Chapter 230 Not Really Here
ADRIANA
I didn’t sleep.
Nancy had been settled into a guest room on the east wing with a maid and two guards outside her door. It was not to contain her, I’d made that distinction clear to everyone involved, but because Damon now knew exactly where she was and I was not going to be careless about that.
Lana was in her crib beside my bed and I checked on her twice before I gave up on sleeping entirely and went downstairs.
Hazel was already in Elijah’s office when I got there, which meant she hadn’t slept either. She had the Damien case files pulled and stacked in two columns on the desk, and she’d made coffee, and she’d put a second mug on the side closest to the door where she knew I’d sit.
I sat down and wrapped both hands around the mug and looked at the files.
“Before you say anything,” I said, “I know.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“You’re about to tell me what I’m walking into.”
She sat back. “Treason and conspiracy to kill the King are the two most serious charges in this kingdom. If you reopen a case that Elijah personally authorized based on evidence he received, there will be people who use it to argue that you’re undermining his decisions. That you’re using his absence to undo his judgements. Some of them will say it publicly.”
“I know.”
“And you’re doing it anyway.” That wasn’t a question.
“Damien hasn’t been executed yet. Which means I have a window, and if he’s innocent and I don’t use it, that window closes permanently.” I reached for the first file. “If the evidence is solid, the case holds and nothing changes. If it isn’t, then someone put an innocent man in prison and manufactured enough to make it stick, and that same someone has been using Damien’s imprisoned status to control Nancy for six months. I want to know which one it is.”
Hazel was quiet for a moment. Then she picked up her own file and opened it.
We worked in silence.
The case was longer and more layered than anything I’d had to untangle since taking over the administration. It started with Elijah transferring Damien from palace staff to an outlying pack. There was no specific reason recorded in the file, just a standard administrative note. Then a period of service as chief guard at his new post. Then the first accusation from the local Alpha on planning against leadership, which Damien denied and which was dismissed within the week for insufficient evidence.
Seven days later, the second accusation. This time supported by guard testimonies that appeared with remarkable speed and consistency. A conviction was processed through the elder council in under twenty-four hours.
I set my pen down and looked at Hazel.
“One day,” I said.
She looked up.
“The elder council ruled on a treason charge in one day.” I turned the file so she could see the timestamps. “When has any contested case moved through the council in one day?”
She read it. understanding settled in her face. “Someone pushed it.”
“Someone with enough pull to move six elders simultaneously and not leave anything on record about how the conversation happened.” I pulled the next file. “And then somehow, with no procedural bridge I can find anywhere in this stack, Damien’s charge changes from conspiracy against a local Alpha to conspiracy to kill Elijah. Different charge. Different severity. Different court. And that’s when he ends up in this prison.”
“Where’s the connecting document? There has to be something that authorized the escalation.”
“I can’t find it.” I’d been through three times already. “What I can find is that Elder Matthew told me Elijah received an anonymous letter. A tip. Specific enough that Elijah acted on it and personally authorized the arrest.”
Hazel set her file down. “And if that letter still exists—”
“It’s in this building somewhere.” I was already certain of that. “Elijah didn’t discard things like that. Not something he used to authorize a high-profile arrest. It’ll be somewhere he considered secure.” Without another word, we both up.
We went through the office first, every drawer and cabinet and folder. I opened the locked cabinet behind the desk that I’d been putting off touching for months because going through Elijah’s things still required a kind of emotional bracing. They were mostly contracts, correspondence, pack agreements going back years. Nothing that looked like a personal letter.
He looked through hus study off the bedroom. The small filing system he kept separate from the office. His desk drawers. The shelves.
Nothing.
I stood in the middle of the office and thought about the way Eijah usually categorized information. The distinction he drew between things he wanted accessible and things he wanted protected. And all the places in this building I’d been in regularly for six months. Yet, the one place I’d been deliberately, carefully, consistently avoiding for the longest time. It still wasn’t easy going in there, not because there was anything there I didn’t know about.
Because going in there was still the hardest thing I could think of doing.
“I think I know where it is,” I said.
Hazel looked at me. She read my face the way she always did, quickly and accurately.
“Do you want company?” she asked.
I thought about it honestly.
“No,” I said. “But thank you.”
I picked up my coffee and my phone and walked out of the office toward the stairs. The house was completely quiet around me, my children asleep, the guards at their posts, the whole building holding its breath.
I climbed the stairs slowly. When I reached the door, I stood outside for a moment.
Then I put my hand on the door and pushed it open, and the smell of antiseptic and soft machinery sounds met me like they always did, and I stepped into the room where my husband lay. Present but not really here.