Chapter 23: *

Third Person POV

Logan pushed the study door open.

Reid, his gamma was already there, sitting in the chair across from the desk with a folder balanced on one knee and his phone face-down on the armrest.

Logan sat down. "Talk."

"Alora Morrow." Reid flipped the folder open. "Frostborder Alpha's daughter. As of approximately forty-eight hours ago, officially named Luna of Easthaven — Keaton Remington's chosen mate, announced the same night as the rejection ceremony." He paused. "Council's already talking. The timing's not a great look."

"How long has this been in motion."

"The relationship?" Reid made a face. "Longer than anyone's going to admit publicly. There are documented connection points that predate Emery Hensley entering Easthaven entirely."

Logan was quiet for a moment.

"Keaton and Alora," he said. "When did it start."

Reid glanced at the file. "Confirmed overlap with her marriage to Orion. Which means—"

"Which means Keaton was running it while Orion was still alive."

"Looks that way." Reid turned a page. "Orion was Easthaven's gamma. Died in a pack war engagement." He looked up. "You want me to go further back than that?"

"Keaton and Orion. Were they both—"

"Yeah." Reid said it flat. "Both of them. At the same time. Different women, same house." A beat. "Easthaven's been a very busy pack."

Logan looked at the desk.

Reid studied him for a moment with the particular expression he used when he was turning something over and hadn't decided whether to say it out loud. He decided to say it out loud.

"You've never asked me to pull a file on another pack's internal situation before," he said. "Not once. Not for political leverage, not for council positioning, not for anything." He tilted his head. "This isn't the way you work."

Logan didn't answer.

"So I'm just—" Reid made a small gesture. "Noting it. For my own peace of mind."

"Your peace of mind is not my concern."

"I know." Reid closed the folder and stood up.

"Send Damon in," Logan said.

Damon was already in the corridor.

He came in without being told to sit down, set a second folder on the desk — thicker than Reid's.

"Easthaven Pack," Logan said. "Active fighters in professional competition. Who holds the legal structure."

"Keaton Remington." Damon said. "Easthaven Fight Stable. He's the sole owner of record."

"How many fighters."

"Three main roster. Two development. Full coaching staff and sparring partners." He paused. "It's not a small operation for a mid-tier pack. He's been building it out for about two years."

Logan opened the folder.

Keaton Remington. Easthaven Pack Alpha. Thirty-one years old — two years younger than Logan.

"Background," Logan said.

"Not an only child. One younger sister. His parents ran Easthaven before him — traditional setup, strong pack culture, tight family expectations." He paused. "The Alora Morrow situation goes back further than most people know. They had a relationship before she married Orion. Close to four years."

Logan looked up from the file. "His parents."

"Didn't approve. Never did. Frostborder Alpha and Keaton's father had ongoing friction, a couple of disputed contracts on the regional council. Alora's reputation in pack circles wasn't clean either. Too much time in entertainment, too comfortable with attention." Damon kept his voice even. "The family pressure is what cracked it. They pushed until it ended."

"Except it didn't end."

"Technically it ended." Damon's tone didn't change. "She was still seeing someone else while they were together. Ended it with Keaton on a you know we're not right for each other — turned around and married Orion inside of three months. Orion was Easthaven's gamma, which means Keaton knew him. Worked with him every day." A short pause. "Orion died in a pack war engagement. She stayed in Easthaven with the boy."

Logan turned a page.

"Keaton married Emery Hensley approximately four months after Alora married Orion," Damon continued. "The timing is what it is. During the marriage — all three years of it — he was running support for Alora's career on the side. Pulled strings on distribution for her production projects. Used Easthaven's PR resources to build the press momentum for her awards push."

"The Best New Actress."

"Yeah." Something in Damon's voice went very flat. "He built that for her. With assets that were technically shared marital resources." He looked down at his phone. "Emery Hensley has no living family. She was raised in an orphanage in Easthaven territory. No assets. No pack affiliation after the dissolution." A pause. "Three years in that marriage and she walked out with exactly what she walked in with."

The study was very quiet.

Logan closed the folder.

He didn't move for a moment. The expression on his face was the particular kind of still that sat in the air before something broke. The kind that was cold and had already made up its mind.

"Do you think," he said, "that everyone who breaks faith deserves to die?"

Damon's eyes went still. There was a history between them. An old betrayal that had cost them both something.

"Yeah," Damon said. His voice came out low. "They do."

Logan nodded slowly. "You know what to do about the Ironridge partnership," he said. "The Easthaven proposal."

"Already know what to do," Damon said.

— — — —

Keaton's arm was around Alora's shoulder and the night outside the window was quiet and the glass of scotch on the coffee table was half-empty when his phone rang.

He reached for it without looking, checked the screen, and sat up immediately.

Alora made a small sound of protest at the loss of warmth.

He was already answering.

"Ironridge Fighting Alliance. Internal restructuring. The partnership framework with Easthaven Fight Stable — we're moving it to an indefinite hold. No timeline at this point. We'll be in touch when the situation develops."

Keaton's hand tightened on the phone. "We've been in negotiation for four months," he said. His voice came out controlled. "The framework agreement was—"

We appreciate your patience during this process. We'll reach out when we have something more concrete.

"I need a reason," Keaton said. "Give me a reason."

We'd ask you to understand that this is an internal matter.

The line clicked.

He sat there with the phone in his hand and the silence pressing down on both sides of him.

Four months. He'd spent four months in those meetings, watching their legal team move through clause after clause, tracking the language on the matchmaking terms, the revenue split, the promotional structure.

He'd been so certain that he'd started talking.

That was the part his brain kept returning to now. The regional circuit meetings. The conversation with Martinez at the Holloway card, where Keaton had called Martinez's promotional setup a nice little regional hobby, and Martinez had smiled and said nothing, and Keaton had kept talking because he had Ironridge behind him and Ironridge meant he could afford to.

He'd burned bridges. Plural. He'd walked down the row of independent promoters in the regional circuit and lit them one by one because he hadn't needed any of them anymore.

And he'd stood in front of his fighters — three main roster, two development, every one of them with families and training schedules and financial obligations — and he'd told them directly: end of season, contracts go up across the board. He'd said it in front of witnesses.

The numbers were not complicated. Three main fighters on upgraded contracts. Sparring staff. Coaching structure. The Easthaven Fight Stable overhead by itself was already stretching what the pack's independent operating budget could sustain.

Without Ironridge, none of it worked.

Alora's hand came to his arm. "Keaton." Her voice was warm and careful, the tone she used when she was trying to reroute him back to where she wanted the evening to go. "Whatever it is, you can deal with it tomorrow—"

He knocked her hand away. He was already getting up.

"Keaton—"

He walked to the balcony and he was dialing before the door finished closing behind him.

Alora's jaw set.

She'd been building toward this for three years — longer, if she counted the years before Orion, the years she'd kept Keaton at arm's length while she made the smarter play, while she watched and calculated and waited for the right moment.

She'd won. That's what she kept telling herself.

She'd seen Keaton angry before. She knew how to work around all of those.

This was different. This was a man coming apart at the seams and not caring enough to hide it from her.

Alora's jaw tightened.

She stared at his back through the glass and something hard and ugly turned over in her chest.

This is what you waited three years for.