Chapter 419
My hands shook violently as I reached for my cell phone and dialed her private number. It was a massive overstep, but I had no other choice.
The line clicked open. “Hello?” Adella’s voice was calm, a stark contrast to the storm raging inside me.
Hearing her steady tone shattered the last of my composure. The dam broke, and all my suppressed terror spilled out at once.
“Adella? It’s Lena,” I choked out, my voice trembling so hard I could barely form the words. “I’m ruined. I broke the Founding Covenant.”
Adelia
“Breathe, Lena,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as possible despite the sudden, icy spike in my own pulse. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Through the phone, Lena’s voice was a frantic mess of apologies and technical jargon. But as she relayed the findings of Leo, the Pack’s lead IT specialist, a chilling truth emerged. It wasn’t just a careless mistake by her assistant, Pippa.
Leo had detected a malicious malware code embedded in the system. It had intentionally severed the digital write process, collapsing the entire file structure of the Founding Covenant scans. Every sign pointed to Braydon Hyde — orchestrating a dual strike, crippling Dallas physically while simultaneously destroying the bedrock of his legal authority right before the Elders Council.
“I’m coming down there,” I told her, and ended the call.
I turned around. The penthouse living room was suffocatingly quiet, the air heavy with antiseptic, old books, and the sharp, agitated scent of rain and cedar — Dallas’s aura, soured by physical pain. He sat in his wheelchair, his braced leg extended stiffly.
“You are not going anywhere,” Dallas growled. His gray-black eyes darkened to the color of a thunderhead.
“Dallas, Leo needs my authorization to bypass the firewall, and I am the only one who knows the specific chemical layering of the original parchment to guide the digital reconstruction,” I argued, stepping closer. “Braydon is trying to prove to the Elders that you can’t protect our ancestors’ legacy. We cannot hand him this victory.”
“Marshall Tower was just breached by Cassia. It is a battlefield,” he snarled, his hands gripping the armrests until his knuckles turned white. He was a predator forced into a cage, terrified for the human woman standing before him.
Even if he’s pushing me away, I thought, my chest tightening, I will not be a useless burden. I will protect his throne.
“I am going, Dallas,” I said, my voice unwavering. “With or without your permission.”
A tense silence stretched between us, thick enough to choke on. Finally, his jaw clenched, and he picked up his desk phone. “Vance. Get up here.”
Within seconds, Gamma Vance Decker stepped into the room.
“Take two warriors. Escort Adella to the S&D Wing,” Dallas ordered, his voice dropping into a terrifying, resonant frequency that demanded absolute obedience. “If Braydon Hyde or any of his rats come within ten feet of her, you have my authorization to use lethal force.”
The S&D Design Restoration Wing was a ghost town bathed in the eerie glow of emergency lights. The air smelled sharply of ozone and overheated servers.