Chapter 56
LIZA
Nico’s face turned an alarming shade of red as he punched the back of an armchair.
We’d spent the last hour staring at the newscast, trying to make sense of the footage Castro had leaked.
“I never recorded any of our missions. Ever!” He pointed a trembling finger at the screen, where every major news station was airing the grainy footage. “Dominic, I swear I never recorded nor approved recording on any of our missions. It would have been a major breach of security.”
Cold sweat formed on my brow, and my heart was dangerously close from beating right through my chest. The room seemed to tighten around me, suffocating me.
I remembered what Mom had told me to do when I was anxious, how I should focus on everything around me—colors, shapes, smells, sounds—anything to get my mind out of the downward spiral of gloom and doom.
I tried to focus on the patterned rug, the thickness of the pile, and the bright red colors that swirled with blues and greens.
It worked for a moment as I avoided the images that flickered across the screen.
I turned my head, needing a mental break from the gruesome scenes. The TV had been on ever since Ty and I arrived, streaming the leaked footage repeatedly. Quite frankly, I’d had enough.
“Someone must have altered the footage,” Nico insisted, clenching his fists at his sides. “AI and movie editing can create stuff like this. But I swear, no one was recording the mission. Not to my knowledge. The whole thing is baffling.”
He paced the floor, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Maybe they took footage from another battle and added to it with some kind of editing program. Technology has come so far. I wouldn’t put it past someone with Castro’s means to pull this off.”
No one said a word. The air was thick with tension and fear. My mind raced through the implications of the video and the danger it posed not only to our pack but to my own fragile sense of belonging.
I thought about how much time I lost with my biological parents, and how I was so close to creating a new family with the Kellers. Now, it was all in jeopardy because of Castro. His psychotic obsession with me could put an end to it all.
The phone in Dominic’s office rang off the hook as he stared emotionlessly at the TV. I’d never seen him so defeated, which wasn’t a good sign. The alpha was overwhelmed and frozen with indecision. I wondered if there was a way for any of us to recover from this.
Persephone sighed in the seat next to me. “As much as I hate to admit it, I think it looks like real footage, Nico.”
At some point, she’d reached over and taken my hand. Probably because she could see that I was slowly spiraling downward and losing my mind. I appreciated her trying to comfort me.
She was right about the footage. The images were grainy and a bit distorted, indicating that the recording took place long before quality digital video cameras were available.
Persephone continued. “The angle of the video looks like it’s from a body cam. Could it have been recorded from the point of view of one of your men? Did you have that kind of technology at your disposal back then?”
Nico raked his hands through his hair and stared at the TV.
His face told us everything we needed to know.
He was worried, and that didn’t bode well for the rest of us since he was the head of security and also Dominic’s righthand man.
If he couldn’t see a solution to this mess, it could truly be the end of the Keller pack, and the end of them protecting me.
As the video played from start to finish again, someone on the screen shouted, “Burn everything to the ground!” It sounded like Dominic’s voice. The sigh that escaped from his lips indicated that he believed it was very much his voice, too.
It was followed by Nico coming into view and reminding them of their mission. “No one left alive.”
I shut my eyes tightly, trying to rid myself of the memories that still haunted me.
Blood-stained snow. Screams of helplessness.
The image of my parents lying on the ground, bleeding to death as Castro stood over their bodies.
My attempt at escaping, the fear that almost crushed me.
In those moments, as a little girl, I’d truly believed I would die at the hands of our attackers or Castro.
Somehow I’d made it out alive. If only I’d been taller and stronger, maybe I could’ve attacked Castro. I could’ve climbed into a tree and dropped down on top of him as he walked by in his search for me.
If I had taken him out back then, none of this would be happening.
Ty and I would’ve already been officially mated, and Dominic could’ve passed the powers of the alpha to Ty.
My world would have looked far different than it did right now.
Watching the screen felt like staring down the barrel of a gun, wondering how we could possibly come out of the other end of this unscathed.
Survivor’s guilt hit me like a Mack truck, and I doubled over, trying not to retch all over the Persian rug.
It didn’t matter that I’d barely been four years old.
I had survived. Castro had survived. Everyone else…
all of those innocent children, women, and men who had nothing to do with the drug and weapon activity…
they’d all died a slow and painful death.
What made me so special? Just because I was an omega didn’t mean my life was more valuable than theirs. Yet, there I sat, crippled by my anxiety but alive. How was that fair?
Now the whole world would see the truth. There would be no hiding from it, and no pushing it to the deepest recesses of my mind.
The destruction of an entire pack, the slaughter of its citizens, and the fires that consumed their homes would be the talk of the town. Every moment of the video would be broken down, analyzed, and discussed for weeks, maybe months, or even years. Nothing would ever be the same.
As much as I wanted to believe the footage was fake, that someone had created it as a cruel hoax or as a favor to Castro, the terror in my gut told me otherwise. It was real, and it threatened to tear apart the carefully constructed life I had built since being adopted within the Keller pack.
Shouts and screams came from my pack members as they tried to escape the attack, while blurry images of families scrambling to avoid their inevitable death played across the screen.
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
No, I would not give in to fear or despair.
There was too much on the line for me to become emotional.
I didn’t want the attention, and I didn’t want to distract everyone from trying to find a solution to this hopeless situation.
My entire body shook against my will, and Persephone tightened her grip on my hand.
Her eyes were moist, and her lips were turned down.
Though I’d never considered her a particularly emotional woman, her motherly instinct to protect me in that moment spoke volumes.
Despite her hard exterior, she was a good person.
Persephone turned to face her husband, her eyes pleading with him. “How do we handle this, Dominic?”
Her simple question was loaded. She wanted him to make a call, to bring some order to the chaos. He was the alpha, after all, even if his powers weren’t as strong as they once were. She depended on him. We all did.
Dominic shoved his hands into his pockets and sat on the edge of his desk.
“Regardless of whether the footage is altered or not, we still have a problem on our hands.” Dominic’s voice was calm, bringing some much-needed sense of leadership into the mix.
“We need to act fast before things spiral out of control.”
“Don’t you think this is real, though?” Persephone was adamant, ignoring the glare Nico shot her. “I don’t care how advanced technology is nowadays. You can’t replicate those grainy images and static in that way.”
Nico had been quiet for a few minutes, deep in thought, and we all stared at him, waiting for him to throw something or punch his fist into the wall as he doubled down on his opinion that the video was fake.
He never opened his mouth.
“What do you think, Nico?” Dominic asked. “Who could’ve taken footage that day without our authorization?”
Nico stared at the floor for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “I know who it was.” His face was red as he raised his eyes to meet Dominic’s gaze. “It was my son, Ilya.”
The air was sucked out of the room, creating a vacuum of shock. I didn’t even know that Nico had a son, not to mention one who was involved in the slaughter of my pack. Why had I never met him before, especially if he was a part of Nico’s security team?
For the first time since I’d met him, Nico looked heartbroken.
His shoulders slumped and his demeanor changed completely.
“The Wylde pack fought back fiercely, and not all our men made it out unscathed. A lot of the men were injured in some way. And, unfortunately, some of them didn’t make it. My son was one of them.”
Dominic sighed and placed a hand on Nico’s shoulder. “I had no idea.”
“With good reason.” Nico walked to the window and leaned against the wall, staring out into the dark night.
“I kept my son’s identity a secret because the work he did was dangerous, and I didn’t want him to be a target.
He was determined to follow in my footsteps.
” Nico covered his eyes with the palms of his hands.
“How can you be sure this footage is from your son?” Persephone’s question brought Nico’s head up.
“The position of the camera. When I think back to the mission, he was the only one in the position to have captured the images we’re seeing now.
I don’t understand it, though. There was no camera on Ilya’s body when I found him after he’d been stabbed to death.
I have no idea why he was recording this or who would’ve known he was recording. I will find out, though.”