To ruin an Omega

Chapter 376: The Beginning of the end

CIAN

Gabriel’s hands stayed gripped on the back of my shirt for a moment longer. Then he pulled back slowly and looked up at me.

His eyes were wet.

“I have waited years for this,” he said. His voice was rough. “It was hard. But I had to keep myself alive because I knew… I hoped that a day like this would come when I would be able to get revenge. I did imagine a more violent interaction. But the court will do. It is the same thing at this point. I’ve waited years to stand in front of that circle and expose him for what he really is.”

I nodded.

“Then you will get your chance.”

“Now,” he said. “I want to testify now. He has allies. I am sure, and my presence here would be dangerous to them.”

I glanced toward the window. The light was still good. The hour had not passed yet. But it was close.

“It is safe here, and the trial will resume soon,” I said. “When it does, you will be called. But I assure you, your life is not in danger. Valentine was the one who figured out you were imprisoned and saved you. He has a need for you to be alive. As well. He will do anything to protect you.”

“Good.”

Gabriel stepped back and wiped at his face with the back of his hand. The motion left a streak of dirt across his cheek.

I looked at him more carefully now. At the state of his clothes. The grime under his nails. The way his hair hung in tangled strands around his face.

“You should clean up first,” I said. “Get dressed properly. We can have someone bring you fresh clothes. Something that fits.”

Gabriel shook his head immediately.

“No.”

I frowned.

“Uncle—”

“No,” he repeated. His voice was firmer this time. “They need to see this. They need to see what was done to me.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he kept going.

“If I walk in there clean and composed, they will question whether I was truly imprisoned. They will wonder if this is theater. If this is some scheme Valentine cooked up to discredit Aldric.” He gestured down at himself. At the dirt and the exhaustion written into every line of his body. “But if they see me like this, they will know. They will know it is real.”

I stared at him.

He was right.

Aldric had spent years building a reputation. Polished. Controlled. The kind of man who never let anyone see him sweat. Who always looked like he had everything under control.

Gabriel walking into that hall looking broken would be the clearest evidence that Aldric’s cool headed nature and his empathy had always been a lie. Some wolves did have a hard time believing a witch. But they would have to listen to the voice of a wolf.

Gabriel would be able to change the mind of even the most stubborn blind believer.

“Alright,” I said quietly. “If that is what you want.”

“It is.”

I nodded once.

Gabriel looked at me for a long moment. Then he reached out and gripped my shoulder.

“There are things I need to tell you,” he said. “Things about Aldric. Things he has done. Deals he has made. People he has manipulated. Just in case… Just in case anything happens.”

My chest tightened.

“What kind of things?”

“Everything.” His voice dropped lower. “I know about the arrangements he made with members of the elder’s circle. I know who he has in his pocket. I know what he promised them in exchange for their loyalty.”

He paused.

“I know about Elder Saoirse. The secret he has been holding over her head for years. The one that’ll probably keep her voting whichever way benefits him most.”

I felt my pulse quicken.

“What secret?”

Gabriel didn’t answer immediately. His grip on my shoulder tightened instead.

“If I tell you now,” he said quietly, “you will react.”

I frowned. “Of course I will—”

“And someone will notice,” he cut in. “A guard. A servant. One of his people. It doesn’t take much. A look. A word in the wrong place.”

I stilled.

“He’s spent years building eyes and ears in this place,” Gabriel went on. “If that secret reaches him before I speak it in that room, he won’t wait for the trial.”

A cold weight settled in my stomach.

“What does that mean?”

“It means Saoirse disappears,” he said flatly. “Or worse, she walks into that chamber already prepared with a version of the truth that buries mine before I open my mouth.”

Silence stretched between us.

“And if that happens,” he added, quieter now, “I become a bitter man grasping at lies to save himself. The Circle won’t hear me. They’ll dismiss me before I finish the first sentence.”

I clenched my jaw.

“So you’re saying—”

“I’m saying timing is the only thing that makes this matter,” Gabriel said. “In that chamber, in front of witnesses, with no room to maneuver… he can’t control it. Not completely.”

His eyes held mine.

“That is the only moment Saoirse is forced to answer honestly.”

The urge to push didn’t fade. It sat there, sharp and insistent.

But I understood now.

This wasn’t just information.

It was leverage.

And used too early, it wouldn’t just lose its power.

It would be erased.

Even Valentine was able to maneuver the pact we had. Who knew who was in the walls listening?

“What else?” I asked.

Gabriel’s expression darkened.

“Elder Pryce. He is not just an ally. He is Aldric’s creature. Has been for over a decade. Every vote Pryce has cast in that circle has been at Aldric’s direction. Every decision he has influenced has served Aldric’s interests.”

My jaw tightened.

I had suspected Pryce was compromised. But hearing it confirmed made something cold settle in my stomach.

“And there is more,” Gabriel continued. His voice had gone quieter now. “Things that go even deeper than politics. Crimes that were never investigated because Aldric made sure the right people looked the other way.”

He stopped.

His eyes searched mine.

“There are deaths on his hands, Cian. Deaths that were ruled accidents. Deaths that were never questioned because the people who should have been asking questions were already working for him. Intentionally or unintentionally.”

My breath caught.

“Whose deaths?”

Gabriel’s face twisted into something that looked like grief.

“People you knew. People you loved.”

The words hit me like a fist to the chest.

I stared at him. Something in me already suspected.

“Who?” I asked, even though I suspected he would not answer.

I did tend to be reactive when it got too much.

He shook his head slowly.

I felt my hands curl into fists at my sides.

“Uncle—”

Uncle Gabriel shook his head.

“If I tell you now,” he said quietly, “you won’t let this trial finish.”

I stilled.

“You’ll go to him,” he continued. “You’ll look him in the eye knowing what he did… and you won’t walk away from that. You will simply not be able to do it. You will kill him.”

The truth of it sat between us, heavy and undeniable. It was like I already knew what he was hinting at, and my jaw tightened.

“And the moment you kill him,” Gabriel went on, “everything he’s buried stays buried with him.”

Silence stretched.

“The Circle never hears it,” he said. “His allies walk free. The people who helped him, who covered for him, who benefited from it… they disappear back into the shadows like they were never part of it at all.”

My chest rose and fell slowly.

I hated this.

I hated that he was right.

Gabriel stepped closer.

“I know what I’m asking of you,” he said, softer now. “I know what it costs. But if you want all of it to come out, if you want every name dragged into the light… then you have to let this play out.”

My hands trembled.

“After,” he said. “When it’s done. When he can’t hide behind anything anymore… I will tell you everything. Better than I could even tell the circle.”

I wanted to argue. I wanted to demand he tell me right now and confirm the sick feeling I had in my guts. But the look on his face stopped me.

He was barely holding himself together.

Whatever it was, whatever he was carrying, it was costing him something to keep it inside and as much as I wanted to confirm what I suspected, I had to keep calm.

I took a slow breath and let it out.

“Alright,” I said. “But you tell me. Before the day ends. You tell me everything.”

“I will.”

Gabriel’s hand dropped from my shoulder.

He looked around the room. At Valentine standing near the window. At Madeline still sitting by the fireplace. At Wilhelm, near the door.

Then he looked back at me.

“I am ready,” he said. “Whenever the trial resumes, I am ready.”

I nodded.

“Then we should head back. The hour is almost up. They will be calling us soon.”

Gabriel straightened as much as his body would allow. He rolled his shoulders back and lifted his chin.

For just a moment, I saw a glimpse of the man he used to be. The uncle I remembered from childhood. Strong, certain and unafraid.

Then the moment passed and he was just a broken man again.

But that was enough.

That would be enough to destroy Aldric.

I turned toward the door.

“Valentine. Wilhelm. You should come as well. The circle will want to hear how Gabriel was found. How he was brought here.”

Valentine inclined his head.

“Of course.”

Wilhelm pushed off from the wall.

“Lead the way.”

I walked to the door and pulled it open.

The hallway outside was still crowded. People turned to look when I stepped out. Their eyes went wide when they saw Gabriel behind me.

The whispers started immediately.

“Is that him?”

“That is Gabriel Donlon. Is he not the traitor?“

“He looks terrible.”

“What happened to him?”

I ignored them and started walking. Gabriel stayed close behind me. Valentine and the others followed.

The walk back to the great hall felt longer than it should have. Every step seemed to stretch. Every face we passed turned to stare.

By the time we reached the doors, the entire estate seemed to know.

Gabriel Donlon had returned.

And he was about to testify against his own brother instead of being executed on the spot.

I stopped at the entrance and looked back at my uncle.

“Are you sure about this?”

He met my eyes without hesitation.

“I have never been more sure of anything in my life.”

I nodded once.

Then I pushed the doors open and we walked inside.

The great hall fell silent the moment we entered.

Every head turned.

Every eye locked onto Gabriel.

I heard someone gasp. Then another. The silence broke into a wave of noise that rolled through the room like thunder.

Elder Callum stood from his seat at the front. His face had gone pale.

“Gabriel Donlon,” he said. His voice carried across the hall. “Is that truly you?”

Gabriel stepped forward.

He did not try to hide the dirt on his face. He did not try to stand straighter or look more composed.

He just stood there and let them see him.

“It is,” he said. His voice was steady and clear. “And I have come to testify against Aldric.”

The hall erupted.

People were shouting now. Demanding to know where he had been. How and why he was being treated humanely instead of being dragged across asphalt, punched in the head and belly with wolfsbane bullets and executed.

Elder Callum raised his hand for silence but it took several moments before the noise died down.

When it finally did, he looked at Gabriel with an expression I could not read.

“You were believed to be in self-imposed exile,” Callum said carefully. “Or dead for the crimes you committed against this pack and your own house.”

“I was neither,” Gabriel replied. “I am no traitor of this pack either. If anything, I was a prisoner. I was imprisoned. Beneath my own brother, Aldric Donlon’s estate. For years.”

The hall went silent again.

Every eye turned toward the area where Aldric would be brought back in soon.

I looked at the doors.

They would be bringing him up any moment now.

And when they did, he would walk into a room that had already turned against him.

Because Gabriel was here.

And Gabriel was ready to burn everything down.