Chapter 23
Gabriella’s POV
The silence after I ended the call didn’t feel empty—it thrummed, alive, a new kind of power humming beneath my skin. I exhaled, slow and steady, feeling Ava’s presence wrap around me like a cloak of molten steel.
You did well, she murmured. You severed their hold without hatred. That’s strength, not defiance.
But before I could answer her, I felt it—the pulse of four powerful auras just outside the door. The Alphas. They had felt my shift in energy, heard my tone perhaps. And in the next heartbeat, the door opened.
Mark stepped in first, his golden eyes scanning my face with sharp, assessing precision. Behind him came Rhael, silent and calculating as ever, his jaw tight with restraint. Leo lingered at the threshold, arms crossed, unreadable. Tristan, of
