Chapter 125

Elijah

I didn’t tell Agnes where I was going. She’d been through enough lately, and I didn’t want to add to her stress. Besides, I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. All I knew was that Ava had done something suspicious, something that might have had a connection to Agnes’s missing wolf, and I needed to hear it for myself.

As I drove to Ava’s house, my mind whirled with memories of Agnes’s words yesterday. “You were supposed to be mine, but she stole you from me.” The very same words she’d said in my dream.

Was Agnes supposed to be my mate? If so, then how was it possible that Olivia was marked to me now?

And most importantly, who was the ‘she’ who Agnes had referred to? Olivia? Or Ava?

When I pulled up to the house, Ava’s parents were sitting on the porch. I hated to think of them as Agnes’s parents, too, because they weren’t—not in a way that mattered. They looked nervous, standing immediately as I stepped out of the car. I didn’t blame them. The last time I’d seen them, it hadn’t been under the best circumstances, and I didn’t warn anyone before I came today.

“Alpha Elijah,” Ava’s father said, nodding stiffly as I approached. “We weren’t expecting you.”

“I need to speak with Ava,” I said without so much as a greeting. “It’s about the rogues.”

They exchanged a glance but didn’t argue. Ava’s mother gestured for me to follow her inside, and I did. Ava was sitting at the kitchen table, her hands clasped tightly around a coffee cup in front of her. She looked up when I entered, slightly shifting her foot to hide the ankle monitor beneath the table.

As if I didn’t know. I was the one who put it there, after all.

“Alpha,” she said, hardly meeting my gaze.

I nodded by way of greeting, pulling out a chair and sitting across from her. Her parents lingered in the doorway, but I curtly waved for them to leave us, and I didn’t speak until I heard the front door open and close.

“What’s this about anonymous letters?” I hissed, leaning close.

Ava’s face paled. “What… What letters?”

“The ones you told Agnes about,” I said firmly. “The ones that told you to rip pages out of that book.”

She shook her head quickly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Agnes must have misunderstood.”

I studied her for a moment, noting the way her hands trembled and her eyes darted around the room. She was lying. I didn’t need to be a mind reader to see that, though. Ava lied about everything. Even with a fucking ankle monitor on, she was still lying through her teeth.

“Ava,” I said, my eyes hardening, “if you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll have no choice but to reconsider your punishment regarding the rogues. Do you understand how lucky you are that you’re simply under house arrest and not in prison?”

She stiffened at that, her back going ramrod straight. Her throat bobbed, her eyes immediately filling with tears. “Okay,” she finally whispered. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

Over the next few minutes, Ava reiterated what Agnes had told me earlier that morning. Around seven years ago, someone anonymously sent Ava letters blackmailing her into ripping pages out of that old spellbook.

Only as Ava told me the story, I could tell she was hiding something. I leaned back in my chair, folding my arms. “You still have the letters.” It wasn’t a question.

Her eyes widened. “N-No. I told Agnes that I burned them.”

“Bullshit, Ava,” I growled, narrowing my eyes. “Give me the letters. Now.”

Ava stared at me, her jaw working. Finally, with a huff that seemed somewhere in between indignance and fear, she stood and left the room. A few minutes later, she returned with a crumpled piece of paper. She smoothed it out on the table and slid it toward me.

“This is the only one I kept,” she said, her voice trembling. “I didn’t show it to Agnes because… because I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

I picked up the letter, my eyes scanning the neat, precise handwriting. The message was short but clear: “Rip out pages 47, 63, and 89. Do not tell anyone, or else everything I warned you about will come true.”

The handwriting looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I folded the letter and slipped it into my pocket, then looked back at Ava.

“Thank you,” I said curtly, standing. “This will help.”

She nodded, still looking scared shitless, and I turned to leave. I burst out into the sunny air, and her parents followed me as I stormed off the porch.

“Alpha,” her father said as I unlocked my car, “please… go easy on her. She’s just a kid. She’s been through enough.”

I curled my lip as I whipped my head around to face him. “What about Agnes?” I snarled. “She was just a kid when you kicked her out, broken and wolfless. She went through hell and you abandoned her.”

His eyes hardened. “That’s completely different.”

“Is it?” I asked. But I didn’t give him a chance to answer before I climbed into the car and drove off. He stared at me the whole time I pulled out of the driveway, and it took every ounce of willpower not to turn back and run the fucker over with my car.

The police station was my next stop. I needed answers about the investigation into Agnes’s missing daughter, and I wasn’t leaving until I got them. I had promised her as much. The detective was waiting for me behind his desk when I arrived.

“Alpha,” he said, gesturing to the chair opposite his desk. “What can I do for you?”

“I need an update on the investigation into Agnes’s daughter’s disappearance,” I said, getting straight to the point.

He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I’m afraid there’s not much to tell. We’ve hit a dead end. No new leads, no new evidence. It’s the same it’s been for the past seven years.”

I clenched my jaw, feeling more frustrated than usual. “There has to be something.”

The detective shook his head. “I’m sorry, Alpha, but we’re trying our best. I know it’s hard, but the child is likely dead and has been for some time. We can’t pull evidence out of thin air.”

I frowned, rising abruptly to leave. Just then, the note that Ava gave me fluttered to the floor. The detective picked it up before I could get to it, his brow furrowing. “What’s this?”

I shrugged and explained the situation to him. As I did, the detective scanned the letter, his eyes narrowing. “What is it?” I asked, confused. “You look… perturbed.”

“Don’t you recognize your own ex-wife’s handwriting?” he asked.

My stomach lurched. “What did you just say?”

The detective reached into a drawer, pulling out a file. He flipped through it until he found what he was looking for, and held it up to me—a form with Olivia’s signature at the bottom. “We took statements the night your wife went to the hospital,” he explained. “Standard procedure. You know—you were there.”

“Yeah, I remember,” I said slowly. Of course I recalled how the police had come to the hospital while Agnes was unconscious following her episode of anaphylactic shock. Olivia had been there, too, and gave her statement in regards to losing Agnes in the woods.

But then the detective held up the statement with Olivia’s signature and set it next to the letter.

I froze, my eyes darting between the letter and the form. The handwriting was nearly identical—the same looping letters, the same slant, the same smudge across the top of the L.

My stomach churned as the pieces began to fall into place.

“You were my mate first. You were mine, but she stole you from me.”

Was Olivia the one who blackmailed Ava?

Was Olivia connected to Agnes’s curse?