Chapter 158: Chapter 158 Alaric knew the truth now
_Author’s POV_
Theodore’s island was beautiful.
Alaric stood at the entrance of the mansion and took it in briefly before moving past it. The place had a kind of beauty that was meant to distract but didn’t work on him.
They had arrived a few minutes ago to find the place empty.
His team had swept the perimeter in under four minutes. The result was the same across every entry point, every room, and every corner of the property.
Completely empty.
They were actually gone.
He stood in the dining room where two plates of barely touched food still sat on the table, one chair pushed back in a hurry, and felt the frustration of arriving somewhere thirty minutes too late. He controlled his frustration but he couldn’t help wondering how exactly they found out about their impending arrival.
It means there was a rat in his team.
He’d gotten the message from Rowena and pretended not to.
Reid.
It was actually his Beta.
Reid had warned them.
That thought sat in his chest like something with edges.
A man he had trusted completely and without question for years. A man who had been in his inner circle through every major decision, every sensitive operation, and every piece of information that mattered. And the whole time, he had been feeding it all back to Virella.
Alaric moved through the mansion slowly, taking in every detail. His men documented everything, the rooms, the papers left behind, and the devices that hadn’t been wiped properly in the rush to leave. Celeste was already in the study with two of her people, going through drawers and files. She’d found out about Reid.
Reid hadn’t arrived with them. Alaric had sent him back to the capital.
Last minute decision.
“They left in a hurry,” Celeste said without looking up when he walked in. “Theodore is thorough normally. This room tells me he didn’t have enough time to be thorough today.”
“How long ago,” Alaric asked.
“Thirty minutes. Maybe forty.” She held up a folder. “But they left things behind. Enough things.”
He took the folder from her and went through it. Financial documents, mostly. Property names. A few printed messages between Virella and someone whose contact name was simply stored as R.
Reid.
He handed the folder back to Celeste and walked to the window. The ocean stretched out flat and grey blue beyond the island’s edge, completely indifferent to everything happening on the shore.
“Alpha.” One of his men appeared at the study door. “We found something in the east wing. You should see it.”
The east wing of the mansion had been converted into something that looked like a monitoring room. Screens, equipment, and printed maps with locations marked on them. One wall was covered in photographs.
Alaric stopped when he saw them.
They were photographs of Rowena. Taken at different times, different locations. Some were from before the abduction, Rowena at a restaurant, Rowena leaving a building, Rowena walking with Pierre. Candid shots taken from a distance by someone who had been following her for a long time without her knowing.
His jaw tightened.
Celeste appeared at his shoulder, took one look at the wall, and went very still.
“This goes back months,” she said quietly. “They were watching her long before they took her.”
“I know,” Alaric said.
He looked at each photograph slowly. Rowena in a green coat he recognized. Rowena laughing at something Pierre said. Rowena alone, walking, completely unaware of the camera pointed at her from somewhere she couldn’t see.
Someone had spent months building this. Months of planning, tracking, and documenting. This wasn’t impulsive. This was calculated from the very beginning, and Reid had been right there the entire time, close enough to fill in every gap Virella’s people couldn’t reach on their own.
“Pull everything off those screens,” he said. “Every file, every record, every piece of footage. I want it all.”
“Already on it,” Celeste said.
He turned and walked back out of the east wing, because standing in that room any longer wasn’t useful and he needed to be useful right now.
He needed to not think about how many times Rowena had been in a room with Reid. How many times Reid had sat across from her, knowing exactly what was being planned for her, and said nothing.
He called Kasper.
“Talk to me,” he said when Kasper picked up.
“She’s fine,” Kasper said immediately, which told Alaric that Kasper understood what he was actually asking. “Resting. She found the Reid connection before any of us did, by the way. She called me before you even landed.”
Alaric was quiet for a moment. “Of course she did.”
“She’s been tracking Celeste’s documents from the hotel room all morning,” Kasper said. “I think her version of resting and everyone else’s version are very different things.”
“I’m aware,” Alaric said.
He stepped outside onto the mansion’s front steps and looked at the ocean again. The wind off the water was cold and steady.
“And Reid,” Kasper said carefully. “How are you.”
It wasn’t a question Kasper asked often. He was precise about when he used it.
“I’m fine,” Alaric said.
Kasper didn’t push it. He knew better. “What do you need from my end?”
“Stay with her until I’m back,” Alaric said. “Don’t leave the hotel.”
“Already here,” Kasper said.
Alaric ended the call and stood there for a moment longer. The island was quiet around him, his men moving through the property behind him, the ocean doing what oceans did regardless of everything else.
Virella and Theo were gone. Reid had made sure of that.
But Celeste had said it herself, they left things behind.
Enough things.
There was work to do.
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