Chapter 128 Gio Warning
Jolie POV
We're halfway through packing when someone knocks urgently on our door. Ryder moves to answer it, knife already in his hand. He checks the peephole, then opens it just enough to see who's there.
"It's Gio." He looks back at me. "Alone."
"Let him in." I'm too emotionally exhausted to care about security protocols right now.
Gio slips inside, closing the door quickly behind him. His face is pale, hands shaking.
"You can't leave yet." He's breathing hard, like he ran here. "Not until you hear what I found."
"We're done here." Ryder zips up a bag. "Your future stepmother just humiliated Jolie in front of half the pack leadership in the region. We're not staying for the actual ceremony."
"That's exactly what they want." Gio moves to block the door. "They want you to run, they want you to feel defeated and leave before the real trap springs."
I look up from where I'm sitting on the bed. "What trap?"
"The wedding isn't the endgame." He pulls out his phone with shaking hands. "It's the setup. I went back to Father's office after breakfast, and I found these."
He shows us his phone. Photos of documents, emails, floor plans.
"What are we looking at?" Luna takes the phone, scrolling through images.
"Contingency plans." Gio's voice is tight. "If Jolie attended the wedding, if she tried to interfere with Celeste, if she demonstrated her empathic abilities in front of witnesses—which she just did—then phase two activates tonight."
"Phase two?" I stand, moving closer. "What's phase two?"
"Council representatives are hiding in the estate." He pulls up a floor plan marked with red X's. "Twenty of them, armed with blessed silver and suppression collars. They're waiting for the ceremony to conclude, for all the witnesses to leave, and then they're taking you."
Ice floods through my veins. "Taking me where?"
"To a Council facility that's still operational." He shows us another document. "One that Father doesn't even know about. The Whitmore Pack made a deal with Council remnants—deliver the Moonfire Luna in exchange for political power and protection. Celeste's whole purpose here was to test your abilities, confirm you're as powerful as reports suggest, and keep you here long enough for the trap to close."
"She played me from the start.The emotional breakthrough, the tears, all of it was a performance designed to make me demonstrate my empathy in front of witnesses."
"Not just any witnesses." Luna is still scrolling through documents. "These are Council-sympathetic alphas. Wolves who lost power when you destroyed the Elders, they needed proof that you're dangerous, that your empathic abilities are a threat, to justify what they're planning to do to you."
"Which is?" Ryder's voice is deadly quiet.
"Study her." Gio meets my eyes, and I see genuine fear there. "Break down her divine abilities, figure out how they work, and find ways to counter them. They want to understand empathy so they can breed it out of future generations entirely."
"They want to dissect me." Understanding settles cold and heavy. "Take me apart piece by piece to figure out what makes me work."
"They want to erase empathy from wolf genetics completely." Knox's voice is grim as he enters, seems he has been listening to our conversations all along. "If they can study how your divine gift functions, they can create countermeasures. Make sure no other wolf ever develops abilities like yours."
"That's eugenics." Luna answers. "That's genocide of an entire type of wolf."
"That's their plan." Gio nods. "And Jolie played right into it by demonstrating her power this morning. Now they have proof she's dangerous, witnesses who saw her try to manipulate Celeste, and justification for taking her into custody."
"Except I wasn't manipulating her." I sit back down, legs suddenly weak. "I was trying to help."
"Doesn't matter." Luna pulls up another document. "They're spinning it as an attack. Divine Luna uses empathic abilities to force emotions on unwilling participant. Celeste will testify that she felt violated, that you tried to break her conditioning without consent, that you're a threat to any wolf who doesn't conform to your idea of what feelings should be."
"That's bullshit." Ryder's hands clench into fists. "Jolie offered. Celeste chose to take her hand."
"After Jolie pressured her." Gio pulls up a video file. "They recorded the whole thing, now watch."
He hits play. The video shows the breakfast table from an angle that makes me look aggressive—leaning forward, hand extended, voice persuasive. They edited out the parts where Celeste engaged willingly, where she reached across the table on her own. In this version, I look like a predator cornering a wounded prey.
"They doctored the footage." Luna's voice is tight. "Cut it to make Jolie look threatening."
"And they'll present it to every pack alpha as evidence." Gio stops the video. "Proof that the Moonfire Luna is dangerous, unstable, uses her divine power to manipulate wolves against their will. They'll get support for taking her into custody, studying her abilities, making sure no other wolf can ever do what she does."
"When?" Ryder is already moving, checking weapons. "When do they plan to move?"
"Tonight." Gio pulls up a timeline. "After the ceremony, after most guests leave. Around midnight, they'll lock down the estate and come for her room. They're expecting light resistance—you and maybe a few pack members. They're not expecting you to know it's coming."
"Good." Ryder's smiles. "Let's use that."
"We can't fight twenty Council operatives in hostile territory." Luna's already thinking strategy. "Especially not with blessed silver weapons, we need to extract before the trap closes."
"We can't leave before the ceremony." Gio shakes his head. "Father has guards watching the exits. If you try to leave early, they'll know something's wrong and move up the timeline. You have to stay, play along, act like you don't know what's coming."