Chapter 99
Emily
I was really getting tired of finding unexpected mail waiting for me in the morning.
The envelope didn’t belong there. It was too plain: cream–colored thick like parchment, with no name on the front. Just a single seal pressed into the back flap: the Blackwood Pack crest.
My birth Pack.
I stared at it on the floor just inside my office door, where it must have been slipped under sometime before I’d arrived. The was no sign of who left it.
A familiar chill crept up my spine. I closed the door behind me before crouching low to pick it up.
The moment I turned it over in my hands, I knew.
This wasn’t from a stranger. This was from someone who knew exactly what they were doing, and who knew how easily this could fall into the wrong hands.
I sat at my desk, fingers trembling as I broke the seal.
Inside was a bundle of documents. A set of aging land transfer records, old Pack meeting minutes annotated in a hand I recognized: my mother’s.
And tucked behind them all, a folded slip of paper scrawled in rushed, narrow handwriting:
I always said she kept too much to herself. But she was protecting you, Emily. And your future.
The land wasn’t meant to disappear…it was taken. Don’t trust anyone until you’ve read it all.
-L.F.
L.F. My mind searched the initials. Liam Farraday. The Pack historian. He was a distant cousin, once close to my mother. I hadn’t seen him since I was a teenager.
I spread the papers across my desk, heart pounding as the weight of it all sank in.
Deeds with my mother’s signature, transfers of land that shouldn’t have been approved without notarization. Minutes missing
pages.
And then: a hidden note, handwritten and nearly illegible, folded into the back of a folder. The words were few, but they made my heart race:
He pushed the vote. Records doctored. Your mother objected. She knew it wasn’t legal. Said she’d challenge it.
My hands clenched around the edge of the desk. That land had been hers. Sacred territory. She’d refused to let them develop it, and for that, they’d called her irrational. Disrespectful. Weak.
But she’d been right.
The truth had been there, hidden in forged documents and missing minutes. And someone–Liam?-had kept copies, waiting for the right time to pass them on.
I sat there for a long moment, the implications pressing around me. My throat ached.
My mother had fought harder than I’d ever known. And they’d buried it. Just like they buried her. And were trying to bury me.
I moved automatically, organizing the documents into a discreet file, tucking the original note and the worst of the damning
evidence between two trade memos.
I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and unlocked the small, steel–lined box I kept inside.
Chapter 99
+25 BONUS
It was supposed to hold nothing but titles and administrative nonsense. Now it held the last scrap of my mother’s voice.
Something about it felt too personal to share, especially now. Especially when I wasn’t sure who might be watching, even from
within these walls.
Trust wasn’t something I could afford to offer blindly, not when it had been so consistently weaponized against me.
And yet… a flicker of guilt stirred. Logan stood beside me at the Sanctuary. He’d kissed me like I meant something more.
I closed my eyes. I’m not ready share this with him. Not yet.
This was the beginning of something. A crack in the foundation my father built on lies and intimidation. If I played this right, if my legal team played this right, it could be everything.
But only if I kept it safe.
I hesitated, fingers grazing the paper before I shut the box and turned the key.
I’d just finished locking the drawer when the subtle rhythm of Logan’s footsteps reached my ears. They were steady, grounded, unhurried in a way that made my stomach clench.
