Chapter 78

Silvia I jolted awake, my heart hammering against my ribcage as if trying to escape. The cheap hotel pillow was damp with tears I didn't remember shedding. For a disorienting moment, I couldn't place where I was until the events of last night came crashing back - the revelation about Alpha Enzo, the gunshots, Zack's threats, the rain soaking through my dress. But it wasn't just last night's trauma haunting me. My mind had traveled further back, to memories I'd tried desperately to bury. I was twenty again, crouched in the hallway of our modest Blackwood Pack home, listening to unfamiliar voices demanding money from my parents. Men in expensive suits with cold eyes and colder hearts. "Mrs. Brown, surely you understand our position." The man's voice was smooth as oil but just as toxic. "The terms of the loan were clear. Ten percent interest, compounded weekly." I could see my adoptive mother through the crack in the door, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of our kitchen table. T