Chapter 381

He straightened, pulled an untraceable ghost phone from his pocket, and typed quickly. A single text to a contact named Suki.

She’s here. Stand by.

Adelia

I woke to a suffocating silence. Not just the quiet of my old bedroom at Hyde Manor, but the terrifying reality that I was completely cut off from the outside world.

I grabbed my phone from the nightstand. No signal. I held it up to the window, moved to every corner of the room, climbed onto the bed — nothing. Either the storm had knocked out the cell towers, or Braydon had done something to block the signal. Either way, I was trapped.

I dialed Dallas’s number. Straight to voicemail. I tried again. And again. Nothing.

I spent the entire day pacing the room, holding my phone up to every corner, watching the signal bar remain stubbornly empty. The hours crawled by. The silence pressed in, heavy and relentless.

By nightfall, desperation had worn me down to the bone. I pressed myself against the cold glass of the window and raised my phone toward the dark sky.

One bar. A single, weak bar of signal.

I didn’t hesitate. I hit the video call button for Dallas.

It rang once. Twice. Three times. Just as I was about to give up, the screen flickered to life.

Dallas sat in his office at Marshall Tower, swallowed by shadows. He looked exhausted, his jaw covered in dark stubble. His eyes were a dangerous, swirling gray — Ragnar pacing just beneath the surface, furious and wounded.

“Dallas,” I breathed, tears pricking my eyes. “Please, let me explain. The storm… my phone had no signal. I didn’t choose him. I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

He stared at me, his silence heavy and punishing.

“I’m coming home tomorrow morning,” I pleaded, my voice cracking. “I’ll make that spicy arrabbiata pasta you love. Just… please don’t shut me out.”

For a fraction of a second, the rigid line of his shoulders dropped. The storm in his eyes receded, replaced by a flicker of the man who held me every night. He was going to forgive me.

Then the bedroom door clicked open.

I spun around. Braydon strolled in without knocking. He was shirtless, his hair damp from a shower, a towel slung low on his hips. The suffocating, sour scent of his Alpha pheromones flooded the room — deliberately thick and overbearing. He held a steaming mug, his eyes locking onto mine with sickeningly sweet concern.

“Addie, you need to rest. Drink this.”

My blood ran ice cold. I looked down at the phone screen.

Dallas’s face had transformed into a mask of pure, unadulterated hellfire. Every flicker of hope in his eyes was gone, incinerated by the sight of a half-naked Alpha standing in my bedroom doorway.

“Dallas, wait—!”

The screen went black. He hung up. When I frantically hit redial, it went straight to voicemail. His phone was off. I tried again. Nothing.