Chapter 42 042

Chapter 42 042
Chapter Forty-Two
Sera

The Council Hall's medical wing was full again. Thomas was in surgery, the doctors working to extract silver bullets and repair damaged organs. The prognosis was uncertain—his age and the severity of his injuries made recovery questionable at best.

I sat in the waiting room with Elena, refusing to leave despite the late hour. Dante was in an emergency Council session, dealing with the aftermath of Vaughn's latest attack and the revelation about Victor.

"You should rest," Dr. Reeves said, checking on us for the third time. "Elena's fine, you're both safe now. Go back to your apartment and sleep."

"I can't leave until I know Thomas is okay. He saved her. Again." I looked at Elena, sleeping peacefully in my arms. "He's family. Even if we only just learned it."

Dr. Reeves sat beside me. "Family isn't always about blood or how long you've known someone. Sometimes it's about who shows up when it matters."

"Thomas has shown up repeatedly. For decades, apparently, and we never knew."

"He was protecting you in the way he thought best. Can't fault him for that." Dr. Reeves's expression softened. "For what it's worth, I think he's going to make it. He's stubborn and tough, and he has something to live for now—a relationship with his son-in-law and granddaughter that he can actually acknowledge openly."

The surgery lasted six hours. When the head surgeon finally emerged, she looked exhausted but cautiously optimistic.

"He's stable. We removed all the silver and repaired the major damage. He'll need weeks of recovery and physical therapy, but he should survive." The surgeon paused. "He was asking for you. Specifically for 'Dante's mate and Catherine's granddaughter.'"

My throat tightened. "Can I see him?"

"Briefly. He needs rest, but he was insistent."

I carried Elena to Thomas's room. He looked frail in the hospital bed, connected to monitors and IVs, but his eyes were alert when we entered.

"You're both safe," he said, his voice weak but relieved. "That's all that matters."

"Because of you. You fought off six attackers while protecting her." I moved closer to the bed. "Thank you doesn't seem like enough."

"It's more than enough. I finally did something Catherine would be proud of." Thomas looked at Elena with obvious affection. "She looks like her grandmother. Same shape to the eyes, same serious expression."

"I wish I'd known her."

"She would have liked you. Catherine had no patience for pretense or politics—she valued genuineness above all else. You'd have been friends." Thomas shifted slightly and winced. "Dante's in a Council session?"

"Yes. They're discussing what to do about Victor."

"Victor's been planning this for twenty years. Since before Dante became Alpha, since before Catherine died." Thomas's expression darkened. "He was the one who encouraged Dante's father to step down early, who suggested Dante take over despite being young and inexperienced. Everyone thought it was mentorship. But I think he was positioning pieces even then."

"For what? What does Victor want?"

"Power, but not direct power. Victor's smart—he knows being Alpha makes you a target. He wants to be the power behind the throne, the one pulling strings while someone else faces the challenges and threats." Thomas coughed, the effort clearly painful. "He tried to control Dante's father and failed. Tried to control Dante and failed when I convinced Catherine to bond with him instead of Victor's chosen candidate. He's been working in the shadows ever since, waiting for another opportunity."

"And Elena is that opportunity. A powerful true mate child he could raise and mold and eventually control."

"Exactly. With Elena under his influence, he could shape the future of pack leadership for decades." Thomas looked at me seriously. "You can't let her out of your sight. Not until Victor is found and eliminated. He won't stop—this is his life's work, his obsession."

The door opened. Dante entered, still in his Council formal wear, looking grim.

"Thomas. Good to see you're alive." Dante came to the bedside. "The doctors said you'll recover."

"Eventually. Though I may not be much use in future fights." Thomas managed a slight smile. "Getting old has disadvantages."

"You've done more than enough. Rest and recover. Let us handle things from here." Dante's voice was gentle but firm. "And thank you. For everything. For protecting my family, for honoring Catherine's memory, for being the father-in-law I never knew I had."

"You're welcome. And I'm sorry for not revealing myself sooner. Catherine made me promise to stay hidden, and I honored that promise even after her death. But maybe it was time to stop hiding." Thomas looked between us. "You're good together. Good for each other. Catherine would approve."

After leaving Thomas to rest, we returned to our apartment. Elena needed feeding and changing, normal baby tasks that felt surreal after everything that had happened tonight.

"The Council wants to relocate us," Dante said while I nursed Elena. "Somewhere remote, heavily guarded, completely off any public records. We'd essentially disappear until Victor is captured or killed."

"For how long?"

"Months. Maybe longer. Victor's been evading detection for twenty years—he's exceptionally good at staying hidden." Dante sat beside me. "But it's the safest option. We'd have twenty-four-hour security, no public appearances, no responsibilities except keeping Elena safe."

"That sounds like a prison."

"It's protection."

"It's both." I looked at Elena, contentedly nursing, unaware of the decision being made about her future. "Is this what you want? To hide away from the world while some ghost from your past dictates our lives?"

"I want you and Elena alive and safe. Everything else is negotiable."

"What about your Council position? Your responsibilities? The work we were going to do helping marginalized wolves?" I shifted Elena to my other side. "If we disappear, we abandon all of that. Let Victor win by controlling our choices through fear."

"He doesn't win if you're alive."

"But we don't win either. We just... exist. In hiding. Teaching Elena that the world is too dangerous to face." I met his eyes. "Is that the life you want for her?"

Dante was quiet for a long moment. "No. But I don't know what else to do. Every time we think we've eliminated the threat, another one appears. Garrett, then Cordelia, then Christoph, then Vaughn, now Victor. How many more are there? How long do we keep fighting?"

"Until we win. Or until we decide we're willing to live with the threats." I finished feeding Elena and held her against my shoulder for burping. "But hiding isn't living, Dante. It's just slow dying."

"Then what do you suggest?"

"We stay. We keep our positions. We do the work we committed to doing. And we prepare for Victor to come at us again, because he will." I touched Dante's face. "But we prepare on our terms, in our time, while actually living our lives instead of putting them on hold."

"That's risky."

"Everything's risky. At least this way we're choosing the risk instead of having it forced on us."

Through the bond, I felt his conflict. The protective Alpha wanted to hide us away, eliminate all variables and threats. But the leader in him knew I was right—hiding solved nothing long-term.

"We'll compromise," he said finally. "We stay, but we increase security significantly. Elena is never alone, never in public without multiple guards. We limit our own movements, work mostly from secure locations. And we actively hunt Victor instead of waiting for him to attack again."

"How do we hunt someone who's been hidden for twenty years?"

"By using the one resource Victor doesn't know we have—Thomas. He knew Victor, worked with him, understands how he thinks. Once Thomas recovers enough to help, we use his knowledge to predict Victor's moves and set our own traps."

It wasn't a perfect plan. But it was better than hiding indefinitely.

"Okay," I agreed. "We stay and we fight smart."

Maya knocked and entered, looking like she hadn't slept in days. "We found Vaughn."

Dante stood immediately. "Where?"

"Dead. In the helicopter wreckage. He was apparently on board when you shot it down, hiding in the cargo section. Died in the crash." Maya pulled out her tablet showing crime scene photos. "But before he died, he transmitted files to multiple locations. His entire operation—client lists, transaction records, other conspirators. Everything."

"That's good, right?" I asked. "We can use that information to dismantle his network."

"We can. But there's a problem." Maya zoomed in on one particular file. "The client list includes names we recognize. Council members, pack Alphas, influential wolves across multiple territories. And Victor is listed as the primary client, with payments going back fifteen years."

"Fifteen years? But we only just had Elena two weeks ago." I didn't understand.

"Victor wasn't paying for Elena specifically. He was paying for access to information about true mate bonds, about accelerated pregnancies, about anything related to true mate offspring." Maya scrolled through the records. "He's been obsessed with this for over a decade. Elena isn't the first true mate child he's tried to acquire—she's just the first one that survived his attempts."

The implications were horrifying. How many other families had Victor targeted? How many other children had he tried to steal or control?

"We need to go public with this," I said. "Expose Victor, expose the Council members working with him, expose the entire conspiracy. Bring it all into the light where he can't operate."

"That could destabilize the entire Council," Dante warned. "Multiple members implicated in trafficking, working with known criminals—the governing body would collapse."

"Then let it collapse. Better to rebuild from honest foundations than preserve corrupt institutions." I stood, still holding Elena. "We have the evidence now. We use it."

Dante looked at Maya. "Can you verify these files? Confirm they're authentic and not planted by Victor to create chaos?"

"Already working on it. Preliminary analysis suggests they're genuine—too much detail, too many corroborating records across different systems. But I'll have definitive confirmation within twelve hours."

"Then we wait twelve hours. If the files are real, we release them publicly and let the consequences fall where they may." Dante's expression was hard. "No more protecting corrupt wolves because they're in positions of authority. Everyone involved in this conspiracy gets exposed and faces consequences."

After Maya left, I put Elena down in her crib. She'd fallen asleep during our conversation, peaceful and unaware of the chaos her existence had created.

"She's going to grow up in a different world than we did," I said quietly. "One where the old corruption has been exposed and hopefully cleaned out."

"Or one where she's hunted by Victor for the rest of her life because we weren't willing to hide." Dante came to stand beside me. "Are we making the right choice?"

"I don't know. But we're making our choice, not one dictated by fear or forced on us by circumstances." I leaned against him. "That has to count for something."

"It does." He kissed the top of my head. "Get some rest. Tomorrow we change everything."

I tried to sleep, but my mind kept racing. In twelve hours, we'd either expose a conspiracy that could reform pack governance, or we'd paint an even bigger target on our backs.

Either way, there was no going back.

Through the window, I could see dawn starting to break. A new day, potentially a new beginning.

Or the start of our greatest battle yet.

Only time would tell.