Chapter 304 We'll Find Them
ADRIANA
After I told Simone to get out, I stood in the corridor for exactly three seconds and then I went to find Leo.
He had heard something from somewhere and I needed to get ahead of whatever version of events was circulating through this house before it reached the twins and Lorain in a form I hadn’t shaped first.
I knocked on his door. He opened it immediately, which told me he’d been waiting.
“You already know,” I said.
“I heard the twins talking in the corridor.” He stepped back to let me in. “Someone told them Lucien was taking my place. That you were going to lose your position.” He looked at me steadily. “Was it Simone?”
“Yes.”
He processed that with the particular contained quality he had when he was managing something that was costing him more than he was showing. “Is it true? About Lucien?”
“No,” I said. “Your position was formally decided by your father and the full council. That is settled and it is not reopening.” I held his gaze. “What Simone told the twins was designed to cause fear and confusion. That is all it was.”
“What did she tell Lorain?”
I debated it. “She told Lorain that Lana wasn’t safe here. That it was going to happen again.” I watched his face. “And that she had seen the person who took her.”
Leo’s expression sharpened immediately, the part of him that had been running the footage analysis for days, the part that had been working this problem quietly in his room while everything else happened around him.
“She knows who it is?” he said.
“She claims to. I’m going to find out exactly what she knows and how she knows it.” I moved toward the door. “I need you to go talk to the twins. They’re in their room and they’ve heard enough to be frightened. Tell them what I told you, nothing is changing, Simone was wrong.” I looked at him. “Can you do that?”
He nodded and left.
I took Lana from the nurse who had been holding her in the corridor and carried her to the sitting room and sent a guard for Simone.
“Sit down,” I said.
She sat.
“Since you took in upon yourself to tell my daughter that Lana wasn’t safe in this house,” I said. “You told her it was going to happen again. And then you told her that you had seen the person responsible.” I looked at her steadily across the room. "You said that deliberately, because you knew it would get back to me and you wanted leverage.” I paused. “So I’m going to give you the opportunity to tell me directly what you know. No more using my children as messengers.”
Simone looked at Lana for a moment. Then back at me.
The performance of confidence she had been maintaining since she arrived was thinner now. I could see the calculation underneath it — what telling me was worth, what keeping it was worth, which one served her better in a room with the Queen of the Lycan Kingdom and no audience.
“I was told to come here,” she said finally.
I kept my face neutral. “Tell me everything.”
“Someone contacted me months ago. They told me who Elijah was — who he really was, that he was the King. They explained the succession law and exactly how to approach the Elders so that it became a formal legal question rather than a personal one.” She looked at her hands. “They told me things were happening in this household. That there was instability. That the timing was right.”
“And in exchange?”
“They said they would help me establish Lucien in Elijah’s life. That with their guidance, Lucien’s claim would be recognized.” She paused. “I didn’t know everything they were involved in. I didn’t know about Lana’s kidnapping. When I found out — when I started to understand what they had actually done — that was when I used what I knew to protect myself.”
“By threatening a five-year-old,” I said.
She flinched slightly.
“Give me the name,” I said.
She told me.
I sat with it for a moment. The name was not a stranger. It was someone who had been close enough to this house to know its rhythms, its access points, its vulnerabilities. Someone who had been present at enough moments to understand exactly how to apply pressure and exactly where.
“How long have you been in contact with this person?” I said.
“Several months before I came here. The arrangement was clear, I come, I make the claim, I follow their guidance on the approach. In exchange, Lucien gets what he deserves.”
“Did they tell you about the letter to me? The demand that I divorce Elijah?”
Something moved in her face. “They said they were applying pressure from multiple directions. They didn’t give me details.”
“Did they tell you about the toxin in Elijah’s IV?”
Her face changed completely. “No,” she said. And I believed her — not because she was trustworthy but because the shock was too immediate to be performed. “No, I didn’t know about that.”
I stood up. “You’re going to write down every conversation you had with this person. Dates, what was said, everything. Tonight.” I moved toward the door. “And Simone. If you leave this property before I tell you that you can, or if you contact this person in any way, our arrangement is finished and the protection that comes with cooperating with me disappears entirely.” I held her gaze. “Are we clear?”
“Yes,” she said quietly.
I left the room with Lana and went to find Hazel. She was in the security office reviewing footage with two guards.
“I need you,” I said.
She looked up, read something in my face, and dismissed the guards immediately. When we were alone, I told her everything Simone had said.
“She gave you a name?” Hazel said.
“She did.” I looked down at Lana sleeping in my arms. “Someone who’s been close enough to this house to know its rhythms, its access points, its vulnerabilities. Someone who’s been present at enough moments to understand exactly how to apply pressure and exactly where.”
Hazel’s expression darkened. “Do you believe her?”
“About being manipulated? Yes. About not knowing the full extent of what was happening? I think she’s telling the truth about that too. She’s not smart enough to have orchestrated all of this on her own.” I shifted Lana carefully. “But she knew enough to be complicit. And she used what she knew to threaten a five-year-old.”
“What do you need from me?”
“I need you to have someone watch her. Every move. If she tries to contact anyone, if she tries to leave, I want to know immediately.” I paused. “And I need you with me tomorrow. Something tells me we’re going to need to move on this soon.”
Hazel nodded. “Done.”
I went back to my room, exhausted from the day, from the weight of everything pressing down. I should call Elijah, I thought. Tell him what Simone had revealed. But he was out with Lucien, trying to build something with his son, and I didn’t want to pull him away from that. Not yet. Not until I had something more concrete than accusations and a name I couldn’t yet prove.
Tomorrow would be soon enough.
I settled Lana in her cot and lay down on the bed, my mind already working through what needed to happen next. Verification. Evidence. A plan that didn’t give this person any warning we were coming.
I closed my eyes, but sleep didn’t come easily.