Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 83

Nathan didn’t say anything when I asked. He just handed me a new folder and told me to reroute Adam’s tasks for the rest of the week.

“Is he gone?” I asked.

Nathan nodded. “Richard made the call this morning. We locked his access two hours ago. Security’s walking him out now.”

There was no satisfaction in it. Just cold finality.

I left the office fifteen minutes later to drop a form off on the second floor. I was halfway down the hallway when I saw him. Two guards flanked Adam as he walked stiffly toward the lobby, hands clenched, mouth tight. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t glare or sneer or throw out some last jab. Just stared straight ahead like I wasn’t even there.

Good.

I kept walking. My fingers itched with leftover adrenaline, and I didn’t exhale until I was back in the stairwell, alone. I leaned against the wall, trying to calm the pounding in my chest. Everything felt so still now, like the storm had passed but left behind some wreckage I hadn’t noticed yet.

Ten minutes later, my phone buzzed with a message from Jenny.

What did you do?

No context. No punctuation. No follow-up.

I stared at it for a full minute before locking the screen.

By nightfall, she still hadn’t texted again. Her location was blank, her read receipts off. And I didn’t know whether to be worried or relieved.

Richard called me to his suite just after ten. The official reason was press coordination, but we both knew better.

I found him in the living room, still in his dress shirt, sleeves rolled up.

He was holding a glass of whiskey he hadn’t touched. A few files lay open on the table, but nothing was being worked on.

“You didn’t need to call me in,”I said, setting my bag down.

“I know.

He looked at me for a long moment, then crossed the space between us. His hand brushed mine. I didn’t flinch, but I didn’t reach for him either.

“I thought you should hear it from me,” he said. “Adam’s gone. He’s already offsite.”

“saw him.”

“I’m sorry it came to this.”

“I’m not.”

He nodded once, like he didn’t expect anything different. “It needed to happen.”

I let out a breath and leaned against the table. “Jenny thinks I had him fired.”

“She would’ve done the same if she knew what he was doing.”

“Would she?”

He didn’t answer.

The silence stretched between us. He moved closer. I didn’t move away. His fingers brushed the edge of my jaw, slow and careful, like he was waiting for permission that I didn’t know how to give.”Can I?” he asked softly.

I hesitated, then shook my head. “I can’t tonight.”

Richard stepped back, giving me space, but his eyes never left mine.

“I want to,” I said. “God, I want to. But if we keep pretending this is just physical, I’m going to break. And I can’t afford to break right now.”

He exhaled, ran a hand through his hair, then nodded. “Okay.”

Elsa’s voice was a low murmur. I couldn’t make out the words, but I knew the tone. Placating. Cold. Professional. The same way she’d talked to me when I was still trying to be a team player.

And she wasn’t even supposed to be in the Pack House. That restriction had been quietly put in place after the banquet, after Richard was poisoned. But there she was. Maybe she actually cared about her daughter enough to break the rule and show up for once. Or maybe this was just her excuse to get her foot back in the door, to position herself close to power again under the guise of maternal concern.

Either way, I’d be keeping tabs.

I should have walked away. I should have pretended I hadn’t heard anything. Instead, I stood there in the hallway, my hand hovering near the doorframe, every instinct screaming at me to go, but my feet refusing to move. Guilt swirled low in my stomach, sticky and unshakable.

Guilt, and something else. Relief. She knew. The lie had cracked open and swallowed her whole. And for a split second, I felt free.

Jenny didn’t come in the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that.

By the time the third campaign event came and went without her, Nathan called me into his office.

“You’re covering her slate until she returns,” he said, tapping a list of deliverables on his tablet. “Forum prep, press routing, talking points All of it. You’re point until further notice.”

I blinked at the list. “This is… a lot.”

“You’re the only one who-knows her system well enough to fake it,” he said. “And frankly, I trust you more.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll get it done.”

“You sure?”

“No,” I said honestly, and he smiled.

The next forty-eight hours were chaos. I barely slept. The televised forum was fast approaching, and half the team was still scrambling to finalize Richard’s speech draft. Jenny’s color-coded folders were helpful, but half her files were password-protected or written in shorthand that made no sense to anyone but her. I pieced together what I could, trusting muscle memory and instinct.