Chapter 158
Chapter 158:
The flight back to New York the next day was an agonizing exercise in absolute silence. Kain sat on the opposite side of the jet, buried in his encrypted tablet, his Lycan aura completely withdrawn. By the time we landed, the chasm between us felt insurmountable. I knew the only way to survive this shattered contract was to build my own fortress. I would bury myself in the Wolfe Hotel Group, completely alone, and face my monsters without him.
Adelina POV
The cold war with Kain had frozen my heart, so I buried myself in the only thing I had left: my Pack. My Alpha office at The Wolfe Hotel smelled of old paper and my own anxious wild rose scent — a stark contrast to the suffocating, cedar-scented gravity of the Blackstone penthouse.
Harvey Hester stood before my mahogany desk, his expression grim.
“Jase Davenport is refusing the electronic signatures,” Harvey reported, sliding a manila folder across the wood. “He’s citing network security concerns. He says if you don’t meet him in person for dinner tonight, he’s pulling the Davenport Tech renewal p>
My stomach plummeted. That contract was fifteen percent of our annual revenue. I couldn’t let my Pack bleed simply because my abusive ex’s Inner Wolf was throwing a jealous tantrum over my new status.
“Where?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.
“The Grill. Eight o’clock p>
I nodded and dismissed him. Once the heavy doors clicked shut, I pulled out my phone. The silence from Kain’s end of our fragile bond was a heavy, suffocating weight. If I told the Lycan King I was meeting Jase, his terrifying protectiveness would turn a business dinner into a public slaughter. I had promised myself on that yacht that I would build my own fortress and face my own monsters. I didn’t need to hide behind a man who was using me as a substitute for whoever A.W. was.
𝘙𝗲a𝘥 𝘧𝗿𝘦𝘦 𝗇o𝘷𝘦𝗅𝗌 𝗼𝘯
I typed the lie quickly: Last-minute client dinner. I’ll be at The Plaza.
Kain’s reply came seconds later, glacial and brief: Understood.
Kain POV
The penthouse den was a freezing tomb. I stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at the glittering Manhattan skyline while my Inner Wolf thrashed against my ribs, howling at the agonizing distance Adelina had put between us since the Bahamas.
To quiet the paranoid beast in my skull, I opened the encrypted security app on my tablet. It tracked the heavy platinum watch I had secured around her wrist. The red pulse blinked steadily on the digital map.
My blood ran cold. She wasn’t at The Plaza. The dot was stationary at The Grill.
A lie. She had lied to me.
I opened the mind-link, my mental voice a lethal whip. Fletcher. The Grill. Find out who my Luna is meeting. Now.
Silence stretched for three agonizing seconds before my Beta’s shocked voice echoed in my mind. Alpha… the reservation is under the name Jase Davenport.
The tablet cracked under my tightening grip. The ancient cedar scent in the room curdled into the suffocating ozone of a violent, impending storm. She was with the Alpha who had broken her.
“He’s dead,” I whispered to the empty room, my eyes burning with molten gold.
Adelina POV
The Grill was dimly lit, all dark mahogany and heavy leather booths. But the expensive ambiance was entirely ruined by the aggressive, sour metallic scent of Jase Davenport’s jealousy.