Naomi Reed refused to trade herself for another hostage. She and Alpha Dax Mercer returned to a mountain clinic hidden from every registered pack before midnight, using the key from the ambush to enter the archive their enemy had tried to keep buried.
Inside were recordings, legal files, and a wall tracking Naomi Reed's life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every loss with patient precision. At the center, a line connected her to Alpha Dax Mercer, then continued toward a sealed record neither of them had seen.
Alpha Dax Mercer reached it first. The evidence proved the truth neither of them was ready to trust: Naomi's son carries the extinct silver-wolf gene that can unite or destroy the packs. It also showed why he had been tied to the conspiracy long before he met Naomi Reed.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Alpha Dax Mercer reached for the wolf fighting beneath his skin, but Naomi Reed stopped him. Running had brought her here. This time she would make the person hunting them speak.
The archive door opened. The intruder removed a hood, and Naomi Reed's breath caught. The face belonged to someone whose funeral she had attended—and the hostage video had been playing from an empty room.
“You finally found the truth,” the stranger said. “Now choose: expose it and destroy Alpha Dax Mercer, or bury it and become the woman who betrays him.”
Naomi Reed took Alpha Dax Mercer's hand instead.
The stranger smiled and pressed a remote. Behind them, the archive began counting down from ten.