Emily
I wasn’t expecting to see my name on the agenda for the meeting day. It wasn’t printed in the margins or scribbled in as an afterthought. It was there–centered, bokt, official just beneath Logan’s.
The sight made my chest go tight for a moment, though I kept my expression neutral as I slid into my seat at the far edge of the long, dark wood table.
The others were already assembling Cabinet members. Division leads. A few grizzled betas who looked at me like I was some kind of misplaced accessory.
Carla, naturally, took the seat nearest to Engan’s. She handed him report with a too–bright smile and settled back, arma crossed like she’d delivered him world peace.
Logan didn’t return the smile. “Let’s begin,” he said.
His voice cut through the low hum of pre–meeting chatter, and theroom snapped into silence. I opened my notebook, heart already racing ahead of me.
The first half of the meeting was status updates–Pack finances, territory disputes, and diplomatic overtures from two borderline allies. Then came the trade delegation report. Logan tied to me without ceremony.
“Emily’s been reviewing the outbound projections,” he said. “Walk us through what you found. Please.”
All eyes turned to me and against my better judgement my heart thumped at the tacked on ‘please.‘ Logan wasn’t a man to ask for anything.
I smoothed the papers in front of me, keeping my breathing even There’s a discrepancy in the material transport between Titanfang’s northern armory and its supplier chain. The numbers we were given don’t match the actual deliveries. Either someone’s skimming or someone’s lying.”
A beat of silence. One of the older wolves, a senior logistics Beta, frowned. “That’s a serious accusation.”
“It’s not an accusation,” I said calmly. “It’s a pattern. Repeated inconsistencies over three shipments. I flagged it for internal audit yesterday. I’m not assigning blame, just stating fact.”
Logan said nothing, but his gaze sharpened on the Beta. The man shifted in his seat.
The next half hour passed with less resistance. No one challenged the directly again. When a minor debate arose over language in a trade memo, I offered a cleaner alternative that was adopted without comment.
Logan never once interrupted me. And when the meeting closed, he simply nodded.
“Good work,” he said. To me. In front of everyone.
I waited until the room emptied before gathering my things. As I slid the final folder into my bag, a shadow fell over the table.
“You missed a decimal in the financial summary,” Carla said sweetly, “If Logan had signed it, it would’ve been embarrassing”
She handed me a packet–prepped and collated. I took it without flinching and flipped to the flagged page.
The mistake wasn’t mine.
It had been inserted–subtly during the final formatting
I looked up. “Interesting,” I said. “I’ll fix it.”
Her smile faltered for a heartbeat before she turned and walked away.
1 corrected the document on the spot and forwarded it directly to Logan’s office with a private note: Revised and accurate. Let me know if you need anything else. Then I archived a copy of the earlier version with her edit trail still intact.
1/2
Chapter 58
I didn’t need to confront her. Not yet. Some mistakes revealed more when you let them breathe.
+25 BONUS
By the time I got back to our shared home, the place was glowing with late evening light. Pack members passed with polite nods. A few even smiled.
I couldn’t tell if it was respect or recognition–or just a shift in the wind now that Iris was gone.
I stepped inside our private rooms and found Logan already there acket discarded across the back of a chair, sleeves rolled, reading a file with his hair slightly mussed like he’d been dragging his hands through it again.
