EMILY'S POV
My life had become a split screen.
On one side, there was the public show. The Alpha heiress, resilient and unbroken. I stood in front of the scorched shell of our northern lambordi warehouse, the smell of wet ash and burnt metal clinging to the air.
A small, carefully managed press pool clicked away, capturing me in a tailored black trench coat, my expression solemn but determined as I surveyed the damage.
"Ms. Cortez, how do you respond to claims that these security failures indicate the Cortez pack is no longer fit to manage its own territories?"
I turned to the reporter, a woman from a major business outlet, and offered a thin, controlled smile. "What you see here is an act of cowardice, not a failure of capability. The Cortez pack has weathered storms for generations
