Reborn:the tyrant Alpha's beloved

Chapter 4: Prove Your Worth

Ice clinked against glass in the silence of the study.

Howard's gaze raked across Leia's face.

She held his scrutiny without flinching, her voice level.

"I want the Black family's protection. And a chance to bring down the Grey family."

Howard laughed, low and quiet.

The laugh carried no warmth. Only contempt.

"You?"

He pushed the glass aside and leaned forward, the pressure of a high-tier Alpha rolling off him in waves.

"Everyone in the East District knows the Winter orphan spent ten years trailing behind Alvin like a shadow. To please the Greys, you mortgaged your own family estate. And now you walk in here and tell me you want to topple the Grey family?"

He sank back into the sofa, voice flat with dismissal.

"Miss Winter, the West District is a playground for squabbling couples. Using me as your weapon carries a price you can't afford."

Leia stood her ground. The blood loss kept dragging black spots across her vision, but she knew showing weakness now would kill everything.

"People change, Mr. Howard. Especially after they've died once."

She pulled the black coat off her shoulder, exposing the wrinkled hospital gown underneath and the iodine-stained skin below her collarbone. The bruising around the needle mark stood raw and ugly under the white lamp.

"Alvin planned to strap me to an operating table and drain my heart's blood for his fake destined mate."

"I climbed out of hell. I didn't do it to throw a tantrum at him."

She wrapped the coat back around herself and looked Howard dead in the eye.

"I want Alvin stripped of the inheritance he prides himself on. I want the Grey family bankrupt. I want them on their knees, begging and finding nothing."

"Your enemy's enemy is your friend. The Black family has fought the Greys for three years and never swallowed the East District. The problem was never strength. The problem is you lack an insider who knows exactly where the Grey family's throat is."

"I am the knife that can pull the Greys out by the roots."

Howard raised an eyebrow.

That answer genuinely surprised him. He'd investigated Leia's background long ago—a rule-bound traditional she-wolf, soft, repressed, the type who never raised her voice. The venom in this woman's eyes couldn't be faked.

But the Black family kept no freeloaders.

"The Redpine Forest vein map is a good card."

His long fingers tapped the desk.

"It buys your life. That's all it buys. If you want me doing your dirty work, this chip falls short."

Leia had come prepared.

She stepped forward, pulled out the chair across from Howard, and sat down without a hint of ceremony.

Logan, still posted outside the door, nearly swallowed his tongue watching through the gap. In the entire West District, she was the first person to sit down before the boss gave permission.

A flicker of interest crossed Howard's eyes. He let her.

Settled in the chair, Leia drew a breath and started laying her cards on the table.

"The West District controls twelve major ports. For the past two weeks, import and export approvals for Pier Six and Pier Nine have been frozen by the High Council. Am I right?"

Howard's tapping fingers stopped.

That was an absolute secret of the West District. Even his deputies didn't know the full picture. How did a woman locked away in the East District's backyard know any of it?

"Continue." Two words left Howard's mouth.

"You assumed it was a paperwork problem. You sent heavy payments to Elder Carter three times and couldn't even get through his door."

A mocking curl touched Leia's lips.

"It was never about paperwork. Two weeks ago, Alvin quietly transferred a Grey family hot spring estate in the New District into the name of Elder Carter's mistress."

"His condition: Carter chokes off your two core shipping lanes."

"Drag this out another half month, and those two shipments of fresh medicinal cargo sitting at sea rot in the hulls. Penalties plus reputational damage—call it three hundred million, minimum."

Howard's expression went cold to the bone.

So that was why Carter kept dodging him. The old man had been eating Grey family money behind his back the whole time.

He fixed his eyes on Leia, danger threading through his voice.

"You know it this well. So what's the play?"

"Carter is a textbook henpecked husband." Leia fired back without a pause for breath.

"His wife is the eldest daughter of an old werewolf bloodline family—volatile temper, controls half of Carter's council votes, and despises infidelity above everything."

"That hot spring estate is held under the name of Carter's nephew. Send a man to the East District black market, spend twenty thousand on a fake hotel record tying the nephew to Carter's mistress, then deliver it straight to Carter's wife."

"Forged hotel records are the most common product in the East District black market. Flawless work—they'll fake security footage to match. The nephew is a wild one who loves his vices anyway; the wife has despised him for years. Light that fire, and she'll conclude the uncle and nephew ran the con together."

"Carter's own house burns down, and that estate becomes untouchable. To appease his wife, he needs a scapegoat."

"When that moment comes, Carter will hand over the estate to save himself—and flip the script, swearing the Greys forced it on his nephew, all to prove his own clean hands."

"The High Council can't survive that kind of scrutiny. The moment word leaks, the bribery charge lands squarely on the Grey family. Carter won't just approve your paperwork on the spot—he'll turn around and bite Alvin, as proof of loyalty."

Silence swallowed the study again.

Borrowing a knife to kill. The move cost almost nothing and hit the exact pressure point shared by Carter and the Greys.

One blade, straight into both their ribs.

Howard didn't answer right away. He picked up the encrypted landline and dialed a number.

"Pull the nephew's movements. Get someone to the black market for that hotel record. And leak a hint to Carter's wife's anonymous inbox."

He hung up and looked back at the woman across the desk.

She was ghost-pale, soaked through, hospital gown smeared with mud, barefoot on the hand-woven carpet—ready to topple at the next gust of wind.

And inside her head sat something deadlier than the worst venom snake.

In her past life, ten years at Alvin's side, cleaning up his messes—Leia had memorized every dirty account the Grey family kept, and mapped the hidden web connecting every big name in the city.

That was her footing in this study.

She wanted nothing supernatural. This intelligence gap from the future was the cruelest blow she could deal these old-money families.

"So what was that?" Howard said. "A housewarming gift?"

"That was a demonstration of my value."

Leia leaned back in the chair, exhausted to her marrow yet holding the negotiating posture steady.

"The Redpine vein is my door knocker."

"Solving the port crisis is my proof of good faith."

"For the next ten years—which land in the East District appreciates, which family falls, which elder buries what scandal—it all lives in my head."

"I'll hand you that intelligence and help you gut the Grey family's fortune at the lowest possible cost."

"My terms are three."

Howard shifted, folding his hands, watching her with open interest.

"Name them."

"One. The Black family guarantees my personal safety. Without my consent, Alvin's people don't lay a finger on me."

"Two. I take twenty percent of every gain generated from my intelligence."

"Three. When the final blow lands on the Grey family, I deliver it myself."

Leia held up three fingers, her tone leaving zero room.

This was the road she'd paved for herself. After her past life's death, she refused to attach herself to anyone ever again. Her own money, her own cards, earned through ten years of information only she held.

Power and money in her own hands—that was the only way to survive in a world that ate people alive.

Howard listened in silence. Then he laughed.

This time the laugh carried a sliver of real warmth—and far more danger.

"Miss Winter, you have a big appetite."

"How do I know the intelligence in your head isn't a story you invented to con me?"

The words had barely landed when the strongest Alpha's pheromones released without restraint.

The air in the study turned crushing.

Fir and pine pressed down on Leia's shoulders like an invisible mountain of ice.

In the werewolf world, high-tier Alphas held absolute bloodline dominance over lower-ranked wolves. That obedience was written into the genes. Nothing could train it away.

Pressure like this could drop an ordinary wolf to its knees, begging.

Leia's face drained white. Breathing turned into labor.

A body already drained by forced bloodletting couldn't take this level of suppression. Her organs churned.

She clamped her jaw shut and swallowed the copper taste surging up her throat.

She stayed on her feet.

Her hands gripped the armrests, fingers bloodless, joints creaking from the strain.

Under that crushing weight, she locked eyes with Howard.

Her eyes held zero fear. Only stubborn wildfire.

"Whether I'm lying—go to Redpine Forest tomorrow, dig three hundred meters down, and see for yourself."

She forced the words out one by one, her voice shaking against the pressure, her spine iron.

"If there's no high-grade crystal vein, bury me alive in the pit."

The seconds crawled.

The standoff in the study made the air barely breathable. Outside the door, Logan sweated through his shirt, terrified the boss would lose control and crush the half-broken woman right there in the chair.

Just as Leia felt consciousness starting to slip, the pressure vanished—clean and total.

Air flowed back into the room.

She dragged in great gulps of it, cold sweat dripping off her chin onto the carpet.

Howard rose and walked to the desk. He pressed the intercom key.

"Logan. Get in here."

The door swung open at once. Logan glanced at the still-panting Leia and dropped his eyes fast.

"Boss."

"Put Miss Winter in a guest room in the main house. Bring the best private doctor to treat her wounds. Post four guards outside her door, twenty-four hours. Nobody disturbs her rest."

Howard gave the orders without a hitch in his rhythm.

Logan froze, then nodded rapidly—while a storm broke loose in his chest. The whole West District knew the boss's territorial instincts. He never kept outsiders in the main house overnight. Let alone an East District woman covered in trouble.

Today, that rule died.

"Move." Howard cut him a look.

"Yes!" Logan hurried to Leia's side, his manner ten times more respectful than before.

Leia pushed herself up from the chair.

Her legs still wobbled, but she knew it—her first step had landed solid. She'd pried open the Black family's door with her bare hands.

"Miss Winter."

Howard crossed to her, looking down from his full height.

In those dark gray eyes, the contempt had thinned. Something closer to recognition of an equal had taken its place.

"Your terms. I accept."

"But I despise being played above all things. You'd better pray every piece of intelligence you quoted is real."

He extended his right hand, voice steady and heavy.

"Eight tomorrow morning, I'll take you to Redpine Forest myself."

"If your marked points come up empty—"

He left the sentence unfinished. The killing intent in it cut colder than the storm outside.

Leia reached out and closed her hand around that broad, ice-cold palm.

The contact felt hard and chill, like stone that would never hold warmth.

"Rest assured, Mr. Howard."

A weak, reckless smile curved her mouth.

"You're about to find out that partnering with me is the most profitable deal of your life."