Chapter 235 Protection From Himself
ADRIANA
I went through the stack fast, pulling envelopes apart before Hazel had finished setting them down on the desk. My eyes moved over each seal before I’d even fully unfolded the paper inside, checking the wax, checking the impression, setting it aside, reaching for the next one. The pile shrank steadily.
“Anything?” Hazel asked.
“Not yet.” I kept moving. “You’re sure these are all of them? Every single one?”
“I had the guards collect them together and deliver the whole batch at once so nothing would get separated. All accounted for.”
I set the last envelope down.
Nothing. Not one red crown among them.
I leaned back in the chair and pressed my fingers against my eyes. We’d been so certain about this. It had seemed so clean. Send the invitations, collect the replies, match the seal. I’d built the next stage of the plan around it working.
“What if it’s not an Alpha?” Hazel said quietly.
I looked at her.
“We sent the invitations to the Alphas because the seal pointed there. But noblemen use seals too. We didn’t include them.”
I turned it over in my mind. It was possible. It was also a significant widening of the field and another round of letters I’d have to write by hand.
“I don’t want to rule it out,” I said finally. “But I’m not writing tonight. We’ll send to the noblemen tomorrow.” I put the stack down. “In the meantime we’re stuck. I need to know who sent that original letter to Elijah and how they knew enough about the plan to warn him. That’s the thread that connects everything.”
Hazel sat across from me. “We need to put Damien on the stand tomorrow.”
I looked up.
“I know you wanted to build more before we got there. But right now we have portholes in the prosecution’s case and no formal argument from the defense side. The Elders are going to start pushing for dismissal and it won’t be in our favor. They can say we’re wasting their time. And if this closes without a proper verdict, you lose the support of the people.” She held my gaze. “His testimony has to set the stage. We use what he says to frame everything else we’re still gathering.”
“Fine,” I said. “Tell him tonight. He needs time to prepare. Tell him not to be afraid — just the truth, everything exactly as it happened.” I paused. “And tell him I’m not going to let them kill him.”
Hazel nodded and left to carry the message, and I stayed in Elijah’s office alone because it was the only room in this house where the silence felt like something other than emptiness. I sat on the couch and stared at the wall and tried to build the shape of tomorrow in my head.
I wished Elijah was here. Just to sit in this room with me and remind me that I knew what I was doing.
The door pushed open slowly.
Leo stood in the gap, one hand on the frame, looking at me with a careful expression. Like he was debating whether to come in or retreat.
“You’re still awake,” he said.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
“Lana was crying. You weren’t there, so I went.” He came inside and sat on the chair across from me, pulling his knees up. “I gave her a bottle. She’s down again.”
Something in my chest pulled tight. Fifteen years old and getting up in the night for his baby sister without being asked. “Thank you,” I said quietly.
He shrugged it off. “What’s going on? You’ve been like this for days.”
“A case I’m working through. It’s complicated.”
“Is it about the red crown?” His eyes had gone to the letters spread across the desk.
I didn’t see any point in deflecting. “Yes.”
He uncurled from the chair and came over, and I watched him pick up the sealed letter with the crown mark and look at it with serious focus.
“We sent invitations to all the Alphas,” I said. “We were trying to match the seal when they wrote back to confirm. It wasn’t there.”
He was quiet, still looking at the paper.
“I’ve seen this before,” he said.
“What?”
“This seal. And the handwriting.” He looked up at me. “I’m certain. I just can’t place where right now. I need to think.”
I sat forward. “Leo. Think carefully. This is important.”
He turned the letter over in his hands. “I had a full day today — I went out to sort everything for the twins’ birthday, the cake and the decorations and all of it. My brain is done.” He set the letter down gently. “But I’ll remember. Give me tonight.”
I looked at my son and felt the particular kind of trust that came from knowing someone’s character rather than just their intentions.
“How far along is the trial?” he asked.
I explained everything and he nodded.
“Why do you think he’s innocent if Dad already decided he was guilty?” he said when I finished, genuine curiosity on his face. “Dad doesn’t get things wrong.”
I thought carefully about how to answer. “Your father is one of the most precise people I know. But when it comes to people he loves being threatened, that changes. Someone put exactly the right information in front of him at exactly the right moment and he moved on it. I don’t blame him for that.” I held Leo’s gaze. “But I need to correct it. Because if Damien dies for something he didn’t do, that’s something your father will carry for the rest of his life.”
Leo was quiet for a moment. “So you’re not going against him. You’re protecting him from himself.”
“Yes,” I said. “Exactly that.”