Page 67 of Claimed By The Tracker

"Looks that way," Gideon said.

Lena's jaw tightened. Gold flared bright at her wrists, then settled, deliberately, the way I'd watched her learn to control it over these last weeks—not suppression, just choice. "How many more of these are there? How many other family members has he quietly filed leverage on that we don't know about yet?"

"I don't know," Gideon said, and for once his voice carried something other than clinical certainty. "I'm running a full sweep on every Rowe family member with Council registration. It's going to take time."

"Take the time," Lena said. "But find them all. I'm not doing this piecemeal, one sister at a time, for the rest of my life."

"We file the same charter violation," I said. My wolf was at full attention, my eyes gold, my voice carrying the weight of a predator who had just been given permission to move. "Different subject. Same foundational claim. Delaney invokes the autonomy clause. We break the acquisition language the same way we broke Lena's."

Tara nodded slowly. "Seventy-two hours for her ruling, minimum, maybe more. That gives Gabriel time to accelerate."

"Which means he will," Roan said. "If he's going to make a move, it'll be in that window when Lena's case is resolved but Delaney's isn't."

Lena looked at her sister. She was sitting very still. Her hands folded. Her entire body carrying the weight of learning that her father had documented her as property.

"I'm sorry," Lena said quietly.

"Don't." Delaney looked up at her. Her eyes were clearer than they'd been since the parking structure. "Don't apologize for what he did. I'm just glad I know now instead of in five years when I tried to leave and found out I couldn't."

Tara set her phone down on the table, screen dark. "We start on the filing this morning. I want Delaney's statement recorded before Gabriel has time to reach her with a different version of events."

"He's not reaching her," I said. My wolf pushed hard against the words. "Not without going through all of us first."

Roan pulled out the chair across from Delaney and sat, careful with the arm, the way I was learning he did everything now—not hiding it, exactly, just accounting for it the same way he'd account for a locked door or a blind corner. "You're not doing this alone," he told her. "None of it. Not the filing, not the fallout, not whatever he tries next."

"I know that now," Delaney said. "I didn't, before. That's the part I keep sitting with. How long I thought I was the only one holding this."

"You're not the only one anymore," Lena said. "You haven't been since the day you told him I was your family."

Delaney's composure cracked, just slightly, and Tara reached over without a word and put a hand over hers.

Gideon cleared his throat, already moving on, already three steps ahead the way he always was. "I'll have Delaney's draft filing ready by noon. Roan, I want a security review on her building before tonight—if Gabriel's operatives already have her address, and I'd assume they do, we need eyes on it before he decides to use it."

"On it," Roan said.

"Jace." Gideon's eyes found mine. "I want you and Lena running the same threat matrix you ran before her hearing. If he's going to move on Delaney the way he tried to move on Lena, I want us three steps ahead this time, not reacting."

"Already started," I said.

Lena's hand found mine under the table. Steady. Certain. The bond settled warm between us despite everything still stacked against us in that kitchen—the ruling, the new filing, the father who wouldn't stop, the sister who'd just learned exactly how deep his reach ran.

"We're going to win this one too," Lena said. Not a question. Not quite a promise either. Just a fact she was choosing to believe until it became true.

"Yes," I said. "We are."

Outside, the sun was fully up now, the Tennessee morning gold and ordinary over a farmhouse that had learned, these last days, how to hold a family together against everything trying to take it apart. I felt the wards settle into their daytime rhythm, warm under my palm where it rested against the windowsill, and let myself believe, for one quiet morning, that we were exactly as far ahead of Gabriel Rowe as we needed to be.

It wouldn't last. It never did with a man like him. But for that one morning, in that kitchen, with Lena's hand in mine and the ruling sitting open on the laptop between us like proof that some doors really could be closed for good, I let the quiet be enough.

Chapter 24

The Weight That Lifts

LENA

Delaney's extraction came at 3 AM on the second day.

Gabriel made his move with the precision of a man who'd been planning it since the moment she testified. He sent two operatives to her apartment. Not to take her by force—that option would've been escalated if necessary—but to present her with a choice: return to family authority voluntarily, or have her employment contracts voided retroactively.