Chapter 196

• Giovanni's Perspective
• I sat in a high-backed chair in my office, watching the city lights slowly flicker on outside the window. The night had draped itself like a black cloak, swallowing up the day's clamor in silence. The world before me seemed to blur, hidden beneath the mask of hypocrisy that veiled endless power and suspicion. As the leader of the wolves, I had long grown accustomed to navigating in the darkness, searching for every pivot point that could anchor me more firmly in place.
• But tonight, my thoughts were anything but calm and clear. A moment ago, I sensed an unfamiliar fluctuation in power—a presence unlike any wolf pack member I'd ever encountered, and not from any bloodline I knew. It was a force of werewolf blood, primal and undeniable, impossible to conceal, and yet... familiar. In that instant, I stopped what I was doing, my gaze deepening as my brow furrowed in concentration.