Chapter 186 CLXXXVI

Chapter 186 CLXXXVI
Levi's POV

She looked at the closed door and then at me. "What do you need?"

"The truth," I said. 

"Everything she knows about the operation. The facility layout, the security structure, Isabel's location in the building, the number and capability of the people inside, and the name of the person running it."

Sena nodded. "How much time do I have?"

"As little as possible," I said.

She went inside. I stood in the corridor with Marcus and we listened.

What happened in that room over the next forty minutes was not something I was proud of. I had given the instruction and I would own the consequence of giving it, but I did not go back inside. 

I stood in the corridor and listened to Vanessa's composure break down in stages, the way things broke under consistent precise pressure, not all at once but progressively, each layer giving way to reveal the one underneath.

Marcus stood beside me with his arms crossed and his face showing nothing, which was how he managed things he had complicated feelings about.

At the twenty-minute mark, Vanessa's voice went from clipped and resistant to something that moved faster, the cadence of someone who had reached the point where information was easier to give than to withhold.

At the thirty-minute mark she was talking continuously I went back inside. Sena stepped back from her position near the chair and moved to the side of the room with the professional neutrality of someone completing a task.

Vanessa was still in the chair. She was not physically damaged beyond what would heal quickly. But the composure was entirely gone. 

Her hair was in disarray and her eyes were red and she was breathing in the uncontrolled way of someone who had been crying without allowing themselves to cry and had finally lost the management of it.

She looked at me when I came in.

"Start from the beginning," I said. "Everything."

She talked for thirty-five minutes.

The Assembly had been operating for eleven years. They were not a pack organization and not a government organization. 

They were a private group of supernatural and human researchers who had been studying the Covenant since the last sealing and who had developed a theoretical framework for channeling the Covenant's power rather than containing it.

Vanessa had been recruited through her family. Her bloodline had minor Covenant sensitivity and the Assembly had identified her as someone who could be useful in getting close to a Lycan with Aldric-adjacent connections. 

Her involvement with Levi's family arrangement had been identified before she arrived. Her entire positioning in the pack had been facilitated by the Assembly.

"They told me it would be quick," she said. 

"That bringing Isabel to them would resolve the situation quickly, that they would channel the power and stabilize the Covenant before it fully rose, that there would be minimal disruption."

"And you believed them," I said.

"I wanted to," she said, which was more honest than I had expected from her.

"The facility," I said. "Internal layout. How many people? Where Isabel is."

She told me the facility was a converted pharmaceutical research compound, three buildings on a closed campus.

The main building was where the research operations were. Isabel was being held in the secure wing of the main building, fourth door from the northern access corridor.

Security consisted of twelve people in total, rotating shifts, armed with standard weapons and two members with Lycan capabilities. 

The facility director was a man named Callum Hesse, late twenties, who had been running the operation for three years.

"The person in the car with you," I said.

"The one who put Isabel in the back seat."

"Callum's second in command," she said. "A woman named Daria arranged the collection point."

"Is Daria at the facility?"

"She was supposed to return there after the collection," Vanessa said. "I don't know if she's still there."

I had everything I needed and I stood up.

"Marcus," I said through the door. "Get the team ready, we move in three hours."

I was walking toward the corridor when my phone rang Zoe's name.

I answered immediately. "Zoe."

"Levi." Her voice had the quality that told me before she said another word that something had happened. "You need to come back now."

"What's wrong?"

"It's Aria," she said.

"She started convulsing about ten minutes ago. I called the pack doctor and he's on his way but Levi-" her voice cracked. "It's bad, it is really bad you need to come now."

I was already moving down the corridor toward the exit.

"I'm coming," I said. "I'm on my way."

I looked back at Marcus as I went through the door. "Get the team ready," 

I said again. "We don't change the timeline. But I need to make a stop first."

Marcus was already on his phone. I got in my car and drove.