Chapter 233 Unraveled
ADRIANA
Hazel and I did not sleep.
We set up in the meeting room with every relevant file spread across the large table, the coffee going cold in our cups before either of us remembered to drink it. There was a line between us that we were both careful about.
I could not help her build Damien’s defense, not directly, because the moment I did, my authority to preside over the trial became compromised. So we worked in parallel tracks, our notes close but never overlapping, speaking in careful sentences that circled around the boundary without crossing it.
It was slow and frustrating and necessary.
By somewhere past two in the morning, the house had gone quiet around us. The staff had long since retired. Even Lana had stopped fussing, which meant the night nanny had managed to settle her. I got up to get water and nearly walked directly into Nancy in the hallway outside the kitchen. She startled back, already dipping her head before I could stop her.
“My Queen, I’m sorry—”
“Adriana,” I said, for what felt like the hundredth time. “And stop apologizing for existing in the hallway. Come with me.”
I brought her to the sitting room and asked the one staff member still on night duty to bring tea. It was cold enough in the house that the warmth of the cup was immediately useful. We sat across from each other in the quiet, and I didn’t try to fill it right away.
“How are you holding up?” I asked eventually.
She took a long time to answer. When she looked at me, her eyes were swollen and the skin beneath them was a dark bruised purple from exhaustion and crying.
“I keep telling myself I have to hold it together,” she said quietly. “That it’s only the first day, that it’s too early to fall apart.” She paused. “But he looks so sick. I could see it just sitting across the room from him today. He’s lost weight. He looks like he hasn’t slept properly in weeks. And I had to just sit there. I couldn’t go to him. I couldn’t do anything.”
“I know,” I said. I didn’t try to make that smaller than it was. “He does look like he’s been through it. But he held himself together today. And so did you.” I held her gaze. “I need you to hear me clearly, I am not doing this halfway. This is not a gesture. I intend to get to the truth of what happened and I intend to correct it.”
She nodded, swallowing hard.
“Sleep tonight. I mean it. Tomorrow is going to be harder than today. Damon is going to be in that room, and the energy is going to shift the moment he walks in. I need everyone on our side of this to be steady and clear-headed.”
She stood and moved toward the door, as though she just remembered something, she stopped and turned back with her hand on the frame. “Thank you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “For being awake right now. For losing sleep over him.” She shook her head slightly. “I don’t have the words for it.”
I watched her go and then sat alone for a moment in the quiet of the room before going back to my notes.
I didn’t sleep at all.
When the first light came through the windows, I called the court into session.
Everyone was in their places.
Everyone except one.
I looked at the bailiff. “Where is Alpha Damon? The message went out yesterday and it was confirmed to be delivered.”
“He’s sent word that he’s running slightly behind, My Queen.”
I looked at the Chief Elder. The Chief Elder looked at the floor. I turned back to the room and made a decision. “We move without him. Bring the three men forward.”
The other men, Miller, Collins, and Kyle were escorted in from the side entrance and positioned in front of me. They stood still, but their eyes moved carefully, touching the edges of the room without landing anywhere for too long.
“State your names for the court.”
They did so, one at a time.
“How do each of you know Damien?” I looked at Kyle and kept my voice even and steady. “Let’s start with you.”
The main doors opened.
Alpha Damon came through them like the interruption was something he’d planned. He moved without hurry. Like a man who wanted the room to notice he was taking his time. His chin was up, his expression arranged into something that passed for an apologetic smile but didn’t reach anywhere near his eyes. He crossed the length of the room and stopped in front of me.
“Your Majesty, please forgive the delay. There was a matter that—”
I raised one hand. He stopped mid-sentence. I nodded to Hazel, who was already on her feet and crossing the room with the attendance log, and she set it open in front of me without a word.
I turned through the pages slowly. Deliberately.
“Every meeting from January through April — you were present. On time.” I turned another page. “May. Late. June. Sent a representative. July. Late again. August. Absent with a message about a prior engagement.” I looked up at him. “May, incidentally, is the exact month I began presiding over these meetings in Elijah’s absence.” I closed the log. “So I’m sitting here trying to decide whether your schedule genuinely collapsed at the same time I took over, or whether this pattern is a choice you’ve been making deliberately. Which is it?”
Something moved through his jaw. The smile became fixed, present but no longer functional.
“I appreciate you coming,” I said pleasantly. “But I’ve decided I won’t need you today after all. Your time is clearly very pressed. You can go, and I’ll send for you when I’m ready for your involvement.”
“Your Majesty, I think it’s important that I—”
“Did I indicate that the floor was open?” I looked at the bailiff. “Please escort Alpha Damon out of the courtroom.”
He held my gaze for a beat too long. Long enough to make the point that he was choosing to comply rather than being forced. Then he turned and walked, and the door closed behind him with a firmness that fell just short of a slam but carried every intention of one.
I let three seconds pass. Counted them internally. Then I looked back at the three men standing in front of me as though nothing had interrupted us at all.
“Kyle. You were about to explain how you know Damien.”
Kyle’s throat moved. His hands, I noticed, were not entirely still. “It’s been quite a while, My Queen. The details are — I’m having trouble placing exactly how it started.”
I looked at Collins. He gave me a nearly identical answer, the same vague framing, the same carefully empty expression. Miller said something similar with slightly different words.
I put my pen down on the table.
“Not one of you.” I looked at them each in turn. “Three grown men, involved in the transportation of weapons and explosives, and not one of you can recall how the arrangement began.” I stood. “Take some time. Think carefully and thoroughly. If the memory doesn’t surface on its own, I have other tools available to help it along, and I am not shy about using them. Are we clear?”
Miller’s composure shifted first, a small fracture, barely visible, but it was there.
“We met him at a bar, My Queen.” His voice was lower than before. “He came over to the table where we were sitting and said he had work available. Good work with steady pay. We assumed it was security work. He runs the King’s guard, it made sense that he’d be recruiting. By the time we understood what the actual job was, we were already involved.”
There it was. The first crack in the wall.
I turned to Hazel immediately. “Take Collins and Miller out. Separate rooms, no contact between them.” I looked at Kyle. “You stay exactly where you are.”
If their stories didn’t hold when told apart from each other — when there was no one to exchange looks with, no one to silently confirm the version — I was going to find exactly where the account fell apart. And when I found the seam, I was going to pull it until the whole thing unraveled and showed me what was underneath.