Now Lia sits in the containment chair Darren occupied hours ago, wrists bound.
The fluorescent lights strip away whatever glamour exile gave her—she's thinner, harder, sharp features refined by years of hatred into something that barely resembles the sister I knew.
"Talk," I say from the chair across from her. "From the beginning."
"Which one?" Lia tilts her head with a smile that makes my wolf snarl beneath my skin.
"Where you stole my fiancé or where the pack exiled me for protecting what was mine? Or, where I decided to stop being a victim and start architecting your destruction?"
"Where you sold your own people to hunters."
"They were never my people. They chose you—the wolfless embarrassment, the girl our parents used to lock in her room during pack events so nobody would be reminded of their genetic failure."
Her voice carries the brittle sharpness of rehearsed resentment.
"The pack I grew up leading selected a woman with no wolf over their born Luna. So yes, sister, I found new allies."
"How?"
"The first months were humiliating. Living among humans, pretending I wasn't supernatural royalty slumming through exile like it was a gap year."
She leans back, crossing her legs with the affected casualness of someone performing indifference.
"Then I met a man at a bar in Tacoma who smelled like silver and asked too many questions about wolf pack structures. Hunter. Low-level, of course, but connected to people who were competent."
"The Montgomery clan."
"Eventually, yes. It took months of working my way up through their network, trading small pieces of Silvermoon intelligence to prove my value. The organizational hierarchy, the leadership dynamics, the political fractures I knew from the inside."
"And they paid you."
"They did more than that. They recognized what Silvermoon never did—that I'm an asset, not a liability. My knowledge is encyclopedic, Thalia. I lived inside those walls, so I know every blind spot and pressure point that makes your precious family crack."
"Darren."
"This one was easy," she waves a hand dismissively. "A lonely wolf with gambling debts and a grudge against the pack hierarchy. I bought him three drinks and had his commitment before the last call."
"He walked my children to school."
"I know. I positioned him there specifically," her smile widens. "Your husband is remarkably predictable when it comes to Phoenix. The way he gravitates toward her, adjusts her backpack, holds her hand at the gate—Darren reported every detail, and I used every single one."
My hands grip the chair arms. Cold fury leaves no room for anything else.
"Tell me about the attack on Kieran."
"Oh, my masterpiece." She says it with perverse pride that makes bile rise in my throat.
"The chemical compound was Montgomery engineering, of course. But the delivery strategy? The timing, the specific weapon deployment? That was all mine."
"You told them to use the experimental dart!"
"I told them when Kieran would be most vulnerable. And sure, I knew that he would absolutely sacrifice himself for Phoenix, because devoted fathers are so predictable! He'd throw himself between any threat and his daughter without calculating the cost."
"You wanted him dead."
"No," the word comes out sharp, corrective. "Death would have been merciful. I wanted him to survive as nothing. I wanted Kieran Fenris to understand what it feels like to have everything that made you worthy stripped away while the world watches."
"This was revenge...."
"Against you both. Kieran chose you—the wolfless disaster—over the woman he was promised to! And you for existing, Thalia. For being born defective and somehow still ending up with everything I was supposed to have. That mate bond that should have been mine!"
"It doesn't work that way. It's not something you earn through entitlement—"
"Don't lecture me!"
Lia's composure cracks, the calculated performance giving way to something rawer.
"I was perfect. Perfect daughter, Luna-in-training, partner for the Alpha heir. I did everything right, and the universe handed it all to the sister who couldn't even shift!"
"You sent hunters to murder a nine-year-old girl!"
"She was never supposed to die. The blade was designed for Kieran—a second dose to ensure the first compound's effects were permanent. Targeting Phoenix were the hunters’ initiative, not mine."
Something flickers across her face—not guilt, exactly, but the recognition that this particular detail weakens her narrative of calculated control.
"I wanted your husband broken. Your children were supposed to be left alone."
"And wolves who died? Rivera, who was expecting a baby? Were they supposed to be left alone too?"
Lia's jaw tightens. "Casualties of a war they chose to fight by staying loyal to a leadership that doesn't deserve it."
I stand. The chair scrapes backward. Lia watches me rise with the first real fear in her eyes.
"You orchestrated the destruction of my husband's wolf. You sent killers into my home."
My voice is steady, terrifyingly controlled. "A quick execution would be too easy. Too clean and merciful—the dramatic martyr ending you'd script for yourself."
"Aha-ha! My sister, so kind and fair as usual!"
"You wanted to prove I'm not worthy of this pack? I'm going to prove you wrong in front of the entire territory, and then I'm going to let the pack decide what happens to the woman who sold their families to hunters for the price of a grudge."
Lia's face goes pale. The public trial she'd designed for me is about to be turned back on her with pack law behind it.
"You can't," she whispers. "Pack law doesn't apply to exiles—"
"It applies to anyone who attacks Silvermoon from within. You used a pack member as your weapon. You targeted pack families and operated on the pack territory."
I lean close enough that she can see the gold flickering in my eyes, my wolf pressing forward with a hunger that has nothing to do with mercy.
"You brought yourself back under our jurisdiction the moment you sent Darren through those gates." I walk toward the door.
"Thalia," her voice catches. "You wouldn't actually—"
"Watch me."
The door closes, and I stand in the hallway breathing through rage. Caught, contained, about to face justice she believed she was clever enough to avoid.
Tomorrow, Silvermoon sees what happens to those who betray their blood.