Page 27

Ha-joon

Ellie overthrew a government.

She could say it wasn’t her all she wanted, but she damn well pushed over the first domino, and anyone with a damn brain knew that. Did she do it to overthrow a government?

No, not in the slightest… But that was where the chips landed when everything settled.

My partner had that kind of fucking power and it was beyond astounding. I was also really, really grateful she was on the side of good.

Really fucking grateful.

After her bombshell interview, she was hassled left and right for more comments and information. News media was all over ASH to get footage of the North American military escorting uninjured South American citizens through a portal. It wasn’t being brushed off anymore or left to handle later.

Our government finally acted—was pushed to act by Ellie.

They should have on their own. The South American government was challenging ours. It wasn’t just an oversight or prank. They were… Politics sucked.

But Ellie had a response for all of it. She was so poised and ready for all of the attacks, insults, and assertions that it was amazing. I could never be as smooth as her if I lived to be a thousand.

“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt nor judge the person busy doing it,” she told the media several times.

“The President of South America was very vocal that ASH could never become what it has and that this was all North American greed and a failed attempt to show our superiority.

“Once it was achieved, he changed his tune and spent years and years trying to slap it with a UN hospital label as if he’d had a hand in it.

That no one would notice or remember all his previous very loud comments.

Yes, many of us remember and were always going to stand in the way of his idiotic plan.

“The fact he did it during a horrific crisis affecting his citizens—one that killed over a hundred and was the failing of his government disgusts many of us. It should disgust the citizens of South America. They were suffering and he had his family help make a play on a private hospital in another country for money. Money he wanted for himself. Beyond disgusting.”

She had bigger balls than I did. Everyone said it again and again and was beyond impressed with her.

Funny how when they thought she was just the mouthpiece of the founder they tore her down as a loudmouth paper-pushing admin, but now that they knew she was the founder, they were behind her. It probably wasn’t that simple, but to some… It was.

Some people were that simple. It was fair to call a spade a spade.

But about a week after her interview, it came to a head, and in a desperate attempt to stop the dominoes falling, the President of South America came for who he saw as the head of the movement.

Ellie.

He wasn’t wrong, but it had gone way beyond her now, and rightfully so.

It was now like trying to throw a wine cork into a tornado.

He had protests all over his continent and…

There was no getting out of this. One exposé after another uncovering how other corruption and misdeeds were going to take him down.

But he came for Ellie.

Or the South American military did.

Yeah, it got that crazy.

I was outside with the running club wrapping up when a massive portal opened and soldiers started pouring out. I didn’t hesitate, grateful that one of the North American President’s aides slipped me their number in case of emergencies.

This was a fucking emergency.

I sent them a message with pictures of what was going on and then hit record, trying to call them on video.

Ellie was fearless, coming right out and making me want to run off with her and spank her for a week. Maybe more.

She really knew how to push the limits of how far someone could trust their partner. Truly push them.

But she was breathtaking and… There weren’t words for how cool my lover was.

She smirked at the general who demanded she surrender herself and ASH to them, publicly state it was a UN hospital. She stood there fucking smirking as he ranted.

“You done?” she chuckled darkly when he paused, seeming to understand he wasn’t going to get the reaction he expected.

She ignored the steam coming out of his ears and looked past him.

“This is not a UN hospital. This is a private hospital on sovereign land of North America, and you just invaded without reason.

“It can and will be considered a declaration of war and you will be party to that. Of a hospital .” She met the general’s eyes.

“You should have just gone for kindergartens and put the final nail in the coffin of your jobs. Seriously. This is so desperate and foolish that—aren’t you embarrassed to be party to this? To end your career this way?”

She knew how to piss people off and push every button to get a reaction as fast as possible. That was her greatest gift it seemed.

And it worked. The general snapped and made the mistake of putting his hands on her.

In front of cameras. Media that was there doing follow-up stories and trying to get whatever they could. Well, now they were getting footage that would go down in history.

Also, that no one would ever forget because Ellie folded that general up like a pretzel faster than most could even react to the change of things getting physical. He was unconscious and broken at her feet, people staring at her like they’d never seen her before.

And she simply chuckled, staring at the next in command.

“It’s public knowledge now who I am. I was born of a noble family, the only acknowledged heir of a coven leader hundreds of years ago.

Yes, he might be a criminal and a gambling addict—a rat bastard to everyone he meets—but it means I was trained .

” She snorted. “You should see me with a sword.”

Two more went for her and she handled them just as fast.

But the next one pulled a gun and put it to her forehead. “Enough.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” she purred, still fucking smirking.

“He won’t back you on this, fool. There’s media here filming live.

You think he’s going to say this was all him?

” She snorted when he frowned. “Oh, you’re the patsy here, darling.

You kill me and he gets his revenge, but you’re all traitors to supes because you came for a hospital.

“You cannot be this stupid and not see how he doesn’t keep his promises.

You will be rogue. You will be the problem or have gone over the top to try for this all yourselves.

” She looked past him. “Don’t be stupid!

This won’t change what’s happening.” She focused on the guy holding a gun on her.

“But if I die, you’re next. Are you really ready to die over this? ”

“I’m the one holding the gun,” he hissed at her. “And you’re—”

“But you’re not the only one holding a gun,” she purred…

As dozens of lights appeared on his chest. “Our security is top-notch. You even so much as twitch, you’re dead before you can pull the trigger.

They’re just letting everyone see that you pulled a gun on an unarmed hospital administrator.

One who protected herself. You pulled a gun on the head of ASH. Live .”

I fell to my knees when the guy held up his hand in surrender and let himself be disarmed by someone from the hospital’s security who appeared out of nowhere.

“You’re okay,” Sean whispered as he moved next to me, rubbing my shoulder.

“I’m really not,” I mumbled, seconds from a panic attack.

“Yeah, neither am I,” he admitted, his love for Ellie clear.

But Ellie was. She was completely fine , smiling evilly when portals started opening and North American military started pouring out to take invading troops into custody. It was beyond crazy and the ploy of a desperate man to hold onto power that should never have been his.

Yeah, great, it involved the woman I was in love with.

She cooed all over me when I was taken to the ED at her insistence. I thought that overkill, but when I saw where my blood pressure and vitals were… Yeah, I’d been about to pass out.

Awesome. And it would take a bit for my blood pressure to come back down no matter how great it normally was.

“No getting invaded right after your distance run, huh?” Ellie teased, immediately apologizing when she saw whatever was on my face or in my aura. She promised me it was never going to get ugly, Alan even jumping in and joking about way worse situations they’d been in.

That wasn’t helping. Hearing how many times she’d come close to dying protecting ASH did not fucking help . I finally grabbed her arm and made it clear that I wasn’t messing around. “There was a gun pointed at your head and he was ready to shoot. I had to watch that. Enough.”

“Sorry,” she whispered, moving onto the cot next to me. “Sorry, my Alpha. Yeah, this was scary when—it was scary.”

The joking didn’t help, but when she told me later that she saw in the guy’s aura that he wasn’t going to pull the trigger—yeah, that fucking helped. A lot. I lost my anger at her joking and… Everyone dealt with stress differently. I understood that. I really did.

But for fuck’s sake. Seriously.

She called it though. The South American President tried to deny everything. The bullshit that came out of his mouth was ridiculous, especially when someone in his cabinet had recorded the meeting where he ordered it. It was what the guy played to justify taking over the government.

But then someone took him over. It was a mess.

It was a mess that Ellie didn’t have to clean up, so she didn’t care much. She promised the other countries would put pressure on whoever won to have a real election in sixty days and would make sure it was a clean one just as they had before, Asia being the most recent example fifteen years ago.