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Ma leaned forward, resting her elbows on Dad's desk. "If Sorsha were preparing to move against this family, she would be gathering power. Pack leaders. Matriarchs with territory. Women with money, alliances, votes, sons and daughters they could put into play. Instead, Astrid told me she had lunch with Celeste Moretti and Amara Okafor."

I looked at her. "Who are they?"

"Nobody who can help her take us on. Celeste hasn't had meaningful influence in years. She repeated something told to her in confidence; after that, no one trusted her with anything worth knowing. Amara has money, but no pack authority and very little social capital left among the matriarchs. They have names. They have grudges. What they do not have is power."

"Sorsha doesn't collect useless pieces," said my Dad. "If she's making a move, Celeste and Amara are strange pieces to put on the board."

"Forget guessing," Ma said. "Let's call her."

The moment the line connected, Sorsha didn't even wait for a greeting. "Fenrir. Mei Ling, I trust you’re having a pleasant week."

Ma pulled on her hostess tone. "Sorsha, darling. How lovely to hear your voice."

I would never understand the warfare of women. I knew best to stay out of it.

"We need to handle an administrative issue," Sorsha purred, a razor-sharp edge behind her pleasantries. "It seems my new son-in-law brutally executed one of my top men in the middle of a public establishment. Had I known I was giving my daughter to a brute, I would've made different arrangements."

A low growl sounded in my throat. My father held up his hand, his eyes flashing gold at me to collar my wolf. "Gunnar is here. Speak to him yourself."

"The man was disrespecting me. I warned him not to get too close to my wife on our wedding night. He didn't listen. Then he cornered her in a locked bathroom and put his hands on her."

A heavy beat of silence stretched over the line before Sorsha replied, her tone dismissive. "He was one of her personal guards, Gunnar. He was used to tending to Rosalind."

I knew exactly what kind of "tending" those Lobo guards had been doing under Sorsha's roof, and the thought of another man putting his hands—or his mouth—on my wife made my claws prick against my knuckles.

"From now on, I’m the only one tending to my wife," I growled, letting the innuendo hang heavily in the air between us. "If any of your guards come near her again, they're going to get the exact same treatment."

Over the speaker, Sorsha let out a low grumble that could've been a growl. She must have realized she wasn't going to get an apology or an inch of leverage out of me.

"While we have you on the line, Sorsha," Ma said, her voice dropping into a smooth, dangerously polite purr. "There is the pressing matter of Corin Petrakis."

"I don't know a Corin Petrakis. Is he another guard your son murdered?"

"Yes." Ma's voice was bright and cheerful, as though the two mothers were discussing a touchdown I'd scored last Friday night. "He was an Ironwood enforcer. It seems he was getting intel from one of your wolves."

A beat of absolute quiet stretched across the line. It wasn't the heavy silence of a guilty woman caught red-handed. It was a microscopic hesitation—the sound of an elite chess player realizing her opponent moved a piece she didn't realize was still on the board.

"I'm listening."

I gave her the short version. Corin Petrakis had been tracking the misinformation moving between the packs—the Ironwood attack, Elias stealing our six million, Dante Lupetto going after Addie.

"Which enforcer?" Sorsha finally asked.

"He didn't get a name."

"How unfortunate."

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. Sorsha didn't sound panicked; she sounded utterly, dangerously thrown off. An implication like that would hit an Alpha's pride. Either her secure logistics network had been breached under her nose, or a traitor inside her inner circle was wielding her own assets to trigger a war.

"It sounds like someone sitting right inside your own house is playing you for a fool," said my dad.

"I’ll manage my house, Fenrir. You might devote that same attention to yours since the coup attempt against yours came mighty close to succeeding. We will speak soon."

The line went dead with a sharp beep.

"Do you think it's her?" asked.

Dad looked to Ma.