Bound To The Broken Alpha (Amy and Daniel) novel Chapter 176

Chapter 176 Dangerous Alliance

AMY

Flothed

As the office lights dimmed and the night deepened, the image of Marielle stepping onto that ship replayed in my mind.

She was alive. Somewhere out there, she was running or hiding. And I intended to find out why.

Cole drove. He didn’t say much on the way to the docks, but his eyes tracked every vehicle we passed. I sat with my phone closed in my hand, replaying the video Brian had shown us.

The footage had looked authentic enough–Marielle stepping onto a small cargo vessel under a fake name. It was enough to force action. That was the point, I thought. Someone wanted me to take the bait.

The dock was gray and ordinary when we arrived. Shipping crates, forklifts, workers with safety vests. The office where the footage supposedly originated was a small glass–front room above the pier. The manager met us there with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

“You’re Amy Carter?” he asked, offering a formal handshake.

“Yes,” I said. “We need to see the original footage and any logs from three weeks ago.”

He led us in without argument. The security monitor looped through a dozen camera angles. I watched the timeline Brian had given us and matched it to the feeds in real time. There was a gap, exactly where the clip should have been. The manager said the system was updated and that old footage was overwritten.

Cole was already speaking to his tech through a secure line. “Run a recovery trace. See if anything was exported from this system time–stamped around that date.”

The

manager shrugged. “We stick to retention policies. We don’t keep files past a certain window.”

I watched the faces of the dockworkers passing below, then noticed the marks of small tattoos under the sleeves, a pattern I had seen before in reports: Southern pack insignia. Several men had them. The realization hit me, Clara’s people had access around here. That matched the trace we’d found of her login, and it fit the pattern of access to Carter Holdings‘ archives.

I asked the manager directly, “Do you have any contracts with companies registered in the South? Any subcontractors who use those insignia?”

He hesitated. “We’ve handled shipments for third parties. Some go through brokers in the south. Nothing out of the ordinary on paper.”

Cole’s voice was flat. “On paper, sure. Off the record it is different.”

We left with more questions than answers. The manager insisted the footage was fabricated, that the clip. Brian had sent could have been doctored and inserted from an external source. That was possible, and it was exactly what Elias would do, plant a plausible lead and watch me run.

Back at Carter Holdings, Mrs. Carter called an emergency meeting in the boardroom. The executive team filled the room, coffee in hands, faces taut. She started immediately.

“We have withdrawals in subsidiary accounts that don’t match our approved disbursements,” she said. “They

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Chapter 176 Dangerous Alliance

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total six figures across three accounts. They’re routed through shell companies. I want a full audit by the end of the day.”

I passed the summary of the dock visit to her as quietly as I could. She read it and didn’t look surprised.

“Elias doesn’t touch accounts directly,” she said. “He uses intermediaries. But these shell companies look familiar. Parallels to past dealings we have linked to southern networks. Pull the transaction timestamps against known southern activity.”

I did. The pattern was exact: each transfer aligned with a movement of Southern pack resources we’d tracked through border reports–supply runs, troop dispersals, logistics relocations. Whoever was laundering money for the South had timed it to coincide with physical movements.

Daniel found me in the corridor after the meeting. He didn’t wait for the ceremony.

“You left the estate,” he said, voice low. “You took Cole. You left the perimeter with fewer eyes than usual.”

“I went to verify a lead,” I said. “The dock had Southern markers. That’s not nothing.”

“You left in the middle of a fragile hour,” he said. “We had patrols stretched thin. I asked for stability, Amy. You undermined that.”

“You asked for proof before moving,” I said. “You also asked me to find Marielle. I’m doing both. The withdrawals and the dock traces are linked. They aren’t random. They’re financial moves meant to corner Carter Holdings and destabilize our support for you. If we let them continue, this becomes a corporate coup as much as a political one.”

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