Voices erupted from every corner of the hall—shock, denial, accusation. She kept her eyes on the screen, methodically walking through her evidence while the chaos swirled around her.
“The timing signatures match perfectly. Every attack was launched during council meetings—times when Elder Howard would have known exactly where the Alpha’s attention would be focused. The routing protocols used are consistent with a specific VPN service popular among users who want to hide their tracks. Unfortunately for Elder Howard, that service keeps metadata logs.”
She pulled up the next screen.
“These logs show a device registered to Howard’s satellite account accessing the attack infrastructure repeatedly over the past three months. The pattern started—” she highlighted a date “—exactly one week after the TalkToMe investment deal was announced.”
“Lies!” Howard’s voice cracked with desperation. “Fabrications created by this—this city spy to discredit me! You can’t trust anything she says!”
“The data doesn’t lie,” Harper said calmly. “Every timestamp, every routing path, every access log—it all points to you.”
“Digital nonsense!” Howard turned to the crowd, spreading his arms wide. “Brothers, sisters, don’t you see? This is exactly what the city does—they create elaborate deceptions, wrap their lies inincomprehensible jargon, and expect us to simply believe them! Are we wolves or sheep?”
Harper saw some heads nodding in the crowd. Saw doubt creeping into expressions that had started to turn against Howard.
Damn it.
She’d worried about this. The evidence was overwhelming to anyone who understood network forensics, but to people raised on tradition and instinct, it might as well be witchcraft.
“Perhaps,” Adrian said quietly, “we should let Coleman speak.”
All eyes turned to the hall’s side entrance, where the Alpha’s enforcer had appeared without anyone noticing. Coleman’s massive frame filled the doorway, his rugged face set in grim lines. He carried a box in his arms.
“Found this in Howard’s cabin,” Coleman said, his deep voice carrying easily through the sudden silence. “Hidden under a false floor in his study.”
He walked forward and set the box on the council table with a heavythunk.
Howard’s face went grey.
“You had no right to search my property?—”
“I had every right.” Adrian’s voice was ice. “You accused me of abandoning my duties. Of corruption. Of being unfit to lead. The moment you made those accusations public, you opened yourself to investigation.”
Coleman reached into the box and began pulling out items, laying them on the table one by one.
A laptop computer. Several burner phones. A stack of paper documents covered in handwritten notes. A leather-bound journal.
And a photograph.
She couldn’t see it clearly from her position, but she saw Adrian’s reaction—the way his entire body went rigid, the flash of gold in his eyes, the low growl that vibrated through the bond.
“What is it?” she asked quietly.
“Vivienne.” The name came out strangled. “He’s been in contact with Vivienne.”
The hall erupted again, but this time the tone was different. Horror. Betrayal. The name Vivienne carried weight here—Harper could see it in the way pack members recoiled, in the whispered fragments that reached her ears.
“—the stepmother?—”
“—nearly destroyed us?—”
“—working with her all along?—”
“Let me see that.” One of the other Elders—a woman Harper didn’t recognize—snatched the photograph from the table. Her face went pale as she studied it. “This is dated two months ago. Howard, you swore on your blood that you had no contact with that woman after the exile.”
“It’s a forgery! All of this—planted evidence?—”
“This is your handwriting.” The female Elder held up the journal, her voice shaking with fury. “I’ve sat on this council with you for thirty years. I know your hand as well as my own. And this—” she jabbed a finger at a page “—this outlines a planto destabilize Adrian’s leadership and restore ‘proper traditional authority.’“
