Page 175

Another old record opens, and the date makes everything inside me go still.

Elise.

Darian looks at me, but he doesn't say anything. We already know Ronan and Candice were behind the rogue attack that killed her. Vale's communications show the same thing we've been finding everywhere else. He was there too, helping them from behind the scenes.

I close my eyes for a second as the knowledge that Elise was carrying my child presses against my chest.

“How long has this bastard been doing this?” Darian asks quietly.

“Too fucking long.”

I force myself back to Selena. The past can wait.

“Find today's attack.”

Darian nods and moves into the newest files. This time we find the connections quickly. Arlene's maternity leave. Darian's schedule. Cypress Moon Park. Selena.

“She was supposed to suggest Cypress,” I say.

Darian reads farther. “Arlene was supposed to go alone.”

Selena wasn't supposed to accompany her. Vale expected her to remain protected by the fifteen guards assigned to her while Arlene left the heavier protection around the pack house.

Instead, Selena went with her.

Then the alarm sounded, and my stubborn mate released every one of her guards and sent them to the border.

“They prepared for one captive,” Darian says.

“Arlene.”

He nods. “Selena wasn't part of the plan.”

I reread the communication, but one thing doesn't fit. “How did Vale know Selena would suggest Cypress?”

Darian searches through the surrounding messages before shaking his head. “It doesn't say.”

We'll deal with that later.

“Keep going.”

Darian opens another recovered file, and a name appears among Vale's communications.

Candice Vale.

He freezes.

I notice immediately. “What?”

His eyes remain on the screen.

“Darian?”

“Candice Vale?”

“Yeah.”

He looks at me, and something in his expression changes.