Chapter 14: The House of Cards

The room was so quiet you could hear the blood pressure dropping in the room—or maybe that was just the sound of everyone trying not to have a collective heart attack. I stood there, feeling like a bomb technician who’d just realized the timer was set to zero. On the main screen, the data wasn't just showing 'clerical errors.' It was showing the exact moment Alpha Abel’s account had transferred five million credits to the Crescent Moon’s shadow bank. *Checkmate, you overgrown hairballs.* "This..." Alpha Abel’s voice was a pathetic, high-pitched wheeze. He looked like he was one silver bullet away from collapsing. "This is fabricated! It's a hack! A human can't possibly—" "Actually, it's pretty standard SQL injection," I cut him off, leaning back and crossing my arms, my tone as casual as if I were ordering a coffee. "Maybe if you guys spent less time marking your territory on each other and more time securing your servers, you wouldn't be standing here looking like a bunch of idiots in front of the King." Ezra, who had been trying to look tough in the corner, suddenly went pale. He knew. His pack was on the list of ‘beneficiaries.’ Kaelen didn't move. He didn't roar. He just stood up, his gaze sweeping the room like he was deciding which one of these morons to kill first. The sheer, suffocating pressure of his Alpha aura made the floorboards groan. "Elian," Kaelen said. His voice was terrifyingly calm. "Tell me, did you find this by accident, or were you specifically looking for how to burn these people alive?" "I don't believe in accidents," I said, meeting his eyes. My heart was doing a frantic drum solo, but my voice remained flat. "I believe in patterns. And the pattern here is simple: you’ve got a leak, and the people in this room are the ones holding the bucket." "You little—!" Alpha Abel lunged, his wolf side taking over. His claws unsheathed, aimed right for my throat. I didn't flinch. I didn't have time to. But I didn't need to. Before Abel could move a foot, Kaelen was there. He moved like a blur of lethal intent. One second he was at the head of the table, the next, he had Abel pinned against the wall, one hand wrapped around his throat. *Snap.* It was the sound of a neck giving way. Abel didn't even get to yelp. He just went limp, sliding down the wall like a discarded puppet. The room erupted into chaos. Guards moved in, weapons drawn. Kaelen stood over the body, his eyes glowing with an unfiltered, predatory gold. He turned his head—slowly—to look at the remaining Alphas who were now scrambling to hide their tablets. "The meeting is adjourned," Kaelen said, his voice a low, dangerous purr. "But the rest of you? You’re going to sit down and explain to me exactly how much of my gold is in your offshore accounts. Starting with you, Ezra." Ezra looked like he wanted to jump out of the window. I stood in the center of the carnage, the only human in a room full of monsters, and realized Kaelen was looking at me again. He didn't look angry. He looked... impressed. *Oh, great,* I thought, the realization hitting me like a bucket of ice water. *I’m not the rat anymore. I’m the accomplice.*