A list of financial transactions for the year I disappeared. Eighteen entries. Each one noted with brutal honesty about what it was for and why.
But no Covenant. No payment for selling pack members. No mention of Kain Ashford at all.
Darius flips forward several pages. “And then, there’s this.”
He holds the journal closer, and I read the entry he’s pointing to.
Another search party returned empty-handed today. A teenage girl made a scene about joining in order to find a boy, Kain Ashford. It was annoying, but public sentiment requires me to be accommodating since a mate bond is involved.
The words swirl in my vision, and I blink hard to make sure I’m seeing correctly.
“And this.” Darius turns to another page.
Year three. The searches are costing too many resources, but we cannot stop. Kain Ashford’s mate is still inciting the pack, and the families of the others missing are behind her. The scale will have to reduce regardless.
“Stop.” My voice is hoarse.
But Darius doesn’t stop. He keeps turning pages, holding each entry up for me to read.
It’s been seven years. Everyone else has given up except her. I don’t know whether to admire her loyalty or pity her delusion.
“I said, stop!” I roar, straining against the chains so hard, fresh blood streams down my arms.
Darius closes the journal and sets it carefully on his lap.
The silence that follows is deafening.
I stare at him, at the closed journal, at the stack of search reports beside him. At the evidence of a decade of searching. Of a pack that never gave up. Of an alpha who documented every sin except the one I was told he committed.
Because he never committed it.
“They lied to you,” Darius says quietly. “They made you believe you were abandoned so you’d have no loyalty to fight through. No reason to resist their mission.”
My mind reels, trying to process what this means.
Ten years of believing I was worthless. Disposable. Forgotten.
Ten years of hating the pack that supposedly sold me.
Ten years of planning revenge against people who were actually searching for me the entire time.
“No.” I shake my head, even though I can see the truth right in front of me. “No, they showed me documents. Official papers with your father’s signature.”
“Forged.” Darius’s voice is flat, matter of fact. “Whatever they showed you was fabricated. Did you ever consider that?”
The weight of it crashes down on me all at once.
Anne mourned me. Participated in search parties for years, refusing to give up hope even when everyone else told her to. The pack looked for me. Continuously. For almost a decade.
And I came back planning to destroy them all.
“Why?” My voice comes out harsh. “Why would they go to such lengths?”
“You know them better than I do.” Darius gathers the papers and places them back in the folder. “You tell me. I wondered why they would have wanted a teenage boy, so I looked into other disappearances of young shifters. You were not the first nor the last. It took them ten years to make you into an obedient soldier, with their word seemingly gospel for you.”
I close my eyes, and the pieces finally click into place with sickening clarity.
Control. It was always about control.
