?Chapter 1362:


    And in that moment, something in Sadie settled. It felt like stumbling across water in the heart of a desert.


    She turned to Noah, her lips forming a small, quiet smile. Barely there—but it broke through the heaviness like sunlight breaking past the clouds.


    “They think locking me in here makes me obey,” she said. “But this cage can’t hold me.”


    She stepped away and crossed the room, lifting the phone from its cradle.


    “I need aptop and some design tools,” she said, her tone steady—like she was cing a regr order and not preparing for something far bigger.


    “And I’m hungry. Send over a few dishes from Yasmine’s Kitchen on the west side.”


    She listed off some dishes without hesitation.


    There was a pause on the line—mild surprise, but the reply came promptly. “Understood, Ms. Hudson. We’ll have them sent at once.”


    When Sadie hung up and turned around, she found Noah watching her with a look of quiet curiosity.


    She blinked once, and a flicker of humor passed over her otherwise guarded face.


    “You can’t take on the world on an empty stomach.”


    Meanwhile, at Emerson’s estate, the study door burst open with a violent crack.


    White Tiger entered, dragging a bloodied man behind him, his arms bound tight. He flung the man forward, and the man hit the carpet hard.


    The man raised his head slowly. A smear of red clung to the corner of his mouth, staining the cor of his once-shy shirt.


    It was Afara.


    He looked terrible, but his eyes still burned with that same untamed defiance.


    Emerson loomed behind his desk. His face was stone-cold, shadowed by fury.


    Her sword remained stabbed into the wood before him, the polished hilt gleaming beneath the light—silent and menacing, just like him. For years, Emerson had believed he had Afara under his thumb—a skilled young man shaped by control and ambition.


    He had admired Afara’s methods, even fed his ambition, never once imagining that the wolf he kept close had long pledged loyalty elsewhere.


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    Emerson loathed betrayal more than anything.


    “I never thought you’d turn on me,” he said, his voice low, trembling with barely contained fury.


    The corner of Afara’s mouth twitched into something resembling a smile. The movement pulled at his wounds, but he didn’t flinch.


    He met Emerson’s re head-on and scoffed.


    “Turn on you?” he said. “You give yourself too much credit. I was never loyal to you.”


    Emerson froze for a beat. Then, his rage cracked into a bitterugh.


    “Oh, so you were never loyal to me, huh?”


    He circled the desk, each step deliberate and heavy, his shoes soundless against the carpet but steeped in menace. “You and your people have schemed for years. And now youy hands on my daughter? You really think I’ll just stand by?”


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