Chapter 263

Chapter 263:

I remembered the dark possessiveness in his voice the last time we had spoken, the way he had hunted me down when all I wanted was to disappear. He wasn’t here to save me. He was here because I had dared to hang up on him.

I had escaped the butcher, only to wait for the executioner.

Braydon

The heavy oak door groaned in protest as I shoved it open, the wood splintering beneath my palm. I didn’t wait for an invitation.

The moment I stepped into the foyer of Thorne Manor, the stench hit me like a physical blow. It wasn’t merely the smell of wet rot and peeling wallpaper—it was the sour, cloying scent of fear. It rolled off the two figures cowering by the staircase in waves, saturating the stale air of a house that was slowly dying around them.

“Alpha Hyde!” Maeve Thorne gasped, clutching her chest. She looked like a drowned rat, her eyes wide and frantic. “We weren’t expecting you p>

I ignored her. My eyes swept the shadows, searching for the only thing that mattered.

Adella.

𝗝𝗈𝗂𝘯 𝘁h𝗲 𝗰o𝘮𝘮uոі𝘵y 𝘢𝘵

My wolf paced in the back of my mind, growling low and constant. She is here. Close. But distress—so much distress.

I moved toward the stairs, my boots echoing against the warped floorboards. “Where is she p>

Silas Thorne stepped into my path. He was a pathetic excuse for a male, sweating profusely despite the chill in the air. “Wait, Alpha, please. We need to talk before you see her. It’s complicated p>

“There is nothing complicated about it,” I snarled, my voice dropping an octave. “You are hiding her p>

“We have a business proposition,” Silas blurted, his hands raised and trembling. “In the study. Five minutes. Please p>

I could have torn his throat out where he stood. It would have been easy. But the desperation in his eyes told me that if I wanted Adella without reducing this manor to rubble, I needed to hear him out first.

I followed them into a cramped, musty study. Silas scurried behind a mahogany desk that looked far too grand for him and produced a manila folder, sliding it across the surface toward me.

I flipped it open.

Inside were photographs. Dozens of them. Me, sitting in my car outside Adella’s old apartment. Me, speaking to a Rogue informant. A receipt for a scarf she had lost in a park—one I had paid a homeless man fifty dollars to retrieve simply to have something that carried her scent.

“We know,” Silas said, his voice steadying with a thin sliver of confidence. “We know you’ve been watching her. Obsessing over her. If the Council discovered that an Alpha was stalking a wolfless girl p>

I stared at the photographs. I felt no shame. I felt only rage—pure and molten—that these scavengers had dared to touch my secrets with their filthy hands.

“You think this is leverage?” I asked quietly, closing the folder. “You are parasites, feeding off a host you don’t deserve p>

“We have another offer,” Maeve interjected shrilly from the corner. “Jarred Volkov. The Rogue Alpha p>

My head snapped toward her. The name landed like a curse. The Shark.