Chapter 214 The Hunt Begins

Chapter 214 The Hunt Begins
The words Scarlett had screamed followed Piper long after she walked away from the prison. They stayed with her through every step back to the car, replaying in her mind no matter how hard she tried to push them aside.
She had expected anger from Scarlett. She had expected the woman to lash out, to twist the truth, or to manipulate every weakness she could find. She had expected another carefully constructed lie meant to keep everyone chasing shadows.
What Piper had not expected was fear.
Not fear coming from Scarlett herself, but fear hidden inside the things she had said. Fear that something far worse existed beyond the answers they already had.
Irene found the truth.
You’ve been lied to.
You’ll end exactly like she did.
The words refused to leave Piper’s thoughts.
She sat silently in the passenger seat as Ember drove them away from the prison, her eyes fixed on the passing trees outside the window while her mind moved through every possibility. Every explanation seemed to create more questions instead of answers.
“She was trying to scare you,” Ember finally said after several minutes of silence.
Piper slowly turned her head to look at her.
“You believe that?”
Ember kept her attention on the road ahead.
“I believe Scarlett enjoys making people uncomfortable. She knows exactly what to say to make someone doubt themselves.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
A quiet sigh escaped Ember as she tightened her hold slightly on the steering wheel.
“No,” she admitted. “I don’t think those words were random.”
Piper looked back toward the window, watching the scenery blur past them.
Neither did she.
Scarlett had spent their entire conversation trying to maintain control. Even when Piper accused her of hiding information, even when she confronted her aboutIrene, Scarlett had remained calm and collected.
But that changed the moment vlad’s name was mentioned.
And it changed again when Cecil was brought up.
Something about those two names had reached beyond Scarlett’s carefully controlled exterior.
“She knew something,” Piper said quietly.
Ember glanced at her.
“AboutCecil?”
Piper shook her head slightly.
“About everything.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than before. Neither of them wanted to admit how much Scarlett’s words had affected them, but both of them understood that something important had shifted.
By the time they returned to the pack grounds, the festival atmosphere from earlier felt like it belonged to another lifetime. The music, the laughter, and the celebrations that had filled the territory only hours ago seemed distant and disconnected from the reality Piper now carried with her.
She had spent months believing the answers were hidden inside Scarlett’s confession.
She had believed that if they uncovered every detail of what happened years ago, they would finally understand why Irene disappeared and why everything that followed had fallen apart.
Now she wasn’t even sure they had been searching in the right direction.
The moment they entered the pack house, Piper headed straight toward the records room without wasting another second. Ember followed behind her, already knowing that trying to convince Piper to slow down would be pointless.
“Please tell me you actually have a plan,” Ember said.
“I do.”
Ember raised an eyebrow.
“That usually means you have no plan.”
Piper ignored the comment and pulled open one of the older files stacked along the shelves.
“Cecil disappeared because she knew something.”
Ember crossed her arms.
“Or because Scarlett made her disappear.”
“Maybe.”
Piper scanned through the documents, searching for anything they might have overlooked.
“But Scarlett never said she killed her.”
Ember leaned against the table.
“She said she helped put Cecil where she needed to be.”
“That means Cecil was hidden.”
“And you think we can just find her?”
Piper looked up from the file.
“No.”
She placed the document down carefully.
“But I think someone knows where she is.”
Ember immediately understood what Piper meant.
“Elsa.”
Piper nodded.
“She went to Scarlett before we did.”
The thought bothered Piper more than she wanted to admit.
Elsa had not visited Scarlett because she cared about uncovering the truth. She had not gone there because she wanted justice for Irene or answers for the packs.
She went because she hated Piper.
And that meant whatever information Scarlett had given her was not something Piper could ignore.
“We need to find out what Elsa knows,” Ember said.
Piper closed the file in front of her.
“And we need to do it before she finds a way to use it against us.”
For the next several hours, they searched through every piece of information they had collected about Cecil.
They studied her movements, looked through her connections, and examined the names of the people she trusted most.
The lack of information became more frustrating with every passing minute.
“She disappeared without leaving a trail,” Ember muttered as she looked through another report.
Piper stared down at the papers scattered across the table.
“No.”
Ember looked up.
“What?”
“She didn’t disappear without leaving a trail.”
Piper tapped one of the documents sitting near the edge of the table.
“We just never knew what we were supposed to be looking for.”
Her eyes moved over the page again, focusing on a small note buried inside one of the final reports Archie helped her create after Cecil vanished.
It was nothing more than a simple mention of a supply purchase outside the main territory.
Nothing suspicious.
Nothing that would have caught anyone’s attention.
Except for the location.
Piper recognized it immediately.
“She went here.”
Ember stepped closer, studying the paper.
“Are you sure?”
Piper grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair.
“No.”
She looked toward the door.
“But it’s the first thing we’ve found that actually connects to where she was going.”
Neither Piper nor Ember noticed the person standing beyond the schoolrounds, hidden among the darkness and watching them carefully.
Waiting.
The man had followed Piper ever since Elsa gave him his instructions.
At first, he believed his task would be simple.
Follow her movements.
Learn her habits.
Wait until the perfect moment arrived.
But Piper had done something he never expected.
She had started searching for Cecil.
The same woman he had been trying to find after she freed herself from where he kept herand ran away.
He watched as Piper and Ember left the building with a new place in mind, their determination carrying them toward the answer they had been chasing for months.
he realized something had changed. Piper Moore was not the target.
She was the path.
And if she continued following where she was going, she would lead him exactly where he needed to go.