Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 33

By midmorning, Emma and Nathan called me into a private debrief in a side conference room. The moment I stepped in, I knew it wasn’t a casual meeting. Nathan’s jaw was tight. Emma was already mid–sentence about procedural integrity.

“We’ve had more incidents,” Emma said. “Internal files accessed remotely. Notes moved. A proposal flagged as ‘reviewed‘ that no one on our team touched.”

I sat straighter. “Are we thinking inside leak?”

Nathan didn’t nod, but his face was confirmation enough.

“We’re not ruling anything out,” he said. “But until we isolate the breach, we need tighter protocol. No unencrypted uploads. No unsupervised archive access.‘

Emma’s eyes flicked toward me. “That includes you, by the way.”

I nodded. “Understood.”

Then, as the conversation shifted to general patching procedures, I turned it.

“Has anyone re–evaluated the old chain–of–command files? The military records from Sector Delta?”

Nathan raised a brow. “Why?”

“There’s language in some of the older briefs that doesn’t match current formatting. Could mean old hands tampered with updates.”

Nathan leaned back, visibly intrigued. Emma didn’t say anything, but she was watching me closely. I noted her silence. She always spoke when she had nothing to hide.

The next rumor hit me sideways. I caught it in the hallway between forum meetings–two aides whispering near the coffee urn. Something about me aiming to ‘lock in power‘. I stopped walking. They fell silent.

Emma found me half an hour later and closed the door behind her.

“Jenny’s been running her mouth,” she said.

“About me and Richard?”

Emma didn’t answer right away,

“She told one of the junior clerks that you were making a play. That you were planning to use this position to become his co–leader.”

I stared at her.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said. “I should’ve shut it down earlier.”

I swallowed the sharp taste in my mouth. “What did she think would happen?”

Emma glanced at the door. “I already spoke to her. Told her to cut the shit.”

“And?”

“She laughed. Said, ‘If Amelia wants to play Queen, she better learn how to protect her crown.

My hands clenched under the table. “She doesn’t care if she burns the whole thing down as long as I’m standing in the ashes.”

Emma didn’t argue.

Later, after dinner, I lingered in my suite, rereading the same lines of my notes without really absorbing them. My fingertips hovered over the pins on my investigation board, connecting names that had started to feel more like ghosts than people. Something in my gut tugged, low and insistent.

A thread I hadn’t followed yet.

I messaged Emma: Can I get clearance to Sublevel 3 again? I know it’s a risk.

Her reply came five minutes later: You’ve got thirty minutes. Log your entry. Be fast.

The air in the sublevel felt colder than usual as I made my way back down. Every fluorescent flicker

felt more ominous than before. I followed a trail of cross–referenced file codes and found what I was

looking for: a folder mislabeled under a transit code used during the final year of the war.

Inside were encrypted personnel records.

I decrypted the first one–and stopped breathing.

It was a name I’d seen before. One I’d never spoken aloud. It had been scribbled beside the faded photograph buried in the anonymous folder–the one I couldn’t stop thinking about. A part of me had already guessed. Already feared. But I hadn’t let myself say it, not even internally. Because if I said it–if I admitted what that name might mean–it would become real.

Her name appeared on a transport manifest marked with a Clearwater seal. There was a medical clearance signed by no listed physician. No destination. No follow–up.

Everything else had been scrubbed.

My stomach twisted. This wasn’t just a connection. This was evidence of something being erased.

Before I could finish copying the data, I heard footsteps.

“Looking for ghosts?”

I turned.

Adam stood in the doorway, his eyes darker than I’d ever seen them.

“You think you’re the only one with secrets?” he asked. “You’re not special. You’re just late.”

“Adam-”

“You walk around here like you own the place. Like you’re the answer. But you’re just the last one in the room.”

I took a breath. “If you’re trying to scare me-”

“I’m trying to warn you,” he hissed. “Stop digging.”

He stepped closer.

“I know what you think you’re uncovering. But you don’t know what it costs.”

I held his gaze. “And you do?”

He smiled, sharp and bitter. “I’ve already paid.”

I backed toward the emergency wing–one of the few places with auto–locks and panic latches. As I stepped over the threshold, I tapped my comm.

“Emma. I need security in the archive sublevel. Now.”

Adam didn’t follow. But he didn’t retreat either.

We stared at each other until the doors closed between us.

That night, I sat in Richard’s office with a map spread out between us.

The room was dim except for the soft desk lamp, the kind of light that made everything feel closer, quieter. We hadn’t spoken much since I arrived. He’d gestured for me to sit, and I had, rolling the map out between us in practiced silence.

My pulse hadn’t slowed since the confrontation with Adam, but now, sitting across from Richard, I felt a different kind of weight in my chest–one threaded with urgency, with the awareness that whatever I showed him tonight could change everything.

“If Red Fang was real–and he operated in these sectors–then someone buried him on purpose.”

Richard didn’t respond at first. He leaned forward, fingers tracing one of the loops of thread between two connected cities. His eyes lingered on a date scrawled in the corner.

His arm pressed against mine. “He didn’t die. He disappeared.”

Our faces were close now. His breath was steady, mine wasn’t.

“Do you think he survived?”

“I think someone wanted us to believe he didn’t.”

I swallowed. The closeness wasn’t accidental anymore. We weren’t pretending to ignore it. But neither of us moved.

Finally, I leaned back and closed the folder, heart rattling. “We should keep going.”

“Yeah,” he said, though his voice was rougher than before.

The space between us didn’t refill.

We kept working. But we didn’t stop thinking.

We stepped out of the archive into cold hall light, blinking at the sudden brightness. Emma intercepted us halfway down the hall, her pace brisk and her expression tight.

“A delegate from Stone Ridge is missing,” she said. “Neutral pack. He didn’t check in after the regional breakout.”

I stopped mid–stride. “Missing how long?”

“Long enough,” she said. “No comms, no escort. We’re keeping it quiet for now.”

I pulled out my tablet, already scanning for recent patrol patterns. “I’ll loop in perimeter scouts and grid the search.”

Emma nodded, then paused just long enough to glance back at me. “You’re good at this, you know,” she said, a note of warmth in her voice. “You didn’t even hesitate. I’ve seen you grow more confident every day.”

Then she turned away quickly, already calling in names over her headset.

As I moved toward the command station, Richard caught up beside me, matching my pace. He didn’t say anything–just handed me his spare map file. Our hands brushed as I took it.

It wasn’t a romantic gesture. But it was a quiet tether. A kind of knowing.

We split the map into quadrants. I coordinated the check–ins while he rerouted two patrols.

An hour later, we caught a faint signal from the edge of the western treeline.

When I reached the delegate, he was slumped awkwardly against the twisted base of a tree root, one arm dangling uselessly over his knee. His face was pale and sweat–slicked, lips cracked from dehydration. He blinked at me, confused, like he wasn’t sure if I was real.

I dropped to my knees in front of him and gently took his wrist. His pulse was erratic but present. ” You’re gonna be okay,” I said, steadying my voice. “You’re safe now.”

He didn’t answer, just stared through me, as if he was still somewhere else.

“Scout,” I called over my shoulder. “Water.”

The canteen was in my hand a moment later, and I pressed it gently to the man’s lips. “Small sips. That’s it.”

He drank, trembled, and finally sagged against the bark with a breath that sounded like surrender. I stayed crouched, one hand on his shoulder, until the shaking eased.

“Can you walk?” I asked.

His eyes met mine. “I think so.”

“We’ll take it slow,” I told the delegate. “I got you.”

“Said someone tried to question him,” the scout whispered. “About voting records.”