Chapter 467
I thought of the penthouse, the clothes I had burned, the card I had shredded. I thought of the work I had left behind at S&D — the restoration projects, the purpose I had built before he ever entered my life. I had let him take that from me. I had let his rejection hollow me out.
No more.
I stood up. My legs were steady.
“What are you going to do?” Anson asked.
I walked to the closet and pulled out my coat. “I’m going back to S&D. I have things to settle.”
Anson’s eyebrows rose. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” I turned to face him. “I’m done hiding. It’s time to end this.”
A slow, satisfied smile spread across his face. “Now that’s the woman I remember.”
He pulled a set of car keys from his pocket and tossed them to me. “The garage downstairs. Silver sedan. It’s clean. No trackers.”
I caught the keys. “Why are you helping me?”
“Because watching Dallas Marshall lose something he can’t buy back,” Anson said, “is worth more to me than any favor you could owe me. Go. Show them what you’re made of.”
I didn’t wait for him to change his mind. I walked out of the suite, down the marble hallway, and into the elevator.
When the doors opened into the underground garage, I found the silver sedan exactly where he said it would be. I slid into the driver’s seat, the leather cold against my back. I looked at the keys in my hand, then up at the estate windows where Anson’s silhouette stood watching.
I started the engine and pulled out of the garage, leaving the gilded cage behind.
The interrogation room at the undisclosed human military base smelled of bleach, stale coffee, and classified secrets. Tactical maps of the Middle East plastered the concrete walls, a stark contrast to the cold metal table between General Higgins and me.
Higgins slid a tarnished silver star across the table. “For Aleppo,” he said gruffly.
I didn’t even look at it. “Keep the medal. This is personal. I need the Ghost Protocol activated for Adella.”
Higgins leaned back, his sharp eyes scanning my pale face. “You look like a corpse, Ghost. Your file says you’re indestructible, but right now, you look like a man with one foot in the grave.”
“My Lycan heart is rotting,” I admitted, the words tasting like ash. “The silver poison from the old ambush, combined with the trauma of forcing a rejection on my true mate — the doctors give me a few months. Maybe less. When I die, the Pack’s protection dies with me. The Silver Claws will hunt her down. She needs a fortress.”
Higgins tapped his fingers on the metal surface. “I’ll grant the wolfless girl the highest level of military protection. But it comes with a price. You check into my medical center immediately. My team gets to run a full evaluation and test experimental silver-toxin treatments on you. I need my best asset alive.”
I thought of Adella’s tear-stained face, the way my rejection had shattered her. If letting them treat me like a lab rat kept her breathing, it was a cheap price to pay.
“Deal,” I rasped.