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“Garrett Mercer,” Kahn said.

Gideon went still. The patrol reports lowered to his side. His face, already hard, turned to stone.

“Where did you hear that name?” His voice had dropped, and the frown between his brows had deepened.

“He’s back,” Chris said. “On pack territory. Targeting his daughter.”

Gideon stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

“I was there,” Gideon said. “When we banished him. Twenty years ago, under the old Alpha. I helped drag him to the border. He fought, but not hard. He knew he’d lost. But he looked back at the house before we crossed the tree line.” Gideon’s hand tightened on the patrol reports, the paper crinkling. “I remember Sloane. Standing in the doorway, six years old. She wasn’t crying.”

The room was silent.

“I thought about that,” Gideon said. “Afterward. I thought about why a child wouldn’t cry when her father was being dragged away.” He looked at Kahn. “I never followed the thought to its end. I should have. I just reckon she was always… cold.”

Chris stood with his back straight and his hands in his pockets. Across the desk, Kahn met his eyes.

“Double the detail on the west block,” Kahn said to Viktor. “Full ward audit. Every anchor point. I want to know how he’s getting through.”

Viktor nodded, already moving.

Kahn looked at Chris. “How much does she know about what he’s planning?”

“She knows him,” Chris said. “Better than anyone here.”

“Then she needs to be in this room.”

“She’s not ready for that.”

“That’s her call. Not yours.”

Chris looked at the notes on the desk. Three years of silence. Three years, alone, holding fear in her chest. Hated by the pack, hated by him for what she had done to Caitlynn… as if she knew anything different.

“I’ll talk to her,” he said curtly.

Kahn nodded. Gideon hadn’t moved from the door. His face carried an expression Chris had never seen on it before: someone staring at the edge of a mistake he’d made two decades ago, seeing for the first time how far the drop went.

Chapter 8 - Sloane

By Tuesday, everyone in the compound knew her father’s name. Remembered it.

Sloane could track its progress through the dining hall like a weather system. The patrol leads had it first, passed down through Viktor’s revised security briefings. Then the supply teams, the kitchen staff, the women who changed the linens in the residential block. She walked into a corridor, and a conversation died. She walked out and it started again. She could hear the whispers. “Garrett Mercer…”

“Yes, her father…”

“Exiled years ago…”

“Territorial violations, they said…”

“Banished by the old Alpha.”

“Forgotten he existed.”

Nobody knew the rest. Nobody knew what territorial violations truly were when the territory in question was a six-year-old girl’s life.

Kahn had assigned two wolves to her building. She could see them from the window of unit fourteen, stationed at the west block entrance, rotating every four hours, and she hated it. Hated being watched, being protected as though she couldn’t take care of herself. Where were they when she was six? They didn’t speak to her. They didn’t have to. Their presence said everything: You are a problem. You require resources. People are being rearranged because of you.

She kept her curtains closed.