone. I knew that locket. I had seen it in the old dossiers. It had belonged to Adelia’s mother—the Luna of the Moonstone Creek Pack. It wasn’t lost. It had been stolen from a corpse.

He is using a dead Luna’s memory to hunt her daughter. Azalea’s mental voice cracked. He desecrated her grave, Dad.

A low growl vibrated through my chest, deep enough to rattle the crystal decanter on my desk. This wasn’t merely a rival Alpha making a calculated move. This was sacrilege.

Ruin him, Azalea said, her tone dropping to something icy and final.

With pleasure, I replied.

I severed the link and immediately opened another to my Beta. Duncan. Initiate the Hyde Protocol.

A pause—a rare moment of hesitation. Sir? The full protocol? That includes shorting their holdings and freezing the supply chain. It will bankrupt the Hyde Pack by sunset.

Do it. My voice through the link was flat and absolute. Leak their Q3 earnings deficit to the press. I want their stock trading at pennies before the market closes.

Sir. Vance Decker, my Gamma, cut in, his mental tone threaded with caution. This is tantamount to a declaration of war. The Council will view it as unprovoked aggression against a sovereign Pack.

He tried to barter with my Mate’s soul. I projected a wave of dominance that I knew would bring them to their knees wherever they stood. Burn it down.

Ragnar roared in approval, pacing the cage of my mind. Blood. We want blood.

Soon, I promised him. First we take his power. Then we take his head.

By the time I returned to the penthouse that afternoon, the damage was done. Hyde Consolidated was in freefall.