Chapter 47: Anything To Bring Back Silas

"I’m fine, I’m fine, really," I said, offering them a reassuring smile as I stepped fully inside. "I just went out early because I needed to train. I had to stretch my muscles, walk off the stiffness... and run a few errands."

Bradford blinked, his brows pulling together. "Errands?"

"Yes," I lied effortlessly, giving a small, convincing nod. "You know I can’t enter the tournament blindly. I went out to get a feel for the kind of opponents I’m going to be up against if I want to at least survive, you know."

The mention of the tournament was like a bitter pill to swallow, and their faces dampeneed right away.

Jordan let out a long, weary sigh. "Brianna, you really shouldn’t be wandering around without telling us where you’re going."

"That’s right, Brianna," Jayden chimed in, crossing his arms with a stern expression. "At the very least, you need to carry your phone. You can’t just go around with no way for us to contact you!"

Oh, right. My mind blanked for a second. I had completely forgotten to carry that useless little metal box in my pocket. It had totally slipped my mind.

"Sorry, sorry," I said quickly, raising my hands in surrender. "Next time I’ll carry it with me. I won’t make you worry again."

They just wanted to be a real family. And for the first time, I actually wanted to give that to them.

I’m guessing now would be a bad time to tell them I have the money to clear all our debt, so let’s just keep the money for now until I get the chance to bring it out.

Late that night, the house settled into a quiet, peaceful stillness. I sat cross-legged on my bed, slipping into a deep state of meditation to channel my inner energy and stabilize this fragile Omega body.

As my consciousness dipped into the ethereal plane, I froze.

Silas.

Before today, I could barely catch the faint, distant echo of his existence—like a shadow fading behind a thick fog. But tonight... it was completely different.

I could literally feel his presence right next to me. It was so vivid, so tangible, it felt as though he were standing right in the room, so close that if I just reached out my hand, I could grab hold of him.

My eyes snapped open in the dark, my breath catching in my throat.

What changed today?

I hadn’t done any breakthrough cultivation. I hadn’t consumed any rare spirit herbs. What on earth had happened today that made my connection to Silas so much stronger?

I started retracing every single event of the day, analyzing every second.

The most bizarre, out-of-the-ordinary events were... the suffocations. I didn’t even know if I should call them kisses. Those were torture methods if anything. First with Benjamin back at the vault, then with Edgar, and then back to that absurd, suffocating lesson from Benjamin.

No, no, no. I instantly shook my head, my face flushing in the dark with sheer irritation. That is stupid. That is a completely absurd train of thought. Kissing an Alpha wasn’t a spiritual catalyst. There was no way that was it.

Then my mind shifted, honing in on another detail: Benjamin’s specialized Alpha sedative cigarette had smelled peculiar.

He had been smoking it right before he pinned me, trapping the potent, chemically altered smoke and his oppressive pheromones in the air between us as he cut off my oxygen. He did say it was specialized to keep his wolf sedated and affected no other wolf, but what if that was just what he was told? What if it had another effect?

Could those unique neuro-sedative compounds, interacting with my nervous system under oxygen deprivation, have temporarily loosened the seal on my soul’s connection to Silas?

I didn’t know for sure. But I had to find out.

Even if it meant putting myself back at that unhinged bastard’s mercy. Even if it meant letting him suffocate me all over again...

I couldn’t just walk up to Benjamin and ask him to hand over one of his custom cigarettes—a request like that would make a paranoid Alpha like him suspicious in a heartbeat. And I couldn’t meet Edgar, who manufactured them for his nephew, without raising red flags either.

Suffocation it was, then.

I would have to time it precisely when Benjamin was smoking one, provoke him just enough to make him put me in that suffocating grip again, and then test my meditation that very night. If my connection to Silas didn’t improve, I could rule the cigarettes out and investigate another variable.

I hated the idea of letting him get the upper hand, even for a second. It made my blood boil just thinking about it.

But if it brings Silas back...

I tightened my fists in my lap, my eyes gleaming with unyielding resolve in the dim room.

I didn’t care what method I had to use. I didn’t care whose games I had to play. I would do whatever it took to bring Silas back.

The next morning, I stretched my limbs, feeling the deep ache in my muscles from yesterday’s ordeal.

Knowing I had zero time to waste before the tournament, I headed downstairs, had a quick breakfast with the family, and told them I was going out for a bit.

After enduring another round of their deeply worried gazes and assuring them I’d be careful, I made a beeline for the training grounds.

For hours, I pushed this weak Omega body to its absolute limits—running for long hours on the treadmill to build stamina, practicing low-impact stance pivots, and conditioning my reflexes until sweat soaked through my clothes.

By noon, my muscles were burning, but my posture was significantly sharper. Just as I took a break on the benches, the cheap phone in my pocket buzzed with an incoming call from an unknown number.

I tilted the screen, answered, and brought it to my ear.

A long, lazy yawn echoed from the speaker, followed by a familiar, drawling voice that sounded like he had literally just dragged himself out of bed.

"I need to head out," Benjamin said, his tone infuriatingly casual. "So I’ll need you to accompany me."

I instantly frowned, my eyes narrowing in annoyance. He’s interrupting my training.

"No—" I started, fully prepared to hang up on him.

"I thought you wanted to go to the District Seven Training Complex—the high-tier facility right next to the Academy grounds?" Benjamin cut in effortlessly, as if he had been expecting my resistance. "Once we’re done with my errand, we’ll head straight to that training facility."

My eyes lit up instantly. The specialized facility where I could use the access card—full access to the upper-floor medical pods, the high-density training grounds, and the private noble archives—was finally within reach.

"All right," I said, my voice shifting into immediate compliance. "I’ll be there right away."

I quickly wiped down, threw on a fresh outfit—a fitted dark top and structure-defining cargo pants that looked feminine yet functional and tough—and made my way back toward the casino district to meet Benjamin at Edgar’s office.

As I walked through the casino’s side entrance and down the corridor, my mind was completely elsewhere. I was busy calculating my next move: how to get Benjamin to put his lips on mine again. Since we were heading out together, he would almost certainly light up one of those custom cigarettes. The smoke, the pheromones, the oxygen deprivation... I needed to recreate those exact conditions to test my theory about Silas. I just had to provoke him enough to put me in that suffocating grip again, and then—

I walked straight through the office door and slammed headfirst into a towering chest stepping out.

The impact reeled my lightweight frame backward and I completely lost my balance. Shit! But before I could fall, two massive hands shot out, catching me firmly by the waist to steady me.

My breath hitched as my front was pressed flush against him. He had his suit jacket casually slung over one shoulder, leaving nothing between my face and his chest except a thin black shirt—which was undone by three unbuttoned buttons, revealing warm skin and solid muscle.

Without the baggy, oversized hoodie from yesterday hiding my shape, the contrast between our sizes was undeniable. He was massive, his broad hands swallowing my waist entirely in my fitted top.

I snapped my head up—and met the dark golden eyes of Edgar.

"Edgar," his name escaped my lips, softly—too soft.

Instead of letting go once I regained my footing, his grip tightened slightly, his fingers pressing into my waist. A thick, suffocating heat rolled off his skin, wrapped in the heavy, dominant scent of his Alpha pheromones, trapping us in a charged, heavy stillness.

Just what was he thinking right now?

Edgar looked down at me, his gaze sweeping over my face, my bare neck, and the subtle lines of my waist under his large hands with a slow, shameless intensity. He shifted his weight, pulling me a fraction of an inch closer, his thumb resting dangerously against the curve of my ribs.

A strange tension coiled tightly in the narrow space between us. My assassin instincts urged me to break his hold, but my body felt completely small against his raw physical dominance.

"Edgar," I called again, "You... Let go."