Alessia POV:
I didn't move. I didn't need to.
I stood over the shattered remains of my mother's necklace, my silver eyes fixed on Santino. He was frozen, pinned in place not by physical force, but by the sheer weight of my Aura.
It flooded the room, dense and suffocating. It was the aura of an Alpha King's daughter. Compared to me, Santino's Alpha presence felt like a flickering candle next to a forest fire.
"Alessia, stop this," Santino choked out, sweat beading on his forehead. "You're... you're hurting us."
"Good," I said simply.
Outside, the sound of engines roared. Not one car. Dozens. Heavy trucks, SUVs, motorcycles.
The front door of the Pack House exploded inward.
Splinters of wood flew everywhere. Santino instinctively crouched, covering his head. Valentina screamed and dove behind the sofa.
Damien walked through the dust.
He wasn't alone. Behind him were twenty men and women dressed in black tactical gear. On their shoulders, they wore the crest of the Bianchi family—a crescent moon crossed with a sword.
The Royal Guard.
Damien's eyes were blazing gold. He saw the bruise forming on my cheek, the blood on my lip.
A sound left his throat that was so guttural, so filled with raw violence, that the windows of the living room shattered outward.
He started to shift. His bones cracked, his skin rippled. He was about to turn into his wolf right there in the hallway and slaughter everyone.
"Damien, hold," I commanded.
He froze. His body trembled, fighting the urge to kill, but he obeyed. He looked at me, his face twisted in agony. "He hit you."
"Yes," I said. "And he will pay. But not with a quick death. That is too easy."
I turned to Valentina. She was peeking out from behind the sofa, shaking like a leaf.
"Get out," I said. I laced the words with Alpha Command.
It wasn't a request. It was a compulsion.
Valentina's body moved on its own. She scrambled to her feet, crying, trying to stop her legs, but she couldn't. She marched toward the door.
"Santino, help me!" she wailed.
Santino tried to step forward. "You can't kick her out! She carries my Beta's child!"
One of the Royal Guards stepped in his path. The guard didn't even draw a weapon. He just shoved Santino in the chest. Santino flew backward, crashing into the coffee table.
"You are speaking to Her Highness," the guard spat.
"Her Highness?" Santino looked up, bewildered. "She's just Alessia from the Moretti family..."
"I am Alessia Bianchi," I corrected him. "Daughter of the Alpha King. And you, Santino, have just declared war on the Crown."
The color drained from his face so fast he looked like a corpse. "The... the King? No. That's impossible."
"Damien," I said, turning away from my ex-husband. "This house. The East Wing. The training grounds. The new medical center."
"Yes, Princess?"
"I paid for them," I said coldly. "They were built with my dowry. My money."
I looked at the walls of the house I had tried to make a home.
"Take them back," I ordered. "Destroy it all."
"With pleasure," Damien growled.
He signaled his team.
The destruction was systematic and terrifying. The guards didn't just break things; they dismantled them. Sledgehammers smashed into the drywall of the East Wing. Cables were ripped from the ceiling.
"No! Stop! That's my pack's infrastructure!" Santino yelled, scrambling up. "I command you to stop!"
He tried to use his Alpha voice.
The guards didn't even flinch.
"Your command means nothing to us," Damien said, grabbing Santino by the throat and lifting him off the ground. "You are an ant shouting at a hurricane."
A loud boom shook the ground. The Wards—the magical barriers that protect a pack's territory from Rogues—flickered and died.
The Wards had been tied to my blood. I was the anchor. Now that I had rejected the pack in my heart, the protection was gone.
"The Wards..." Santino gasped, dangling in Damien's grip. "You've killed us. The Rogues will come."
"You like Rogues so much," I said, gesturing to Valentina who was weeping on the lawn outside. "Now you can live like one."
I walked over to Damien. I placed my hand on his arm. The sparks flew between us, calming his rage just enough.
"Drop him," I said.
Damien dropped Santino in the rubble of his own living room.
"We are leaving," I announced. "And Santino? Check your bank accounts."
Santino scrambled for his phone. He tapped the screen with shaking fingers.
"Zero?" he whispered. "It's all... gone?"
"I withdrew my investment," I said. "Silver Creek is bankrupt."
I turned and walked out through the hole where the door used to be. Damien walked beside me, his large hand resting protectively on the small of my back.
I stepped out into the sunlight. For the first time in three years, I didn't feel heavy. I didn't feel weak.
I felt like a Queen.
But as I reached Damien's car, I felt a sharp pain in my gut. Not from the slap. From something else.
I looked back at the ruins. This was just the beginning.
"Damien," I said softly as he opened the door for me. "Get the legal team ready. I want to sue him for the necklace. And I want a paternity test on that Rogue's baby."
Damien grinned, a savage, predatory look. "Consider it done, my love."
