Chapter 415
My heart gave a hard, painful thud. “What kind of spectacle?”
“A coup,” Gigi replied flatly, setting her bone-china cup down. “They intend to parade Kaelen’s bastard daughter, Cassia, in front of the entire Pack high society. Malcolm wants to use her as a puppet to challenge the Marshall bloodline’s purity. But more importantly, they want to provoke Dallas. They know he is crippled. They know he has pushed you away, leaving his emotional state volatile.”
Gigi leaned forward, her piercing, hawkish eyes locking onto mine. “If Dallas attends that gala, they will push him until he snaps. If the Alpha King loses control and attacks a young woman in a room full of Pack elites, Malcolm will have all the proof he needs to declare him a danger to the public and mentally unfit to rule.”
The image of Dallas — already drowning in physical and emotional agony — being cornered by the ghosts of his childhood made my blood run cold. “We have to stop him from going.”
“He is already forbidden,” Gigi stated, leaving zero room for debate. “But the Marshall family cannot appear weak by hiding in the shadows. Nature abhors a vacuum, Adella. If the King cannot defend his territory, his proxy must.”
I swallowed hard as the full weight of her words settled over me.
“You will attend the gala alone,” Gigi commanded. “You will wear the Marshall name, you will stand as his wife — annulment or not — and you will publicly neutralize Malcolm and that little serpent, Cassia. You will use human wit to outsmart their feral games. You will show the Packs that our foundation is unshakable.”
I thought of Cassia’s sickeningly sweet scent and the dead, calculating look in her eyes. I thought of Dallas, locked in his study, fighting a solitary war against his own demons. I was a human in a world of monsters. But I was the only one who could navigate a high-society battlefield without flashing fangs.
“I’ll do it,” I said, my voice steady and resolute. “I will crush her.”
Gigi’s stern lips twitched into the ghost of an approving smile. “Good. Prepare yourself, Adella. The wolves are circling.”
Twenty minutes later, I stepped out of the hotel into the crisp afternoon air. A black, bulletproof SUV idled at the curb like a dormant beast. I slid into the backseat, the cold leather and the lingering, familiar scent of storm and cedar wrapping around me.
Before the driver even pulled into traffic, my phone erupted into frantic, aggressive vibration.
Dallas.
I answered it, pressing the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Where the hell are you?” Dallas’s voice barked through the speaker, harsh and vibrating with a dangerous edge of panic. “The security grid showed you left the Tower. You are supposed to be under lockdown!”
I kept my voice carefully measured, masking the anxiety swirling in my chest. “I’m fine, Dallas. I’m in the car heading back. I was having tea with Gigi.”