Semua Bab Dear Ex Mate, You're Mine to Ruin: Bab 111 - Bab 120

Lillian’s POVI went straight home after the meeting, needing the quiet of my own space before I looked at what my investigator had sent through. The drive gave me enough time to settle the buzzing restlessness that had been sitting under my skin since Dorian’s revelation about Shantel, and by the time I walked through the door and up to my room I felt steady enough to look at whatever was waiting for me on my phone without reacting before I had fully processed it.I sat on the edge of my bed and opened the link.There were photographs, several of them, taken from different locations and at different times based on the varying light and backgrounds. Aaron, in each one. Sometimes alone, sometimes walking alongside people I didn’t immediately recognize, sometimes seated across from someone in what looked like formal meeting settings. Different packs, different territories, the settings shifting from one image to the next but Aaron always present at the center of them, always with that

Lillian’s POVI sat on my bed with the knife lying on the covers in front of me and the box beside it and my back against the headboard, and I did not sleep.My heart had been racing since the moment I shut that window and it had not slowed down in the hours since. I kept replaying the voice, the gloved hand, the weight of the knife dropping into my palm, the words spoken with such casual certainty about framing a maid and making it look right. Whoever that man was, this was not something he was nervous about. This was not a first attempt at something unfamiliar. He had spoken the way people speak about arrangements they have made before.Miranda wanted someone dead. And from everything I had seen and heard and pieced together over the past weeks, I did not think the target was anyone other than me.The thought should have made me panic. Instead it produced a strange flat clarity that settled over the fear and held it still, like a hand pressed flat over something that would otherwis

Dorian’s POVLillian was already gone by the time I came downstairs that morning. No note, no message, just the particular absence of someone who had left early and deliberately. I stood in the kitchen for a moment with my coffee and told myself she was still processing everything from yesterday, that the distance was understandable and I needed to give it room rather than push against it.I was still telling myself that when Miranda appeared.She came into the main hallway looking nothing like the composed and calculated woman I had grown accustomed to managing. Her hair was not fully done, her movements were agitated and sharp, and she was already talking before she had fully entered the space. “Where is it?” she demanded, directing the question at the two nearest maids who both immediately looked at the floor. “One of you took something from my room and I want it back right now. I know it was one of you. It had to be.”The maids exchanged a glance that was carefully neutral. “We h

Dorian’s POV“We need to move fast,” Lillian said, already reaching for her bag. “Aaron is not sitting still and every day we spend reacting to what he does next is a day he gets further ahead of us. Christine is the most direct line we have to anything he might have left behind and we need to get to her before Shantel does.”I didn’t argue with the logic because there wasn’t anything to argue with. I grabbed my jacket and followed her out.The police district was twenty minutes away and Lillian spent most of the drive looking out the window with that particular focused stillness that I had learned meant she was working through details in her head rather than disengaging from the conversation. I let her think and concentrated on the road.Getting in was not straightforward. The officer at the front desk listened to our request with the polite skepticism of someone who had heard many reasons for visiting inmates and had learned to treat all of them with equal suspicion. He took our nam

Lillian’s POVAlanna caught me at the bottom of the stairs with an expression that told me whatever she needed to say was not small. She stepped directly into my path with both hands raised slightly, the way she did when she needed me to actually stop and not just slow down.“I need five minutes,” she said. “It’s important.”“Alanna.” I looked at her with every ounce of urgency I was carrying. “Whatever it is, I need you to hold it for me. I will come back and I will give you my full attention but right now I have a window and if I miss it, that sanctum comes down today.”She searched my face for a moment and then stepped aside, but grabbed my arm before I fully passed her. “Be careful,” she said. “Please. Just be careful.”“Take care of Celeste while I’m gone,” I said. “That’s all I need from you right now.”She nodded and released my arm and I walked out.Aiden was already outside, which told me Dorian had arranged it before getting pulled into whatever the elders had decided needed