Chapter 219
Ben’s voice dropped to almost nothing. “And my mother.”
Sally closed her eyes for a moment, lashes trembling. When she opened them again, the pain was still there, but it had been tempered by something harder.
“She refused him,” Sally said. “He wanted to know where I was hiding. Who was helping me. She wouldn’t tell him.”
Ben’s hands curled into fists on the table, tendons standing out starkly.
“He tortured her,” Sally said quietly. No inflection. No embellishment. “Slowly. Methodically. Made sure she lived long enough to be offered mercy in exchange for my location.”
Something cold settled deep in my chest, heavy and immovable.
“She never gave it,” Sally said. “Not once.”
Ben stood abruptly, chair scraping against concrete as he turned away. His
shoulders shook as he braced his hands against the wall, breathing hard, like the air itself was suddenly insufficient.
I did not interrupt.
Sally watched him with a mixture of grief and fierce pride. “She saved my life,” she said softly. “And yours, whether you know it or not.”
When Ben finally sat back down, his eyes were red, his expression carved into something sharper than grief. Something resolved.
“You tried to tell the council,” he said. It was not a question.
“Yes,” Sally said. “Over and over. Quietly at first. Then louder. I followed every rule they told me would protect us.”
She looked at me directly, gaze unflinching. “They silenced me the same way they tried to silence Morgan years ago. Dismissed. Delayed. Discredited. Labeled hysterical. Unstable.”
The parallel hit me like a physical blow.
Morgan’s isolation rose vividly in my mind. Her warnings ignored. The way dissent had been reframed as instability rather than danger.
“It’s the same pattern,” I said softly.
Sally nodded. “Because it works. Because power protects itself.”
She reached into her jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, worn thin at the creases, edges soft from being handled too many times. She slid it across the table toward me.
“These are the names of pack warriors still loyal to him,” she said. “Not just obedient. Loyal. They’ve carried out his orders for years.”
I did not touch it yet. “How do you know?”
“Because they’re the ones he sent after me first,” Sally said. “And because some of them confessed when they thought I was already dead.”
The room felt smaller suddenly, the walls pressing in with the weight of what that list represented.
I picked up my phone. “I’m going to record now. Is that still what you want?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “I want it all on record.”
I hit record.
Sally straightened, spine rigid, voice clear in a way that felt practiced and intentional. She told everything. Dates. Locations. Names. Orders given and
consequences
refusing them. She spoke of disappearances disguised as transfers, of executions written off as accidents, of council members who looked away because challenging an Alpha meant risking their own packs, their own families.
Ben listened in silence, jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the table as if
moet would shatter what little
Contro
he had left. *
to swnövels
When Sally finished, the room felt stripped bare, like something sacred and terrible had been laid out between us.
I stopped the recording and set the phone down.
“You could run,” I said carefully. “Disappear again. With this evidence, Silvermen will come for you personally.”
She smiled. Not softly. Not kindly. But with something fierce and resolved that left no room for persuasion.
“I’m not running,” Sally said. “I ran long enough.”
Ben looked up sharply. “Sally, don’t.”
She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers, grip
firm lost everything et
won’
n’t lose the truth too.”
“You’ll be killed,” he said hoarsely.
“Maybe,” she replied. “But not quietly. Not alone. And not without him being seen for what he is.”
She turned to me. “I want to testify publicly. Before the council. Before the packs.”
My pulse spiked, adrenaline flaring sharp and immediate.
“That will force open conflict,” I said.
“Yes,” Sally agreed. “And that’s the point.”
The weight of it settled over us, heavy and inevitable, like the moment before a storm finally breaks.
Outside, the wind rattled against the concrete walls, a low, restless sound, as if the world itself were listening.
I knew then that there would be no more shadows to hide in.
And that Sally Silvermen had just lit the match that would burn everything open.