Page 184 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

Jackson spent two nights in the office with the numbers. When he finally came out, he had made his decision.

He was keeping the company. Not out of sentiment. It employed hundreds of people who had nothing to do with Thomas, and liquidating it would have ruined lives that didn’t deserve to be caught in the fallout. Instead, he pulled it out from under Thomas’s shadow. New books. New oversight. A permanent percentage of the profits diverted into a pack repair fund for as long as the company existed. We would live off the rest.

The stolen money was a separate matter. The files traced every embezzled dollar back to the pack members it had been taken from, wherever that was still possible. Those people were paid back first. Whatever couldn’t be traced cleanly went into the fund.

A few days after the funeral, Brian sent word.

He had a solid lead on Noah and needed a little more time. He had also managed to shut down Thomas’s child-trafficking operation. The ones involved were dealt with swiftly and without unnecessary trials. He didn’t give me the details, and I didn’t ask. Some things I didn’t want to carry.

Jackson’s days were consumed by the pack. It was a mess from top to bottom. Taking down Thomas’s people from all the high places couldn’t be done at once. There were simply too many of them, and removing them too fast would have left the structure collapsing under its own weight. He worked from dawn until late at night, trying to stabilize what Thomas had hollowed out for years.

At the same time, I was trying to figure out what normal was supposed to look like.

After the kidnapping, everyone looked at me differently. For weeks, the only thing anyone talked about was Naomi and Lia. The story followed me through campus like a second shadow. After winter break, the talk finally started to die down. People got bored. Classes restarted. Life moved on whether I was ready for it or not.

When Cassidy learned I was spending more time in pack territory, she became convinced I had joined a cult.

When I denied it, that only proved her point. “Nobody in a cult ever admits they’re in a cult, Harper.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue.

One afternoon I was with Jackson in the alpha’s office when his phone rang. He answered on speaker.

“Alpha,” the gate guard said, voice tight. “There’s a wolf at the gate. He’s alone and won’t give a name. Says he’s here for the alpha and he’s not leaving until he speaks to you.”

Jackson’s eyes met mine across the desk. For a second neither of us spoke.

“Let him in,” he said finally. “Let’s see what he wants.”

By the time we reached the front steps, a crowd had already gathered. The pack moved fast when something felt wrong. They left a wide ring of empty gravel around the stranger standing at the bottom of the stairs.

The man was in his mid-twenties, dark-haired, built like a wall. Dominance rolled off him in heavy waves. Another alpha wolf. I couldn’t help noticing the similarities. The same strong jawline. The same dark hair. The same stubborn set to his shoulders as Jackson.

I glanced at Jackson. He was staring at the man with an unreadable expression.

The stranger’s voice carried without effort across the yard.

“I’m here to challenge for the alpha’s seat,” he said. “It belongs to my family. My name is Noah. My father was Christopher Black, and the man who took his chair killed him for it. I’m here to challenge Alpha Thomas Black.”

The yard went dead silent.

Jackson stepped forward. The crowd parted for him without a word. Noah’s body coiled as he approached, ready for violence, eyes locked on Jackson like a predator sizing up prey.

“Thomas is dead,” Jackson said, voice calm and carrying.

Noah’s stance didn’t relax. “Are you the new alpha?”

Jackson nodded once. “I am.”

“Then I challenge you,” Noah growled. “For the title that should have been my father’s. For the pack that should have been mine.”

The air thickened with power. Wolves shifted uneasily around the edges of the yard. My cat pressed close under my skin, fur rising, ready to fight if Jackson needed me.

Jackson stood still for a long moment, studying the man who should have been his cousin. Then he did something no one expected.

He dropped to one knee in the gravel, bared his throat, and tilted his head back in full submission.

The pack gasped.