Chapter 92 Intelligence

Chapter 92 Intelligence


Jacob's Pov

The letter was on the ground on the outside of the fence when Hal found it at four in the morning.

He brought it to me at the inn without saying anything. He set it on the table and stepped back and watched my face.

My name was on the outside in her handwriting.

I opened it and read it once fast and then once slowly.

"Stephanie is alive," I said.

Darius looked up from the map.

"She is on the estate," I said. "In an outer building. They staged the death from the beginning. The accusation, the sale, all of it. It was arranged before any of it happened."

"The whole sequence was designed," Darius said.

"Yes," I said. "Eric came to the pack for an alliance. He saw Violet. He saw the gift. He decided the gift was more valuable than the original plan. So they adjusted."

"What was the original plan," Caius said.

"Take over Jacob's pack," Darius said. "That was always the goal. Eric wanted the territory. Stephanie was going to be the mechanism. She was positioned close to Jacob. She had access. She was going to destabilise the pack from the inside."

"Then they saw Violet," Caius said.

"Then they saw what Violet could do," I said. "The gift changed the calculation. A woman who can predict any battle outcome before it starts is worth more than one pack's territory. She is worth a region."

"So they pivoted," Caius said.

"They staged Stephanie's death," I said. "They manufactured an accusation against Violet. They gave her parents a reason to sell her. They moved her to Eric's territory where he could use the gift directly."

"Six months of battles won," Darius said.

"Every one of them," I said.

"Now the baby is coming," Darius said. "The gift may be hereditary."

"So the plan shifts again," I said. "Take the child. Keep the gift through Eli if it passes to him. Remove the part of the equation that is no longer necessary."

"Remove," Caius said.

"Yes," I said.

"She sent this letter from the northeast shed gap," Hal said. He was looking at the map. "That is a hundred yards from the house. She walked there in the dark."

"She was in labor when she wrote this," I said.

The table went quiet.

"How do you know," Darius said.

"She says so," I said. "At the end. She says she cannot cross the perimeter tonight because her body will not allow it. She needs a way out before or after Eli arrives."

"She is in active labor in that house right now," Hal said.

"Yes," I said. "While a man who is planning to have her killed after delivery sits in the corner chair and calls for the healer."

I stood up.

"Sit down," Darius said. "We plan first."

"We plan fast," I said. But I sat.

"The southwestern corner is closed," Darius said. "Three posts. You cannot use the tree."

"I know," I said.

"The service corridor and Mira," he said. "Eric knows that route. He will have closed it."

"Almost certainly," I said.

"The garden gate," he said.

"He walked her away from the northeast shed last night," I said. "He is watching that corner now. The garden gate will be part of that watch."

"Which leaves the eastern section," Caius said.

"Tell me again," I said.

"Forty yards from the northeast corner," Caius said. He put his finger on the map. "The ground on the outside rises naturally. A bank. Approximately eighteen inches of elevation. It reduces the effective climbing height of the fence from the outside."

"And the inside," I said.

"The interior ground at that section is lower than the fence by approximately two feet," he said. "The drop on the inside is shorter than anywhere else on the perimeter."

"Guards," I said.

"One rotation at that section," Caius said. "Twenty-minute swing. It is not a priority section. It is far from the gate and far from the residential wing."

"What else is far from the residential wing," Darius said.

"The outer building," I said. "Where Stephanie is staying."

"Which means Stephanie can see the eastern fence from her building," Darius said.

"Can she," I said.

Caius thought about it. "The outer building faces west," he said. "The eastern fence section is on the opposite side of the property."

"She cannot see it," I said.

"No," Caius said.

"Then we go in there," I said.

"From the eastern fence to the house is one hundred and twenty yards," Caius said. "Sixty percent of open ground. Sixty percent of tree coverage."

"The torch lines do not reach the interior at that section," I said.

"The trees block the throw," Caius said. "Yes."

"So if we get over the fence and into the tree line, we are in darkness for sixty yards," I said.

"Yes," Caius said.

"And across sixty yards of open ground before that," Darius said.

"In the dark," I said. "The torches face outward. The interior grounds are not well-lit in that section."

"It is still sixty yards of open ground," Darius said.

"I know," I said. "We move fast."

Darius looked at me.

"What do we do when we reach the house," Hal said. "Specifically. She is in active labor. She cannot move at any speed."

"We get to her and we assess," I said. "If she can move, we move her. If she cannot, we hold position until she can."

"Hold our position inside Eric's house," Darius said.

"Yes," I said.

"While he is in the house," Darius said.

"We deal with what is in front of us," I said. "She is in labor and he is planning to use the time after delivery to remove her. If we are not inside when that window opens, we cannot change what happens."

"And the six wolves outside," Hal said.

"They hold the fence line at the eastern section," I said. "When we come out, we come out with Violet. The wolves create a clear corridor to the boundary."

"And Eric," Darius said.

"Is not our problem once we are past his fence," I said. "His authority ends at his boundary."

"He will pursue," Darius said.

"Let him pursue," I said. "We will be on neutral ground with Caius and with proof of what he has been doing. He cannot pursue onto neutral ground without a legal basis."

"He will manufacture one," Darius said.

"Maybe," I said. "But that takes time. By the time he has manufactured it, we will have Violet and Eli somewhere he cannot reach them."

"Where," Darius said.

"My pack," I said. "My father has already said he will make the public statement I asked for. The pack will accept Violet back. They will accept Eli."

"Your father is also the man who sold her in the first place," Darius said.

"I know," I said. "I have not forgotten. But right now his pack is the only territory unambiguously out of Eric's jurisdiction. Once she is inside those borders, Eric has no legal claim on her or the child."

Darius looked at the map. He looked at Caius. He looked at Hal.

"Eastern fence," he said.

"Eastern fence," I said.

"Tonight," he said.

"Right now," I said. "We have been sitting at this table long enough."

I stood up. This time nobody told me to sit back down.

"Caius," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"You are coming," I said.

"I said I was coming," he said. "I have not changed my position."

"You are sixty years old and we may be running," I said.

"I have been running toward this for twenty-three years," he said. "Tonight is the easiest version of it."

I looked at Hal. "The wolves," I said.

"Outside," he said. "Waiting since midnight."

"Eastern fence," I said. "Forty yards from the northeast corner. Move."

He went out the door.

I looked at the map one more time. The estate. The eastern section. The sixty yards of open ground. The sixty yards of tree cover. The house at the end of it.

She was in there right now.

She had walked to a shed in the dark in labor to push a letter through a gap in a wall so I would know what was happening and know to come.

I put the map in my jacket.

"Let us go," I said.