Chapter 188 MISSING PROOF
Chapter 185
Rosa's POV
"Lyra?"
The name tasted bitter on my tongue, like I had accidentally swallowed something rotten. I spat it out slowly, turning it over in my mouth like a pebble.
The guard kneeling in front of me kept his eyes low. He had watched my face twist and crumple like a piece of paper being crushed in a fist.
"Lyra?" I said the name again, quieter this time.
My mind started running like a dog chasing its own tail.
Could Lyra have changed her face? Worn my skin like a costume and walked right up to the guard to collect Jax's keys?
I almost laughed at myself for even thinking about it.
No. That was impossible.
Lyra was not Alpha Vexhood. She didn't carry that kind of power in her blood. She was an omega. A small, quiet thing who walked in shadows and kept her mouth shut.
Yes, I had always sensed something strange about her. Something hidden, like a knife tucked inside a sock. But shapeshifting? Swapping her face for mine? That was a different level entirely. That was not something a girl like Lyra could just wake up and do.
I pushed the thought away and snapped my eyes to the guard.
"What are you standing there for?" My voice cut through the air like a whip. "Go find me something to break that door open. Now."
"Yes, Your Honor." He scrambled to his feet so fast he nearly tripped over himself.
I watched him disappear down the corridor, his boots slapping against the floor in a panic.
He returned barely a minute later, breathing hard, holding a crowbar like he had sprinted to the ends of the earth and back. We forced the door open. The metal groaned and gave way.
I turned to him with flat eyes.
"You can go. I'll call when I need you."
"Yes, Your Honor."
I stepped inside Jax's living room and stopped.
The couches were everywhere. Pushed sideways, cushions half falling off, like something had been dragged across them in a hurry. One chair sat completely turned away from the others, facing the wall like it had been sent to a corner for misbehaving.
I frowned.
Jax never left his space like this. Never. The man lined up his shoes by color. He folded his blankets into perfect squares. This room? This mess? It felt wrong the way a crooked picture frame feels wrong, that quiet, itching feeling that something has been disturbed.
I moved deeper into the apartment, my footsteps soft and careful, the way you walk when you're not sure what you'll find at the end of a dark hallway.
I reached his bedroom door. My hand hadn't even touched the handle when a small breeze rolled in from somewhere and pushed the door open on its own. Slowly. Like the room itself was inviting me in.
I felt the hairs on my arms stand straight up.
I pushed the door fully open and stood in the doorway.
My mouth went dry.
Jax's bedroom, the king's bedroom, the most powerful room in the entire Stormfang pack, looked like a mouth with all its teeth knocked out.
The large safe on the left wall? Gone. The one where Jax kept his finest jewelry, gold chains thick as fingers, rings with stones that caught light like trapped stars. Gone. Not broken into. Not forced open. Gone. Like it had never existed.
My eyes flew across the room to the second safe. The tall iron one where Jax stored every important document that proved he was the rightful king of this pack. Land papers. Bloodline records. Pack agreements stamped in red wax. The kind of papers that, if lost, could make a king look like a nobody overnight.
Gone too.
My stomach dropped so fast I felt dizzy.
My legs forgot how to hold me. I reached out and grabbed the door frame just to stay standing.
Whoever did this hadn't just stolen gold. They had stolen proof. They had taken every single thing that tied Jax's name to his throne.
And yet they had left the furniture. The bed. The curtains. The useless decorations that meant nothing to anyone.
This wasn't a robbery done in panic. This was done by someone who knew exactly what mattered and exactly what didn't.
I walked slowly to the center of the room and sat on the floor.
For the first time in years, sweat gathered on my forehead. Cold sweat. The kind that comes not from heat but from fear. From realizing that someone had thought further ahead than you did.
The only name that kept coming into my head is …
Lyra.
Her name floated up from somewhere deep in my chest.
I pictured her face the first day she came into this palace. The lies she had told. She came from a distance pack. Rogues had ravaged her packs and she was the only one alive. Breathing and could have the courage to escape.
I didn't buy those lies. If not because caramel bought me into it. I wouldn't have employed her.
She doesn't sound genuine to me that day. Now, she had become a fishbone attached to my throat, difficult to swallow.
She thinks faster and smarter. Like she was already three steps ahead, walking calmly toward a door I hadn't even seen yet.
Should I challenge her openly? Or pull her back close and watch her? Make her feel safe until she leads me to everything she took?
The thoughts wrestled inside my head.
But one thing was clear: I could not let Lyra walk free with what she had taken. Not those documents. Not those papers.
I stood up. The anger came up with me, rising through my legs and into my chest like hot water filling a pot.
I left Jax's apartment the way a thief leaves after finding an empty house. All that planning. All that confidence. And nothing to show for it.
Back in my own room, I called for the guard. The same one who had handed me Jax's keys. I still wasn't completely sure he had helped Lyra, but I wasn't completely sure he hadn't.
"I need Lyra in front of me. Right now." I didn't raise my voice. I didn't need to. The quiet way I said it was scarier than shouting.
"Yes, Your Honor." He left immediately.
I dropped my face into my hands and stared at the floor, thinking hard.
I couldn't contact Alpha Vexhood yet. If I did, questions would start flying. People would want to know where Jax was. The whole pack had seen him leave in his vehicle with Leo. They had watched him go with their own eyes. If he didn't return soon, lips would start moving and ears would start listening.
I needed to handle this quietly. Fast. And clean.
"Your Honor, you sent for me."
Lyra's voice entered the room before she did.
I looked up slowly.
She stood near the doorway, hands tucked behind her back, chin level, expression as smooth and unreadable as still water. Nothing on her face said guilty. Nothing on her face said scared. She just stood there, calm as Sunday morning.
The guard who had brought her moved to step back toward the door.
"Don't you dare move." I pointed one finger at him. The finger didn't shake. "Come closer."
He obeyed, walking toward me in small, careful steps, like he was approaching a fire he wasn't sure was fully under control. His left leg trembled faintly, a tiny shiver he couldn't stop, like something cold had crawled up through the floor and grabbed his ankle.
I rose from my seat slowly.
"Lyra." I said her name gently. Almost sweetly. The same way you pick up a sharp object carefully so it doesn't cut you.
I tilted my head and looked at her. "Do you know what the greatest mistake I ever made was?"
I stepped toward her, closing the space between us with slow, deliberate steps.
"The day I let Caramel talk me into hiring you."
Something moved at the corner of Lyra's mouth. Not a full smile. Just the beginning of one. Like a small flame flickering in the wind that hasn't decided whether to blow it out or feed it. Her fingers moved quietly behind her back, rubbing together in tiny circles.
She wasn't afraid.
That, more than anything, made my blood run hot.
"I'm going to ask you one question," I said, stopping close enough to see the calm in her eyes. "And you're going to give me a simple answer."
I paused, watching her face the way a cat watches a mouse hole.
"I just came from Jax's bedroom." I let the silence sit heavy between us for a moment. "Where did you put everything you took from there, Lyra?”
She looked at me for a minute. Silence lingered between.
" I don't understand what you are talking about?"