All Chapters of Fight like a mother : Chapter 21 - Chapter 27

Peter had the vehicle registry pulled up across two monitors, cross-referencing Beth Morris's description against every car registered to palace staff and their known associates, a process that felt less like investigation and more like searching for one specific grain of sand on a very long beach.Dark blue, older model, dented rear bumper. It wasn't much to go on, but it was more than he'd had a week ago, and Peter had learned to be grateful for scraps when scraps were all that were available.He narrowed the search by color first, then by age of vehicle, cutting the list down from several hundred to just under forty. Still too many, but manageable, something he could actually work with instead of drowning in.It was tedious work, cross-checking registration photos against Beth's description, most of them clearly wrong the moment he pulled up the image. Wrong shade of blue, no dent, wrong body style entirely.He was on car number twenty-six when something made him pause. A sedan reg

Curtis Boyle had worked the palace grounds for almost six years, mostly keeping to the hedges and flower beds along the eastern wall, the kind of job that let a man stay invisible if he wanted to, and Curtis had always preferred it that way.Peter found him kneeling in the dirt near the rose garden, gloves caked with soil, a small radio playing static-heavy music beside him that he switched off the moment he noticed someone approaching."Mr. Boyle." Peter kept his tone light, unhurried, the way he'd learned worked best when you didn't want someone bolting before you'd gotten anything useful out of them. "Got a minute?""Depends what for." Curtis didn't look up right away, brushing dirt from a trowel with more attention than the task really required."Just following up on some vehicle registrations. Routine stuff." Peter crouched down near the edge of the flower bed, keeping himself at eye level rather than looming. "You drive a blue sedan, right? Older model."Curtis's hands stilled f

Nina had gotten used to Mary's phone ringing during their lunches, a small habit that had never bothered her before because Mary was the alpha's wife and alphas' wives had responsibilities that didn't pause for lunch dates.But lately the calls had changed. Mary used to just glance at the screen and let it go to voicemail with an apologetic smile, promising to call back later. Now she excused herself entirely, walking outside or into the restroom, her voice dropping low the moment she thought she was out of earshot.Nina noticed because Nina had spent years learning to notice things about Mary, the small tells that gave away more than her friend probably realized, and today's lunch was no different."Sorry about that," Mary said, sliding back into her seat with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Palace business. Never ends.""Must be important," Nina said carefully, watching her friend reach for her wine glass with a hand that wasn't quite as steady as usual. "You've been step

Foster arrived at the study just past eleven, still dressed in his day clothes though the hour suggested he'd been pulled from something closer to sleep than work, his usual composure slightly frayed at the edges."You said this couldn't wait until morning," Foster said, taking the seat Dynan gestured toward, his eyes already moving toward the folder sitting closed on the desk between them."It couldn't." Dynan slid the report across, watching Foster's expression as he opened it, waiting for the same slow dawning horror that had settled over him hours earlier.Foster read in silence for several long minutes, occasionally flipping back a page to cross-reference something, his jaw tightening incrementally with each new revelation."This is thorough," he finally said, setting the report down and removing his glasses to rub at his eyes. "Where did this come from?""I authorized an internal audit two weeks ago. Quietly." Dynan's voice was flat, controlled in the way that usually meant he w