Chapter 274 The Fall of Xander 2
Author
A month later, Xander finally got the approval for his theme park project.
The permits, the zoning, the environmental reviews — everything cleared at once. It felt like a win.
That same day, his daughter Tiffany got her acceptance letter from UPenn. She was heading to Philadelphia in the fall.
Both things landed on the same day. And it was her eighteenth birthday.
Xander wanted to celebrate all of it together. A family dinner. A proper send off.
They picked a quiet spot in a members only club in Midtown. The kind of place where the wait staff knew your name and your drink order. Dark wood paneling. White tablecloths. A small cake waiting on the side table.
His daughter was laughing, cutting into her steak, when the door opened.
Two men walked in. They wore dark suits. But that was not what got Xander’s attention. It was their eyes. Pale yellow. Almost glowing in the dim light. And the way they moved. Smooth. Deliberate. Like they had done this a hundred times before. They scanned the room once. Then they locked onto his table.
Enforcers. Wolf Council Enforcers.
Xander’s blood went cold.
One of them stepped forward. His voice was flat. No emotion. "Which one of you is Xander?"
There were only three people in the room. A man, a woman, a teenage girl. Just Xander. Who else could it be?
Xander did not panic. He slipped his phone into his wife’s purse under the table. Smooth. Quiet. Autumn felt the weight of it but did not look down. She kept cutting her steak.
"That is me," Xander said.
"We have reason to believe you are involved in accepting bribes and misuse of pack funds. The Wolf Council has issued a summons. You need to come with us."
Xander stayed calm. "Do you have a warrant from the Council?"
The lead enforcer smiled. It was not a friendly smile. He pulled out a silver badge with the Council crest on it. A wolf’s head inside a circle of runes. He held it up for Xander to see.
"This is all we need," he said. "The real question is whether you want to have this conversation in front of your daughter."
Xander looked at Tiffany. She was eighteen today. The cake was still on the side table. She had not even blown out the candles yet.
He let out a long breath and pushed his chair back. He knew how this worked. If the Council sent Enforcers, they already had enough.
"Fine. I will go with you."
He turned to his daughter. "Tiffany, stay here with your mother. Finish your dinner. Cut your cake. I will be fine."
The Enforcers waited. They did not touch him. They did not need to.
"Agreed," one of them said.
Just like that, Xander put his jacket on and walked out between the two men.
Autumn fought to keep her voice steady. Her wolf was pacing under her skin, but she forced it down. As soon as the door closed, she turned to her daughter.
"Tiffany, listen to me. I am putting you in a car to the airport right now. You are getting on that plane tonight. Do not call us. Do not text us. Call your uncle. Do not worry about us."
The young girl had never seen anything like this. Her hands were shaking. She had stopped trying to eat.
"Mom, is Dad going to be okay?"
That was a question Autumn could not answer.
She watched her daughter leave. Then she pulled out her phone and called the only person she could think of who might have the power to fix this.
Yardley Wolfe.
Yardley answered on the second ring.
"Autumn. I was wondering when you would call."
"Yardley, they took Xander. Council Enforcers. They said he accepted bribes and misused pack funds. You sit on the Council. You can help him."
Yardley laughed. It was a cold sound. "Help him? Autumn, do you know who brought the evidence to the Council?"
Autumn went still.
"It was me."
"That is not possible. You and Xander go back years. We went to your wedding. How could you do this?"
"Ask him yourself," Yardley said. "Ask him about the deal he cut behind my back three years ago. The one that cost my pack five million dollars."
He hung up.
Autumn sat alone in the private dining room. The cake was still on the table. The candles were still in the box.
Xander had never told her about any deal. He had never talked about Yardley as anything other than a friend.
The evidence was solid. Pack auditors had gone through everything. Offshore accounts. Property transfers. Pack money moved into private hands. Over ten million dollars in total, spread across five years. The most recent payment was tied to the theme park approval.
This was not a fishing trip. This was an execution.
Under Wolf Council law, Xander would face the Moon Court. If they found him guilty, he would get life in a pack prison. Or worse, exile. And for a wolf, exile meant death.