Celeste Arden refused to trade herself for another hostage. She and Alpha Roman Thorne returned to the enemy pack's rain-soaked victory feast 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 Celeste Arden'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 Roman Thorne, then continued toward a sealed record neither of them had seen.
Alpha Roman Thorne reached it first. The evidence proved the truth neither of them was ready to trust: The massacre blamed on Roman was ordered by Celeste's own uncle to seize her inheritance. It also showed why he had been tied to the conspiracy long before he met Celeste Arden.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Alpha Roman Thorne reached for the wolf fighting beneath his skin, but Celeste Arden 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 Celeste Arden'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 Roman Thorne, or bury it and become the woman who betrays him.”
Celeste Arden took Alpha Roman Thorne's hand instead.
The stranger smiled and pressed a remote. Behind them, the archive began counting down from ten.