220 The One Who Never Left
Mara
a
Darian was already outside, waiting in the car. I slipped into the passenger seat, my thoughts still tangled in the dead worker and the dark implications behind his silence.
Tiffany wasn’t with us. She’d gone to spend the day with her mother. Since Lucian had arrested her father, their bond had somehow repaired itself, healing born from truth, no matter how bitter. I was happy for her. She deserved that peace.
“What kept you?” Darian asked as he pulled away from the driveway.
I told him about the staff member. The body. The suspicion I hadn’t voiced but couldn’t ignore.
He exhaled sharply. “Damn.”
His hands tightened on the wheel, and I noticed the tension rippling across his jaw. He was holding something back.
“What is it, Darian?” I asked, unease already stirring in my chest.
He didn’t answer right away.
“We can’t talk about it here,” he muttered.
I cut in, my voice rising. “Damn it, Darian. Enough with the suspense. Tell me. Is Lucian alright? Has he been found? Is there anything?”
The fear clawed up my throat, hot and suffocating. Tears blurred my vision.
“Tell me!” I screamed.
He pulled over, tires crunching against gravel as the car jerked to a stop.
He slammed his fists against the steering wheel and turned to me, eyes glassy.
“Keep it together, Mara,” he said, voice trembling. “You’re not the only one breaking here.”
I fell silent.
“And no,” he continued, “nothing. Still. No word. It’s like the four of them just vanished off the face of the earth. We’ve tried everything. They didn’t travel under their real names, and the identities Rowan gave them… they don’t exist in anysystem. Someone erased them, completely.”
He choked on the next breath, shaking his head.
“I’m tired too, Mara.”
His voice cracked.
“He’s my big brother. He’s the only part of my family that still makes sense. I love him. I need him. And I’m scared. Terrified. If Chase got to him…”
He looked away, swallowing the emotion he couldn’t hide anymore.
“This is too much for me too.”
1/3
His words shattered something in me.
I looked at him, really looked at him, and saw not just the Beta, not just the strong second-in-command. I saw the boy I’d grown up with. The one I used to sit beside in the park as teens, sharing secrets and dreams, caught in that strange in-between space between childhood and the lives we were meant to build.
This moment felt like that again.
Frozen between hope and truth. Drowning in signs we didn’t want to accept.
I placed a hand on my bump and closed my eyes.
Please, I whispered. Bring him home to me. Bring him back to us.
After a while, Darian spoke again.
“Father wants to see the letters. We’re taking them to him.”
Then he hesitated.
“I think they’re preparing to name me Acting Alpha.”
The words hit like a slap.
The shift was happening. Slowly. Silently.
And the fact that no one was saying Lucian was dead didn’t mean they weren’t beginning to plan for it.
I stared out the window, my hand still resting on the curve of my stomach, and whispered the only thing I could still believe in.
“He’s coming back.”
But even I wasn’t sure anymore.
We arrived at the hospital expecting nothing new, but the moment we walked in, something felt off. Vander was alone, sitting stiffly in the chair beside Martha’s bed. His presence wasn’t surprising, what unsettled me was the absence of Lacy.
Did he send her away? Or worse?
Before I could ask, Vander looked up at us.
“Any news?” he asked. His voice was low, hoarse with sleeplessness. In just three weeks, the Alpha had aged. The fine lines on his face had deepened into cracks. His shoulders slumped, not from age, but from despair.
I shook my head. Darian stayed silent beside me.
Vander turned toward the bed, where Martha lay still and unresponsive.
“Why did he have to go to that damn island?” he muttered, grief and fury threading his voice together like barbed wire. Lucian was his favorite, his pride. It was etched in every word.
The silence that followed was heavy.
Then Vander turned back to us, and with a voice that tried to be steady, he said, “Darian, you will be commanding the military henceforth. Mara needs to rest, for the baby’s sake.”
Darian blinked, stunned. “Why?”
Vander exhaled like the weight on his chest had tripled. “I’m not sure yet… but we need to be ready for
212
220 The Une Who Never Lett
anything.”
+8 Points >
He placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, heavy, almost apologetic. “I wish it wouldn’t come to this. I wish Lucian were here to handle everything. But things haven’t been going our way. And if a battle breaks out, I’ll lead it myself.”
That shook both of us. The Vander we knew was more council table than battlefield now. His declaration wasn’t out of duty, it was desperation. The possibility that Lucian wasn’t coming back had broken him. And in that moment, something in me broke, too.
I glanced at Martha again. Still unmoving. Still locked in silence.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
If no one was going to find my husband, I would.
Before I could speak, Vander asked, “Where are the letters?”
Darian reached into his jacket and pulled out the envelope. Vander took it, opened it, and examined the pages. His eyes scanned the writing, but he didn’t lift the pages to sniff them, he didn’t need to.
“It’s a good.copy,” he said grimly, “but this isn’t Martha’s handwriting. The checks are real, but the letters
aren’t.”
Just like that, our suspicions were confirmed.
Martha hadn’t tried to kill herself.
She hadn’t written those goodbye notes.
The woman might’ve been bitter, but she was also a survivor, and far too self-involved to leave her fate to poison. Someone else orchestrated that scene.
Someone with access to her finances.
Someone who knew enough about Darian and Lacy to forge a convincing lie.
My thoughts flashed to the dead staff member we found earlier, the one who had supposedly taken his own life in the mansion. I no longer believed he acted alone, if he was involved at all. That was a cleanup job. A cover-up.
Two people had been poisoned under our roof. And now Lucian was gone.
We didn’t need a psychic to tell us what was going on.
There was a mole in the mansion.
And it was time to lock the whole place down.
