The archive was hidden beneath the enemy pack's rain-soaked victory feast, protected by a lock that required two blood samples and a spoken family name. Celeste Arden expected the door to reject her. It opened before Alpha Roman Thorne finished the warning.
Inside were recordings, legal files, and a wall of photographs tracking her life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every betrayal with patient precision. At the center of the wall, a red thread connected Celeste Arden to Alpha Roman Thorne, then continued toward a sealed photograph neither of them had seen.
He reached it first. The image showed their parents standing together years before either family claimed to have met. On the back, one sentence changed the meaning of every promise between them: the massacre blamed on Roman was ordered by Celeste's own uncle to seize her inheritance.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Alpha Roman Thorne reached for his weapon, 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.
“You finally found the truth,” the stranger said. “Now choose which one of you gets to survive it.”