Chapter 125 Ten Days Headstart
ELIJAH
“Say that again.”
They both looked at me. Both of them were still, as though hoping that if they stayed very quiet, the situation might resolve itself without them having to repeat anything.
“I’m not asking for dramatic effect. Say it again, clearly, so I am absolutely certain I have understood what you’re telling me.”
Hazel stepped forward.
“Alpha, we were going to tell you immediately. But that was the same day she arrived, and everything that happened with Jane distracted—”
“Did Adriana know about this?”
“No.” Aiden shook his head quickly. “She asked us once if something was going on but we didn’t tell her. We thought it involved her directly enough that you should be the one to decide how and when she found out.”
I turned away from both of them for a moment and looked at the far wall, trying to keep everything organized in my head.
Hannah and Lisa had broken out of the cells.
The guards had been found unconscious on the floor with no memory of what had happened and no explanation for how it was done. Four of them. All knocked out simultaneously. No signs of a struggle, no damage to the structure, nothing to suggest a conventional escape.
I had been standing in that living room dealing with Jane and Leo and my own barely contained fury, and somewhere beneath me in this same building, two people who had already put Leo in the hospital twice had walked out through a door that should never have opened.
I was furious. And the more violent part of me wanted blood.
I forced myself to remain calm and try to deal with this with a clear head. “How long ago?”
“A week and a half, Alpha.”
A week and a half. They had ten days of distance on us. They could be anywhere.
“And what exactly have the search parties found?”
“We swept the woods thoroughly. Multiple teams. There was nothing. No trail, no camp, nothing left behind. We also went through the village trying to locate next of kin, anyone who might know their movements or have heard from them.” Aiden paused. “We found no one who knew them. No family members who came forward. No one in the village recognized either of them when shown photographs.”
I stared at him.
“They are members of this pack. Hannah has been here for years. How is it possible that we went through the village and found no one who could identify her?”
Hazel shook her head slowly.
“I went back to the locations where we first encountered both of them and asked around myself. I showed pictures. No one could place either of them with any certainty. It’s like their presence here was always thinner than we realized.”
That information sat very badly in my chest. People with no roots, no family, no one who would notice them missing. That was not an accident. That was a particular kind of preparation.
There was something else sitting at the back of all of this that I had been avoiding looking at directly.
“The new guard,” I said. “Luke.”
The shift in both their expressions confirmed it before Aiden opened his mouth.
“He’s gone, Alpha. He reported a need to use the bathroom during his shift and never came back. The guards who were with him that day said there was nothing unusual before he excused himself. He simply didn’t return.”
I had given Luke a position in this house because I had made a judgment call. I had assessed him and decided he was trustworthy and extended him access accordingly. And now he was gone on the same timeline as Hannah and Lisa, and there were four unconscious guards who couldn’t explain what had happened to them.
I did not want to look at Hazel because I knew what her face would look like. She had reservations about Luke from the beginning. She had said as much without quite saying it directly, in the way she communicated things she wanted me to arrive at myself. I had not arrived at them fast enough.
“Have the men you sent out reported back with anything at all?”
“Nothing of substance.” Aiden kept his voice even. “No confirmed sightings. No physical evidence. It’s as though all three of them simply ceased to exist past a certain point.”
I pressed my fingers briefly against the bridge of my nose.
“Expand the search. Alert every neighboring pack — I want their descriptions circulated and I want to be contacted immediately if there is any sighting of any of them. Aiden, keep your teams in the field.” I paused. “Hazel, Luke is yours. Find everything there is to find about him. Where he actually came from, who he really is, every piece of it. Leave nothing.”
She nodded once.
“And Adriana does not hear about any of this. Not from either of you, not from anyone in this pack. If she finds out, it comes from me, in my time, in my way.” I looked at both of them. “If that line is crossed, you will answer for it directly. You can go.”
They left.
I stood alone in the office and thought about Hannah and Lisa and how much damage they had already done to Leo, and about Luke and the access I had handed him without earning it properly, and about the ten days of head start they already had while I had been standing in my living room managing grief that wasn’t even mine.
Adriana was at risk. That was the only thought that mattered when everything else was stripped away. Lisa would come back for her. That was a certainty, not a possibility.
I needed to tell her. I just needed to figure out how to do it without terrifying her in a way that made everything harder.
I did not know yet what that looked like. But I knew she deserved to hear it from me.