Chapter 8

I found Colt on the back porch the next morning, coffee going cold in his hands, staring out at nothing in particular. I sat down beside him and set the notebook on the railing between us without a word.

He looked at it for a long moment before he even reached for it. That told me more than anything he could have said.

"You've seen this before." It wasn't a question.

His jaw worked the way it always did right before he admitted something he didn't want to. "Once. A few weeks before she died." He picked it up carefully, like it might come apart in his hands. "She showed me one page. Made me promise not to tell Dad, not yet, not until she'd figured out who else was involved."

"Involved in what, Colt?" I kept my voice low, even though nobody else was around to hear us. "What did she find?"

"I don't know all of it." He set the notebook back down like it had gotten too heavy to hold. "She said the message that started the war wasn't real. Said someone inside our own pack wrote it to look like it came from Ashwood's side, timed it perfectly so Ren's father would take it as an insult and refuse to back down. She was trying to find out who it was before it turned into exactly what it turned into."

The porch boards seemed to tilt under me the same way the living room floor had the day I came home. "Why didn't you tell me any of this?"

"Because I promised her I wouldn't tell anyone until she had proof, and then she died before she ever got the chance to finish, and I didn't know what saying it out loud would even accomplish anymore." His voice cracked down the middle, the same way Dad's had that first night. "I've spent a year telling myself that if I just let it go, it would stop mattering. It hasn't stopped mattering, Nora. It's just gotten quieter."

I thought about Bree's story, her mother arguing with mine, the same warning circled twice in tight handwriting. Two separate people had heard some version of this months apart, and neither of them had told me until now.

"Who else did she talk to?" I asked. "Besides you."

Colt shook his head slowly. "I don't know. She was careful. She didn't want it getting back to whoever she suspected before she was ready." He paused, something new crossing his face, hesitant. "There's one more thing. The week before she died, she asked me who the new Ashwood Alpha was. Not because she didn't know his name. She wanted to know his reputation. Whether he could be trusted if it came down to it."

"And what did you tell her?"

"That from what I'd heard, he was hard but fair. That if anyone in Ashwood's pack was going to actually listen instead of just reacting, it would be him." Colt met my eyes fully for the first time since I'd sat down. "A few days later, she was dead, and Ashwood's forces were the ones holding the border where it happened. I've wondered ever since whether she went out there that night because she trusted that reputation. Whether she was trying to get proof to him directly."

Something cold and certain settled into place inside my chest.

"That's why he was there." My voice came out barely above a whisper. "That's why he won't tell me everything yet. He's not protecting a secret. He's protecting an investigation she started and never got to finish."

Colt didn't answer, but he didn't need to. The look on his face confirmed it well enough.

I picked the notebook back up and held it against my chest the way I had the night before, feeling the weight of it differently now. This wasn't just my mother's private grief anymore. It was evidence, half of something she'd never gotten to complete, and somewhere out there the person who forged that message was still walking around free, still close enough to send anonymous texts to a girl who'd only been home four days.

"I need to talk to Ash." I stood, tucking the notebook carefully under my arm. "Today. Before training, not during it."

"Nora." Colt caught my wrist before I could walk away, his grip gentle but firm. "Whoever did this, they're not going to just let you walk around asking questions forever. Be careful who you trust with what you know."

I thought of Priscilla's smile across the firelight. I thought of Ethan's grin, wide and untroubled, watching my humiliation like it was the best part of somebody's plan finally coming together.

"I know exactly who I don't trust yet," I said. "I'm still working out who I am."