What He Knew

Mara Bell’s POV

My hands shake so bad I nearly tear the envelope opening it. Inside is a single folded letter, the paper soft and yellowed, written in handwriting I don’t recognize but somehow feel like I should. I unfold it carefully, like it might crumble if I’m too rough with it.

If you’re reading this, something has gone wrong. I believe someone inside the Alpha Council is working against my family. I don’t know who yet, but I’ve found enough to know I’m close to something dangerous. If anything happens to me—

The letter stops there. Torn clean across the bottom, like someone ripped away whatever came next on purpose.

My stomach twists. Someone inside the council. Someone Marcus Veylor trusted enough to sit at the same table with, plotting against him the whole time.

Whoever killed him is still walking around this university.

“What are you doing in here.”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. Rhett’s standing in the doorway of the locker room, and he does not look happy to find me here.

“Rhett…”

“That’s my father’s locker.” He crosses the room fast, snatches the letter out of my hands before I can stop him. His eyes move across the page, and I watch his whole body go rigid. “Where did you get this?”

“It was hidden inside. It has my name on the envelope.”

“Why would my father hide something with your name on it?” His voice cracks with something between fury and disbelief. “What aren’t you telling me, Mara?”

I’ve kept this secret for seven years. I’ve carried it so long it feels stitched into my bones. But looking at him now, looking at how much this is tearing him apart, I can’t hold it anymore.

“I was there,” I say. “The night your father died. I saw it happen.”

The room goes completely silent.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“You were what, twelve years old? You’re telling me you witnessed my father’s murder and never said a single word to anyone for seven years?”

“I was eleven,” I say quietly. “And yes. That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

He laughs, but there’s no humor in it, just disbelief trying to protect itself. “Prove it.”

So I do.

“He was in the east hallway of your old house. Not the main one people always talk about, the smaller hallway near the study, the one with the broken light fixture that always flickered. There were two voices. Your father’s, and another man’s I didn’t recognize. Your father said something like you’ll destroy everything he built, and then there was a sound I still hear sometimes when I can’t sleep.” My voice starts to shake. “There was a ring. Silver. On the hand of the man standing over him.”

Rhett has gone completely white.

“Nobody outside the family and the investigators knew about that hallway,” he says slowly. “That was never released. Not to the press. Not to anyone.”

“I know.”

“Then how…”

“Because I was there, Rhett. I already told you that.”

His anger drains out of him all at once, replaced by something rawer, something that looks a lot like grief he’s been holding onto for years finally cracking open.

“Why,” he says, and his voice breaks on the word. “Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because someone threatened to kill my mother if I ever said a word.” The memory claws its way up my throat. “I was a kid, Rhett. I didn’t know what else to do except stay quiet and pray it would be enough.”

“Who threatened you?”

“I don’t know. I never saw his face. Just his hand. Just that ring.”

Rhett goes still. “Describe it again. The ring.”

“Silver. Some kind of shape carved into it, sharp edges, almost like claws overlapping.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, and when he finally speaks, his voice has gone strange.

“My father had a ring like that,” he says. “Family crest, passed down for generations. But the one you’re describing isn’t his.” He looks at me hard. “That’s a different ring. One that belongs to someone inside our bloodline. Someone close enough to have access to that hallway without anyone questioning it.”

The air between us feels thinner suddenly, heavier, both of us realizing at the same time how much bigger this is than either of us wanted it to be.

“Mara.” He steps closer, and my whole body responds before my brain agrees to it, the pull between us sharper than it’s ever been. “I need you to trust me.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“Try.” His hand comes up, gentle against the side of my face, and for one unbearable second I think he’s actually going to kiss me, and some traitorous part of me wants him to.

I step back before it happens.

“Being my mate doesn’t make you someone I trust,” I say, and I mean every word of it, even as my heart argues with me the whole time.

Something flickers across his face…hurt, maybe, or something close to it but he doesn’t push.

That’s when I see it. The letter, still open in his hand, and underneath it, tucked at the bottom of the locker, another scrap of paper with handwriting on it. I pull it free and my whole body goes cold comparing it to the note sitting folded in my pocket, the one from my mother’s box.

The handwriting matches, exactly...

My mother knew about this. She knew who was involved, or at least enough to warn me away from Rhett before any of this ever happened.

Which means she’s been carrying this secret just as long as I have. I don’t even say goodbye to Rhett. I just ran...

I get back to my dorm out of breath, hands trembling so hard I almost drop my phone twice trying to unlock it. I call my mother’s old number, the one I still keep saved even though I know, logically, that nobody should be answering it.

It rings twice. Then someone picks up. It’s not my mother’s voice. It’s a man’s, low and calm in a way that makes every hair on my arms stand up.

“Your mother should have told you the truth before you came back to Blackridge.”

The line goes dead before I can say a single word.