CHAPTER TEN: THE LION'S DEN

ELENA POV 

"He's in a meeting, I'll show you to your room." 

Victoria Chen was already at the top of the entrance steps when I stepped out of the car, dressed in cream silk at ten in the morning, like the rest of the world hadn't figured out weekday casual. 

She smiled at me the way people smiled at things they had already decided weren't a threat. 

"Victoria," I said. Looking into her eyes 

"Elena," she said back, same tone, same flat weight behind it, "welcome.” Then she turned and walked inside without checking if I was following. So I followed. 

The mansion was everything I expected: high ceilings, pale stone floors, light flooding through windows like the house had nothing to hide, which usually meant it was hiding everything. 

I counted cameras on the way to the east wing, seven, and clocked every exit I passed. "Your room," Victoria said, pushing open a heavy door. 

It was large and cold and decorated the way expensive things were, beautiful for a photograph, not for a person. 

"Cassian thought you'd be comfortable here," she said from the doorway.

Then I set my bag down without looking at her."It's fine," I said. 

She paused like she was deciding whether to say something else, then apparently decided against it. 

"If you need anything," she said, "don't hesitate. 

The door clicked shut behind her, I stood in the middle of the room and breathed. Six million dollars, I told myself, one year, then gone. 

I started unpacking slowly, hands moving while my mind ran through everything I needed to find in this house, pack records, the massacre investigation files, anything with my father's name on it. 

A soft knock stopped me. 

It was not Victoria's knock, hers had been precise like a full stop, this one was careful, like a question. 

"Come in," I said. 

The man who entered looked about twenty-eight, lean, with a bruise along his jaw that was still yellowing at the edges and eyes that had learned somewhere along the way to stay very quiet. 

"Damien," I said. 

He checked the hallway before closing the door, which told me everything I needed to know about how safe this house really was.

"Smaller than I thought you'd be," he said, looking at me. 

"Still alive," I said, "I wasn't sure, after that phone call five years ago.” Something crossed his face, old and tired."That was a bad night," he said. 

He crossed toward me slowly, keeping close to the wall the way people moved when they'd spent years making themselves easy to overlook, and I recognized that walk because I had walked that way once too. 

He reached into his jacket and held out a small flash drive between two fingers. Then I took it without hesitation. 

"Security footage from the night of the massacre," he said. "The timeline makes your father's involvement impossible; he was already dead before the Alpha was attacked. Someone killed Roland first to remove the one witness who could have named the real killer. 

My throat tightened. 

"Marcus is on the footage," Damien said, "thirty seconds before everything went wrong in the main hall. 

I closed my fingers around the drive. 

"Cassian has seen a version of this before," Damien said. "Marcus told him I was unstable, chasing ghosts. Cassian believed him because Cassian had always believed Marcus. 

"He raised him," I said.

"Exactly," Damien said, "which means you can't walk up to him and drop this on the table yet, you need him already doubting things first. 

"He's already doubting," I said, thinking of the bracelet, of the way Cassian's jaw had tightened when I told him to ask Marcus about the massacre timeline. 

Damien went still. 

"What did you say to him?" He asked. 

"Enough," I said. 

Then he studied my face, and nodded once. 

"Marcus searches the rooms on a schedule," he said, "keep that drive somewhere he won't find it, if it disappears before Cassian sees it, everything disappears with it.” Do you understand? 

"Understood," I said. 

Then he moved toward the door. 

"One more thing," he said without turning, "don't drink anything Victoria prepares for Cassian personally, nothing she touches. 

"Why?" I asked. 

He looked back at me. 

"Because his wolf isn't dying from any curse," he said quietly. 

He was gone before I could ask anything else.

I stood with the drive in my hand, the weight of it completely wrong for something so small. 

Then I turned toward the bed to find somewhere to hide it. 

And stopped. 

On my pillow was a folded piece of paper, no envelope, no name. 

I had not put it there. I clearly remembered I had not. 

Damien had been standing between the bed and me the entire time we talked. So who put it? I said to myself. 

Then I opened it slowly. 

Inside was a photograph printed on plain white paper, slightly blurry, taken through a window at night. 

Maya, asleep in her bed at the sanctuary, her fox pajamas visible, her dark hair across the pillow. 

On the back, four words in neat handwriting. 

"We know about her." 

The paper shook in my hands, 

Someone had been at the sanctuary last night. 

And they were already inside this house. 

Waiting for me to arrive.

“Elena?” Cassian’s voice came from down the hall.  

I shoved the photo in my pocket right before he stepped in. 

He noticed my hand, then looked at my face and knew right away something was off.“You alright?” he asked.  

I forced a nod, feeling the paper against my leg like it was burning a hole through me “Yeah. Just tired,” I said. 

He studied me for a second, then sighed.  

“Get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”  

The door clicked shut behind him, and I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.  

I pulled the photo out just enough to see the back again.  

The four words stared back at me:  

"We know about her.”