Chapter 17 · Board Crash

"Sit down, Ethan."

Cassian didn't even look up from the folder in his hands as Ethan came through the double doors shoulder-first and caught the edge of the glass conference table wrong. Glass sprayed. Somebody's coffee went sideways across the quarterly report.

"I don't need an invite to my own pack's business." Ethan's voice cracked on the last word, too loud for a room this size. Six board members froze mid-sip. "Not when she's about to sell my family's fund out from under me."

I kept my hands flat on the table so nobody would see them shake. "This fund has my name on it because I earned it, Ethan. Not because I stole anything."

"Your name." He laughed, and it came out wrong, thin. "Sloane Hart. Cute. Except everyone in this room knows Hart wasn't on that clinic deed six months ago. Vale put it there."

A woman at the far end — silver hair, reading glasses pushed up her nose — set down her pen. "Is that true, Mr. Vale?"

Cassian finally looked up. Slow. Deliberate.