All Chapters of FAKING IT WITH THE ALPHA CAPTAIN RIVAL : Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

ElenaMarcus's words settled over the room like a physical weight, and for a long moment nobody spoke at all."Tomorrow morning," I said finally, my voice barely working. "That is not enough time to prepare anything.""That is exactly the point," Ryder said, his jaw tight. "Whoever moved it up wanted to make sure we could not.""We need to find whoever is actually running this before that hearing starts," Aiden said. "If Naomi is right, and someone wanted her silenced before she could tell you and me the full truth, then whoever they are is still moving pieces tonight."Marcus rubbed a hand over his face; exhaustion carved deep into every line of it. "I have Harold pulling every financial record he can access before morning. If there is a name buried in those accounts, we need it now, not after the Council has already made a decision none of us can undo.""Let me help," I said.Everyone turned to look at me."You want to help with financial records," Ryder said carefully."I want to u

ElenaFor a long moment, none of us moved. Naomi stood at the garden's edge, blood dried along her jaw, her eyes locked on Marcus like she had been waiting her whole life to finally say whatever she had come to say.Marcus did not step toward her right away. He stayed in front of me, one hand still raised slightly, some old instinct refusing to let his guard fully drop even now."You are supposed to be under guard," he said, his voice low and careful. "How did you get past my men.""I did not sneak past them," Naomi said. "They know I am here. I asked them to let me speak with you privately before morning, and Marcus, they agreed because I told them what I am about to tell you cannot wait for the hearing."Marcus's jaw tightened, and for a moment he seemed torn between two entirely different conversations, the one he had just been having with me about his own mother, and the one now standing bleeding at the edge of his garden demanding his full attention.He turned back to me for one

MarcusThree weeks before the hearingThe household had gone quiet hours ago, the last of the staff finally retired for the night, and I sat alone in my study with the door locked, a stack of old pack files spread across the desk in front of me, the lamp casting the only light in the whole dark house.I had not told anyone I was doing this. Not Victoria, not Harold, certainly not Naomi, whose careful discretion had managed every sensitive request I made for over two decades without ever once asking a question I did not want answered.This time, I could not risk her knowing.I pulled the first file toward me, records from Hartwood's own maternity ward stretching back over thirty years, searching methodically through birth logs and staff assignments from the exact week Elena had been born. I found nothing unusual, nothing that contradicted the careful cover story I had constructed twenty-one years ago, and something in me relaxed slightly, foolishly, believing for a moment that the past

ElenaNaomi's message sat with me for two full days before I found the courage to ask Martha anything about it directly, and even then, I chose the moment carefully, waiting until we were alone in her kitchen on a quiet evening when no doctors, no nurses, no anonymous texts, no Council deadlines were pressing in on either of us.She stood at the sink washing dishes, humming something soft and tuneless under her breath, the kind of ordinary domestic peace that had become rare enough in my life lately that I almost did not want to disturb it with a question that might crack it apart entirely.I asked anyway."Martha," I said, drying a plate she had just handed me, keeping my voice as gentle and unhurried as I could manage. "Can I ask you something about a long time ago?""Of course, baby." She kept scrubbing at a pot, her attention only half on the conversation, the way it usually was during these easy, unremarkable evenings."Have you ever talked to anyone from the Hart family before

ElenaI found Ryder alone in the small courtyard behind the library two days later, sitting on the same stone bench where we had first pieced together the shape of the leak weeks earlier, and something in the tired, guarded way he held himself told me he had been carrying a conversation he did not want to have long before I ever walked toward him."You look like you have been avoiding me," I said, sitting down beside him."I have not been avoiding you," he said. "I have been trying to figure out how much of what I know I am actually allowed to tell you; versus how much I have simply been raised to keep buried the way everyone else in this territory keeps it buried.""That sounds like the beginning of a conversation I am not going to enjoy.""Probably not," he admitted. "But you deserve to hear it anyway, especially after everything happening lately. The way people look at you now. The elders. The staff. All of it.""You noticed that too.""Everyone has noticed it, Elena. I think that