“Isabella Garrett,” she said, and somehow my name sounded like an accusation. “She has systematically worked to undermine my husband’s position since the moment she returned to Seattle. She’s used her daughter—Dimitri’s daughter—as leverage to gain power and influence she hasn’t earned. She comes from tainted blood. Her mother destroyed Alpha Asher, tore this pack apart with lies. And now the daughter is doing the same—seducing Dimitri, distracting him from his duties, compromising his judgment.”
Her voice rose, gaining momentum. “And let’s not forget—she works for Crane Internationale, a competing conglomerate. How do we know she’s not feeding them information? How do we know she’s not sabotaging us from within?”
The accusations hung in the air like poison.
Murmurs rippled around the table. Many were in agreement. None were in support. The rest who didn’t agree didn’t refute it either. Clearly, I wasn’t popular amongst this crowd. They’d never liked me in the first place.
And in that moment, I understood exactly what Selene was doing.
She was forcing me into an impossible choice: reject Dimitri publicly—prove my loyalty to the company—or walk away entirely. Either way, she won.
Part of me wanted to do it. To tell them all to go to hell, grab Adele, and disappear.
But something stopped me.
Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was the memory of Dimitri taking a bullet for us. Or maybe it was the way he’d held me three nights ago, promising to always choose us.
So, I stayed silent, refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing me fret.
The silence stretched until Ethan spoke again.
“Mr. Ravencrest, you have a choice. You can resignvoluntarily—step down with dignity—and allow someone else to lead this company forward. Or we can put it to a vote, right here, right now.”
He paused, gaze sweeping the room. “I’ve already counted. The board is split evenly. Twelve for impeachment, twelve against.”
Which meant one vote would decide everything.
“So,” Ethan said, smiling thinly. “What will it be, Mr. Ravencrest? Resignation? Or humiliation?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Isabella’s POV
I sat in my office staring at the image of Ethan Thorpe on my computer screen. The red-haired man with pale, freckled skin and watery blue eyes didn’t look the least bit terrifying or threatening from his display at the board meeting at Ravencrest Global yesterday. He was average height, average build, with a receding hairline he tried to hide with an aggressive side part. His suits were off-the-rack, probably from some mid-tier department store, not the bespoke tailoring the other board members wore. Everything about him screamed mediocrity.
But I wasn’t concerned with his appearance. What I was most concerned about was how he’d found his way into Ravencrest Global to the point where he had shares in the company’s board. Dimitri wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t just let anyone gain access to his board.
I clicked between links, reading up articles on Ethan Thorpe.
He was Alpha of Top Hills, a small pack here in Virginia with very little recognition. Some articles even went as far as describing the pack as “withering”. And his company, Thorpe Industries, well, let’s just say it couldn’t compete in the big corporate market with the likes of Ravencrest Global. Top Hills pack was having issues with resources—their pack territory had been reduced by half after a border dispute with a neighboring pack three years ago. They’d lost valuable hunting grounds and the commercial properties they’d relied on for income. From what I could gather, they were barely scraping by, dependent on loans and goodwill to keep their pack members fed and housed.
My focus remained tethered to the screen as I continued surfing the net. Everything I’d read so far pointed to Ethan Thorpe leading a pack in political ruins and desperately trying to climb the ladder in the corporate social world. But nothing explained how in the world he got a seat in Ravencrest Global.
I spent an hour on the internet. Maybe more. But when I was done, I had some information to work with. He’d bought a subsidiary of Ravencrest—Crescent Valley Development—about five years ago. It might seem innocuous, but in the small amount of time I’d worked in Ravencrest, I knew Crescent Valley was one of their top assets, responsible for most of their real estate holdings in the Pacific Northwest. That was enough to give him some controlling shares, though very little. That explained why he got onto the board. That didn’t explain why Dimitri let him get in. There was no way he didn’t see the rat coming and try to eliminate it.
Unless Dimitri had underestimated him. Or unless someone else had orchestrated the sale.
I leaned back in my seat, blowing out a deep breath. My back ached from sitting up for so long, and my eyes hurt from staring at screens. The events of yesterday had left me completely confused. From a nobody like Ethan Thorpe trying to uproot Dimitri as CEO, to Dimitri being so calm about the whole thing—like he’d seen it coming, like he wasn’t scared of losing his place as CEO. The meeting had been adjourned and the vote put off for another week.
But something about it all felt wrong. Off.
Selene had the most to lose if Dimitri was removed as CEO. As his wife and Luna, her position was tied to his. If he fell, she fell with him. It didn’t make sense for her to conspire with Ethan unless she had something else to gain. Something bigger than her current position.
I groaned, rubbing my forehead. I could easily just ask Dimitri allthe million questions swirling through my head. But I was avoiding him. For obvious reasons.
The image of his face the morning after we slept together was like a horror movie I couldn’t get out of my head. He’d looked stricken, devastated. And at first, a part of me had been happy that maybe he’d feel the same hurt he’d made me feel. But that didn’t last long. I hated that I’d crushed his spirit then, lied about how he made me feel. But I was scared of allowing myself to get roped back in. And with all the craziness going on right now—with Ravencrest Global, the attacks—I couldn’t afford to be…distracted.
My phone buzzed. Speaking of Dimitri…