Chapter 387
Chapter 387:
I closed the laptop. The sudden darkness of the room pressed in around me. The digital war had begun, but I needed to fight on a second front. I picked up my phone and stared at the calendar confirmation for tomorrow morning. Dr. Finch. EMDR trauma therapy. If Grant was guarding the digital records, I would have to break into the only vault he couldn’t hack — my own shattered mind.
Adelina POV
The morning sun struck the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Alpha Office at The Wolfe Hotel, but the air inside was entirely devoid of warmth. The space was saturated with the lingering, possessive scent of Kain’s ancient cedar intertwined with my own cold wild roses and storm.
I sat behind the massive glass desk, staring at the blinking red light on my executive phone console.
It was Edward Sterling.
D𝘰𝘸𝗇l𝗼a𝖽 P𝘋𝘍𝘴 𝖿𝗿e𝗲 о𝗻
I pressed the speaker button and simultaneously hit the recording key. “Speak p>
“Adelina, please,” Edward’s voice crackled through the line, stripped of its usual arrogant polish. He sounded breathless, suffocating beneath the weight of his collapsing empire. “Victoria is terrified. She’s in a holding cell with common criminals. I am prepared to wire five million dollars into your personal account this morning. Just sign a non-disclosure agreement and drop the criminal charges p>
A dark, humorless laugh escaped my lips. My dormant White Wolf stirred beneath my skin, driven by cold, calculated fury. He actually thought he could buy his way out of a Lycan’s wrath.
“Five million?” I echoed, my voice a flat, freezing void. “Edward, your liquidity dried up yesterday. The Blackstone algorithms have already shorted your remaining stock into oblivion. You don’t have five million dollars p>
A choked, panicked silence answered me.
“But even if you did,” I continued, leaning closer to the speaker, “it wouldn’t matter. Victoria didn’t just steal a piece of jewelry. She desecrated a sacred artifact blessed by the Moon Goddess. The final judgment for this crime doesn’t belong to the NYPD — it belongs to the Continental Pack Council. And they show absolutely no mercy to humans who dare challenge a Lycan bloodline p>
“Adelina, you can’t do this. She’s just a girl p>
I ended the call, cutting off his begging. With a few swift taps on the console, I saved the audio file and permanently blocked every number associated with the Sterling estate. The trap was set.
By early afternoon, I stood in the sterile, fluorescent-lit evidence room of the NYPD Manhattan Precinct. The air reeked of stale coffee, industrial floor cleaner, and the sour tang of human anxiety.
A nervous detective slid a clear plastic evidence bag across the cold metal counter. Inside lay the Blackstone Sapphire.
I didn’t touch it with my bare hands. I pulled a pair of pristine white silk gloves from my coat pocket, slipped them on, and picked up the bag. The heavy, icy blue stone gleamed under the harsh lights — but as I looked at it, the image of Victoria’s smug, venomous face wearing it in her selfie flashed through my mind.
A wave of profound, physical disgust washed over me. The artifact was tainted. It reeked of her cloying perfume and her pathetic, desperate greed.