Chapter 256 Bargaining Chip
ADRIANA
I drafted the latter three times.
The first version was too angry, the emotion was visible in the word choices and visible emotion was exactly what he wanted, evidence that he’d landed something. The second version was too controlled in a way that would read as performance, and a man clever enough to run this operation for this long would recognize performance. The third version was what I actually sent.
It took me forty minutes to find the register — not unbothered, not desperate, but something that communicated clearly that I understood the game being played and had chosen to change the rules.
The letter read;
‘It’s about time. There’s only so long a man can operate from the shadows before it starts to look less like strategy and more like fear.
The boys — do what you want with them. Everything I needed from them is already documented, already on record, already beyond your reach regardless of what happens to them now. So congratulations on acquiring three young men who are no longer useful to either of us. I hope they were worth the effort of finding them.
Your execution attempts have been creative. Not effective, but creative. The failed assassination, the manufactured trial, and now this. I’ll admit there’s a certain commitment to the bit that I almost respect. Almost.
If you have something to say to me, say it. You know where I am. You’ve clearly always known where I am. Come and say it directly, over tea, like someone who actually believes in what they’re doing. Or keep sending letters from a distance and confirm what I already suspect, that you’re a man who has spent a very long time making sure no one can see his face, and the reason for that has nothing to do with strategy.
Show up. Or don’t. Either way, I’ll be here.’
I gave it to Hazel and watched her read it. She got to the third paragraph and her expression shifted.
“You told him the boys are worthless to you.”
“I told him the leverage he thinks he has doesn’t exist.” I corrected her and sat back. “He took those boys because he expected me to come running. To offer something, beg for something, put myself in a position he could use. The moment I remove the bargaining chip by making clear that I don’t need it back, he loses the reason he took them.”
“Or he kills them to demonstrate that the threat was real and you were wrong to dismiss it.”
“He won’t. Not yet.” I looked at the letter on the desk. “Right now I am the only thing he’s focused on. Killing those boys serves no strategic purpose at this point. It just tells me he’s moved from calculated to emotional. He’s not there yet.”
Hazel read the rest of it in silence. When she was done, she holded it and handed it back. “And if you’re wrong about any of this?”
“Then I carry it.” I met her eyes. “But I don’t think I am.”
She held my gaze for a long moment. I knew she didn’t agree with my decision, but she wouldn’t question because she trusts I know what I'm doing.
“How do we get it to him?”
“He left his letter at the gate. We leave ours at the gate.” I stood up. “He’s watching this house. He’s been watching this house for longer than we realized. He’ll see it. And when someone comes to collect it, we’ll have people watching who that someone is.”
Hazel was already thinking through logistics. “I’ll set the watch up discreetly. People he wouldn’t recognize as ours.”
“Good.” I picked up my bag. “I have somewhere to be. Two places, actually.”
“Do you need—”
“No. Go set the watch. I’ll be back before dark.”
I drove to Damien’s without telling anyone where I was going, which was probably inadvisable given everything, but some conversations needed to happen without a security detail hovering.
Damien answered the door quickly and stepped back to let me in, and I could smell something cooking.
We sat across from each other at the kitchen table and I didn’t soften the lead-up.
“Elijah sent you to take the Alpha position,” I said. “You gave it to Damon instead. I need to know why, and I need you to actually tell me this time.”
He looked at the table between us. The silence stretched.
“Damien.” I kept my voice even and direct. “I have a man poisoning my husband from inside my own house. I have three young men being held somewhere by someone I cannot identify. I have a red crown symbol that leads nowhere and a tattoo on a wrist I’ve never seen.” I paused. “Every thread in this investigation leads somewhere. This one leads to you and I need to follow it.”
He looked up. Something in his face shifted. The resistance gave way not to willingness exactly but to resignation, the kind that came from understanding that holding out was costing more than releasing.
“Nancy was dying,” he said. “She had a blood condition that was progressing and not responding to treatment.” He looked past me at the wall. “A witch told me about Damon. She said he was a golden one, that his blood had properties that could heal what medicine couldn’t. She said he was the only option left.” He cleared his throat. His eyes glossed over like he was remembering that scene. “So I went to him. And he named his price.”
“The Alpha position.”
“Yes.”
“And you paid it without going to Elijah first.”
“I was scared. I didn’t have time to go through proper channels and I didn’t want to owe the King something that large and personal.” His jaw tightened. “It felt like something I could handle myself. I was wrong about that.”
“Nancy doesn’t know.”
“She thinks I stepped back for political reasons. She doesn’t know about her blood, about Damon, about any of it.” His voice dropped. “She can’t know. She’ll spend the rest of her life blaming herself for what Damon did to Damien, to both of us, and I won’t let that happen to her. She’s been through enough.”
I heard the faint sound of footsteps somewhere behind me, stopped now, present in the hallway.
“She’s there,” I said quietly. Not a question.
Damien closed his eyes briefly.
I turned around.
Nancy was standing at the hallway entrance with her arms folded and an expression that was not anger and not devastation but something more complex than either. The face of a woman processing several things simultaneously and doing it very quietly.
“My Queen,” she said. Her voice was steady. “Thank you for coming. I think we need some time.”
It wasn’t unkind. It also wasn’t negotiable.
I stood, gave Damien an apologetic look, because I was genuinely sorry for how that had landed — and walked to the door and let myself out.