Chapter 3

Brea Barnett POV:

An hour after hanging up the phone, I left the hotel. Outside a private room at the Silver Moon Café on the edge of downtown, I pulled down the brim of my black baseball cap, adjusted my face mask, and pushed open the heavy velvet-curtained door.

Sitting in a mahogany leather chair inside, a tall woman with sharp, ear-length hair and a tailored dark gray suit immediately set down her coffee cup and fixed her gaze on me from behind gold-rimmed glasses.

I locked the wooden door behind me, walked over to the sofa across from Jeanett, and took off my cap and mask, exposing my pale, makeup-free face.

Our eyes met as the rich aroma of Blue Mountain coffee mixed with the low hum of the room's acoustic privacy shield, neither of us speaking for ten full seconds.

Jeanett let out a cold snort and slid a non-disclosure agreement across the table.

"You look like you just crawled out of a grave. What, did the great Alpha of the city forget to feed you?"

Picking up a pen, I signed my name at the bottom of the paper and looked straight into her eyes.

"At four o'clock this morning, I came back early from my herb inspection trip and caught him in the guest room bed with his secretary."

Jeanett's hand jerked on her porcelain cup, hot black coffee nearly splashing onto her cream-colored trousers.

"What did you just say? Eldridge Marshall cheated on you?"

"With Deloris Sweeney, the personal secretary he's kept by his side for just over a year."

I pulled a napkin from the holder and wiped the dark droplets off the table in front of her.

Fury flared in Jeanett's cold eyes, the sharp pressure of an angry Beta werewolf vibrating through the cramped room.

"That filthy bastard! By the Moon Goddess, how dare he break his vow? Doesn't he know how badly a mate's betrayal destroys the soul of an unmarked female?"

She lunged forward to grab my wrist, her fingers brushing the bloody crescent marks on my palm, and her anger instantly cracked into raw distress.

"Did you... did you suffer a mate-rejection fever last night?"

"Burned all night in an express hotel on Seventh Avenue, but I survived."

Pulling my hand back, I picked up the glass of warm water the waiter had left and took a small sip.

"Are you insane? Mate rejection damages your internal organs and nerves! You don't have an inner wolf to heal yourself—you should have called a pack ambulance immediately!"

Jeanett slammed her palm against the table, her voice dropping into a fierce growl.

"If I called the pack medical team, the manor's security grid would have alerted Eldridge within seconds that I was in the manor and knew his secret," I cut in calmly.

Jeanett froze, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she stared at me like she was seeing me for the first time.

"You... you didn't confront him?"

"Making a scene would only push him to use his Alpha's Command to lock me inside the main house and force a marking bite on my neck to shut me up forever."

Reaching into my handbag, I pulled out a micro card reader and slid it across the polished wood.

In pack law, once an Alpha left a permanent marking bite on a female's neck, any unilateral infidelity lawsuit became void, turning the female into a helpless possession.

Jeanett plugged the reader into her palmtop holographic computer, her fingers flying across the touchpad until the crystal-clear footage of the guest room floated in midair between us.

As she listened to Deloris's breathless moans and Eldridge's arrogant laughter on the recording, Jeanett's face darkened like a storm cloud.

"Absolute trash! That cheap tramp is even wearing your silk robe from the master bedroom!"

Shutting off the projection with a snap of her fingers, she narrowed her eyes at me.

"The angle is tricky and the resolution is military-grade. Where did a finance intern get a micro spectrum lens like this?"

"A self-defense gadget I modified myself. That's not important."

Brushing past the technical question, I leaned forward with my hands folded.

"With this video, can we make him walk away with nothing in the Elder Court?"

Jeanett let out a long breath and leaned back against the leather cushion, slipping into the cold calculation of a chief attorney.

"No, Brea. Reality is much uglier than you think. He controls over seventy percent of the city's werewolf defense forces and core industries, and those old fossils on the Elder Council all live off his security dividends. With just one video, they'll rule it a temporary loss of instinct, fine him a public apology, and order him to mark you immediately to stabilize the bond."

My mouth curved into a cold, mocking smile.

"Right. A world where genetics and power excuse everything."

"Which is why one video isn't enough," Jeanett whispered, leaning in as she pulled a classified agency contract from her briefcase and slapped it on the table. "We need systematic proof of long-term adultery and evidence that he embezzled pack funds for his mistress. Authorize me to hire rogue trackers using third-party funds to tap his every move."

Without a second of hesitation, I uncapped the pen and signed my name on the client line.

"Even if it costs everything I have, I'll make him pay a heavy price."