All Chapters of THE ALPHA'S FORBIDDEN BRIDE : Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

The circulation register was smaller than the traveler expected.It contained no detailed explanations, no lengthy arguments, and no account of why particular instructions had been issued. Each entry recorded a document reference, a receiving office, and the date on which the correspondence had been delivered.Yet one short entry could change the direction of an investigation.The traveler placed the anonymous instruction beside the register.Do not reopen the continuation solely to locate the original. Any further action must be considered under the current distribution procedure.The question was simple.Who had received it?Mara Venn ran her finger down the register's index.“The note was entered under the temporary continuation reference, but it was circulated through the general procedural channel. That means more than one office may have received it.”“How many?” the figure asked.“The public register identifies three destinations. The Office of Interim Review, the Office of Per

The authorization record arrived in a sealed archival envelope.Mara Venn placed it on the reading table without opening it.“The records office has approved access to the public portion,” she explained. “Any personal details that are not necessary to understand the authorization have been covered.”The traveler looked at the reference printed on the envelope.DC-17.The code had appeared beside the closure of the referral concerning the missing annotation. Until now, it had meant little more than an unidentified authority.The figure pulled out a chair.“Let's see what it actually says.”Mara opened the envelope and removed three sheets.The first described the delegation granted to the Distribution Coordination Desk. The second listed the duties of the officer who could approve administrative closures. The third was a case-specific authorization extract.The traveler began with the third sheet.ACTION: Closure of referral concerning disputed-attribution annotation.AUTHORITY: DC-17.

The seventh office answered the traveler's request with a package of records that arrived just before the reading room closed for the afternoon.Mara Venn placed it on the table without opening it.“Before we begin,” she said, “what exactly are we trying to establish?”“The identity of the missing attachment, where it went, and who decided its verification wasn't necessary.”“And if those are three different decisions?”“Then we'll record them separately.”Mara gave a small nod. It was the kind of answer she had come to expect from the traveler: careful enough to be frustrating, but difficult to argue with.They opened the package.The first document was an attachment inventory from the seventh office. It listed five items received with the individual's request for clarification. Four were accounted for. The fifth was described as SUPPORTING DOCUMENT: PRIOR NOTICE OR CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO DISPUTED ATTRIBUTION.The inventory showed that the fifth item had been received and assigne

The instruction was not kept in the correspondence archive.It was filed under administrative standardization, between a notice about revised paper sizes and a circular concerning the use of shortened reference numbers. Nothing in the index suggested that it had any connection to the disputed attribution.The traveler found it after searching the instruction register by date rather than subject.Mara Venn stood beside the shelves while the traveler read the cover page.“Who issued it?” she asked.“The Central Distribution Office.”“Then we have our office.”“We have the issuing office. We don't yet have the person who authorized it, and we don't know whether it applied to the attachment we're investigating.”The instruction was dated the morning the provisional qualification disappeared from the distribution desk's acknowledgment. It carried an administrative reference, a revision number, and a list of departments required to adopt the new format.The traveler opened the first page.S

The identity-verification reference was kept in a separate register, exactly where the public index said it would be.The traveler found it in the restricted records catalogue shortly after the archive opened. The entry was not hidden, but access to the underlying document required a specific request explaining why the information was necessary.Mara Venn read the catalogue description.“Identity verification connected to the original correction request,” she said. “That sounds promising.”“It sounds relevant. We still need to find out what was verified and whether the result can be disclosed.”The traveler submitted the request, citing the unresolved attribution, the missing original submission, and the unanswered question about the notice's presence in decision records. They asked for the public portions of the verification record, the date it was completed, and any resulting change to the status of the correction request.They did not request the person's private address or unrelat