Chapter 70 NADIA

Chapter 70 NADIA
The first thing I did when I woke up was check my phone.

I had seventeen missed calls. I sat up on the bed in the pack house and stared at the screen. None of them were from Marcus, which was the first thing I checked. Three were from numbers I didn't know. Two were from Elena. One was from a blocked line that left no voicemail at all.

I played them in order. I sat completely still and listened to every single one.

The three unknown numbers were all journalists from different outlets, with different names, but with the same energy. They were all urgent, barely professional, all of them saying some version of "we just need a quick comment." I deleted those. 

Elena's first message was short. She said she'd seen the press conference and that things were moving faster than expected. Her second one, left two hours after the first, was quieter. She said to call her when I was alone.

The blocked number bothered me the most, because it left nothing. Just silence for four seconds, then a click. This was definitely someone who wanted me to know they'd called without giving me anything to work with.

I set the phone down and got up. Dex was already in the kitchen area when I got there. The TV in the corner was on with the volume low. He had two mugs of coffee on the table and he pushed one toward me without saying anything when I sat down.

On the screen, a morning talk show had split the frame down the middle. On the left side, a sports journalist who'd covered the Crestfall Fangs for about ten years was talking with the kind of energy that said he'd been waiting his whole career for this moment. On the right side was a man in a grey sweater who looked like someone's dad, talking calmly about safety and community concerns.

I knew that man. Not personally, but I knew who he was. I'd seen him at two of Marcus's briefings. He was a third-generation hunter, one of the ones who'd grown up in it the same way I had, except he'd chosen to stay. He ran fundraisers. He knew how to smile for the cameras.

"He’s a third generation," I said. "He's been doing this all morning."

Dex nodded slowly. "He’s been on three different channels in the last two hours with a different outfit each time."

I wrapped both hands around my mug. "This isn't Marcus reacting," I said. "He’s actually executing his plans. He already had all of this lined up."

Dex didn't argue with that. He just watched the screen.

Zane came in about twenty minutes later. I could tell the second I saw him that he hadn't slept. He had that particular look. His eyes were sharp but I could see the tiredness underneath them, like a phone running on a low battery that was still technically functional. He sat down across from me and placed his phone on the table.

"The pack's PR contact sent everything overnight," he said. "We’ve had forty two media requests. There’s a trending hashtag that's split almost exactly fifty-fifty. And two city council members who are publicly calling for an emergency session."

"Which two?" I asked.

He turned his phone toward me. I looked at the names. One I didn't recognize. The other one I did.

She'd been standing just over Marcus's left shoulder last night, visible for about three seconds before the camera pulled back.

I didn't say anything about that yet.

Sera came in not long after. She looked like she'd been up before the sun, which was normal because Sera wasn't the type to sleep through a crisis, even when there was nothing useful she could do in the middle of the night. But her face was different this morning. It looked tighter and controlled in a way I hadn't seen from her before, because Sera was usually the first one talking and the last one to go quiet.

She sat down next to me. She didn't say anything for a bit, she just sat there. I let her because I figured she'd get to it when she was ready.

"My brother trusts you completely," she finally said. Her voice was low. "I need you to make sure that doesn't destroy him."

I didn't rush to give her an answer. She deserved an actual one, not a reflex.

"I don't know yet if I can guarantee that," I said. "But I'm trying. And I’m being honest."

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she nodded once and got up to get coffee. That was it. There was no follow-up or argument. I think she respected the honesty more than she would have respected a promise.

The day moved fast after that. The team spent most of it monitoring coverage and taking calls, and I spent most of it next to Dex, going through the list of council members, cross-referencing names against anything Elena had sent over, trying to figure out exactly how far Marcus's reach into the city's ruling party actually went.

By evening, the answer was further than any of us wanted.

At nine o'clock, Elena sent a file. It wasn't long—just a few pages—but what was in it was enough to make the room go quiet.

Councilwoman Diane Avery was a twelve-year incumbent. She chaired the infrastructure committee, which meant she had access to zoning records, building permits, and the whole map of what was built where and who owned it. She'd been a financial donor to three different nonprofit organizations for the last six years. The organizations all looked clean on paper, but Elena had traced all three back to hunter-linked operations.

Zane read the file without saying a word. I watched his face as he assessed it. He didn’t react. He just rearranged everything he thought he knew and sorted it into a new order.

"She has access to all the records," I said. "She knows exactly where every pack-owned property is in this city."

He looked at me. "How long has Marcus had her?"

I did the math in my head. Six years of documented donations, probably longer than that before things got formal. "Long enough," I said.

He closed the file.

Later that night, I stepped out into the hallway while the rest of the team was still inside planning. I needed thirty seconds to think without anyone watching me do it.

My phone buzzed with a text from a blocked number. It was the same one from this morning.

I opened the message. 

Unknown: Ask Elena who she works for.

I stood there in the hallway and read it again and again. The noise from the room behind me reached me through the door. I could hear voices, movement, and the sound of people trying to figure out a way forward. These were all normal sounds. Real sounds.

I put my phone back in my pocket.

Then I walked back into the room and didn't say a word about it to anyone.