Chapter 155 Chapter 155

Chapter 155 Chapter 155
Asher's POV

Hunter showed me the message the second I walked back into the study, his face was pale and his hand was shaking slightly as he held the phone out.

Three days, is it? How convenient that you all know exactly when to expect him now.

"Someone heard us," I said, my stomach turning cold. "In here. In this room."

"That's supposed to be impossible," Hunter admitted.

"This study gets swept for surveillance every single week and my father's most trusted guards stand outside that door."

"Trusted by who?" Maria asked grimly, already pulling out her own phone.

"We thought McCall was trustworthy too. Coach Dawson. Zoe. Yvaine. This family has a long, painful history of trusting exactly the wrong people."

Taylor sat frozen in her chair, her face drained of color.

"If they know he's three days out," she said, "they'll try to intercept him before he ever reaches us."

"We need to warn him," I announced. "Immediately."

Taylor was already dialing, her hands trembling, and the three of us waited in tense silence while the call connected.

"Dad," she said with relief and fear tangled thick in her voice once he finally picked up.

"Someone intercepted our conversation and they know your timeline. You need to change course, now, before whoever this is finds you."

I couldn't hear his response, but I watched Taylor's face shift through fear, determination, and finally something steadier as her father clearly reassured her.

"He says he'll change his route," she said, once the call ended.

"He's been careful this whole time, expecting exactly this kind of thing eventually. He's not panicking."

"Good," Hunter confirmed.

"But we still have a leak somewhere close to us. That's the real problem now."

”

Maria spent the next several hours running through every possible surveillance gap, every guard rotation, every staff member who would have access to the study during our meeting.

"I have a shortlist," she announced finally, exhaustion evident in her voice.

"Three guards rotated through this hallway during our conversation. One staff member delivered refreshments partway through. I want to interview all of them separately, tonight."

"Do it," Hunter ordered.

I sat quietly through most of it, my mind circling back again and again to Taylor, to the fear still etched clearly across her face even hours after her father's reassurance.

"You okay," I asked her quietly, once Maria had left to begin her interviews.

"No," she admitted.

"I thought this part was over. I thought once Kessler and Yvaine were gone, my family could finally just be a family again, without someone constantly listening in the shadows."

"I know," I said, taking her hand. "I'm sorry this keeps happening."

"It's not your fault," she said, leaning into me.

"None of it ever has been and I just wonder sometimes if this pack is ever going to stop attracting people who want to use us for something."

I didn't have a good answer for that.

I simply held her, letting the quiet comfort of just being close to what words couldn't fix.



Maria's interviews turned up something concerning by midnight.

One of the three guards, a relatively new addition to the rotation named Corbin, had a financial history that raised immediate red flags, payments similar in pattern to what we'd found with McCall years before.

"He's not talking," Maria said, meeting us in the hallway outside the interrogation room.

"Denies everything. But the pattern's too familiar to ignore."

"Arrest him," Hunter ordered. "Formally and we can't afford to give him the benefit of the doubt anymore, not with everything on the line right now."

Maria nodded and moved to handle it, leaving the three of us standing together in the quiet hallway, the weight of the night finally starting to settle heavy over all of us.

"Whoever's doing this," Taylor announced slowly, "they're patient and methodical. Exactly like Yvaine was. Maybe even worse, if they managed to plant someone inside palace security this fast."

"We'll find them," I confirmed, though the words felt smaller than I wanted them to, against the size of everything still unknown.

"I know," she added.

"I just wish, for once, that finding out who they are didn't always come after they've already hurt someone."

I drove her home just before dawn, both of us exhausted beyond words, the fragile peace we'd built over the past six months feeling further away than it had in a long time.

"Three days," she chipped quietly, staring out the car window.

"If Dad manages to actually make it home safely with the severance text, this could finally end for good. Not just delayed, sctually it ended."

"I hope so," I said. "You deserve that ending, Taylor. All of us do."

She reached over and took my hand, holding on tight the rest of the drive, neither of us saying much else, just needing the quiet comfort of not facing the uncertainty completely alone.

I walked her to her door, kissed her goodnight softly, and watched until she was safely inside before finally heading home myself.

My mind was still turning over everything from the night, the leak, the guard, the message that had arrived timed so perfectly it left no doubt someone new and dangerous had already been watching us far longer than any of us realized.

My phone buzzed as I pulled into my own driveway.

Hunter.

Corbin's talking now. You need to hear this. He wasn't working alone, and the name he just gave us isn't anyone we've dealt with before.