All Chapters of Shadows of a Journalist: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The Rathbone estate sat on a hill draped in evergreens, a manor that looked older than the town itself, though modern in its sheen. Lena staked out Hollow Lane for two nights, hidden in a rental car with the engine running low, camera at the ready. Security was tight: cameras, men in Rathbone suits who watched more carefully than any CCTV. She photographed license plates, recorded comings and goings, and cataloged movements.A pattern emerged: late-night deliveries under a different company's name, a gated entrance used only at odd hours, and a Rathbone SUV that driverless too often - always leaving after midnight. She tried to follow it once and lost it in a fog of side streets and a van that blocked her path. When she returned to the stakeout the next evening, someone had ransacked her car - glove marks on the door handle, her dashcam missing. The message was clear: STOP!!!Instead of stopping, Lena turned her method to the inside. She requested archived business permits, tax records

The Rathbone estate at night was an exercise in contradiction: serenity and menace interwoven like the ivy climbing its stone walls.Jeremy met her in the library, the scent of old books and faint cedar smoke thick in the air. His presence filled the room like a living shadow.“Welcome to your new reality,” he said, voice low and steady.Lena swallowed the lump in her throat.“I’m here for Sarah - to find out what happened.”Jeremy nodded but did not reach out.“Sarah was caught in the crossfire of a war you barely understand.” His gaze sharpened.“This family has enemies, old and brutal. I am the protector - and the predator. So long as you abide by the pact, you are under my guard.”She noticed a faint scar above his brow - a soft line that suggested battles past, not easily forgotten.That night, Lena watched from the large windows as pack members gathered in the courtyard - tall, lithe figures moving with a feline grace that set her skin on edge. This was no ordinary family.She re

Lena’s indoctrination began with a ceremony held within the ancient stone circle on Rathbone grounds. Pale moonlight filtered through the twisted branches above as the Elders spoke in low, reverent tones of the covenant — a pact older than memory, binding the pack in secrecy and survival. Bloodlines mattered, they said. Strength mattered more. They were wolves disguised behind the fragile masks of human skin. A harsh truth settled over Lena like a lead weight: no human could be mated to a pack member. The rule was written not only to preserve purity and prevent weakness but to shield the pack from the contamination of the outside world.Yet despite the doctrine, Jeremy’s gaze lingered on her longer than protocol allowed, his restraint palpable like a taut wire ready to snap.She overheard whispered murmurs in the shadows - some feared her presence, others resented it. Whispers of doubt rippled through the pack, shadows among the unyielding stone of tradition.But beneath the rigid cod

Jeremy’s visits grew more frequent – brief touches that unsettled Lena even as they sparked a forbidden fire. The tension between them hummed beneath every word, every glance.“You tempt chaos,” Jeremy warned one evening in the moonlit garden, where fragrant night blossoms seemed to watch silently.She met his gaze, fierce. “I’m no one’s prize to be hidden or offered.”He stepped closer, voice dropping to a murmur.“Not a prize. Something more dangerous. Something I cannot have.”The unspoken weight of the pack’s laws hung heavy. Love was a weakness the pack could not afford. Yet the line between duty and desire blurred painfully close.Lena’s role within the estate was shifting too. She was granted controlled glimpses behind the curtain: documents, interviews with some wary pack members, and even a rare visit to the site near the old mill where Sarah had last been seen alive.There, she found a hidden alcove beneath twisted roots – their earth disturbed recently, faint traces of blood