The Alpha Kings And Their Stripper Mate

Chapter 249: Chapter 249: Silas Knows

Damian’s POV

He waited until after lunch.

Eve ate a full plate for the first time in weeks. Damon stole from it twice without asking. She let him both times which meant she was actually okay.....the Eve who wasn’t okay held her plate close and said something cutting.

Silas refilled her water without being asked.

Damian watched all of it and said nothing and kept the letter in his jacket pocket where it had been since morning.

There was a right time for things.

He found all three of them in the sitting room after.

Damon was on the floor. Not the sofa. The floor, back against the sofa cushions, legs stretched out, because Damon had never sat in a chair when a worse option was available.

Eve had her feet tucked under her at one end of the sofa. Silas was in the chair.

They looked comfortable.

Damian pulled the letter from his jacket.

Put it on the table.

"This came this morning," he said. "Courier. No seal. No pack marking. My name only."

Nobody touched it.

They all leaned forward and read it where it sat.

One line.

I knew your father before you were born. We need to speak. — V

Silence.

Damon read it again. Then looked up.

"V," he said.

"Yes."

"That’s it. One letter."

"Yes."

Damon looked at Silas. Silas looked at the letter.

Eve said, "Your father. Not our father."

Damian looked at her.

"It says your father," she said. "Not the Blackwood Alpha. Not your family." She paused. "Aldric specifically. Someone who knew him as a person."

"Someone close enough to think one initial is enough identification," Silas said.

"Which means they think we already know who they are," Damon said. "Or they want us asking questions."

"Both probably," Damian said.

The room was quiet.

Eve reached over and picked up the letter. Turned it over. Looked at the envelope.

"The paper," she said.

"I know," Damian said.

"This isn’t pack. This isn’t Court." She set it down. "Someone old. Someone with a formal education. The kind you got before email existed and handwriting still meant something."

"Witch," Damon said.

Nobody disagreed.

Silas stood. Moved to the window. Stood with his back to the room looking out at the grounds.

"Could be Malachai," Damon said. "He just lost. An anonymous letter dressed up to look like an old ally appearing at exactly the right moment....that’s a move."

"It’s a move," Damian agreed.

"But it doesn’t fit," Eve said.

Damon looked at her.

"Malachai doesn’t wait for openings," she said. "He makes them. He controls conditions. This letter opens a door and steps back." She shook her head. "That’s not him."

She was right. Damian had been turning it over since the letter arrived and that was the part that kept snagging....the passivity of it. Malachai was the most patient man Damian had ever encountered but he wasn’t passive. There was a difference.

"The timing," Silas said. Still at the window. "This arrives two days after the vote goes public record."

"Someone was watching," Eve said. "Someone who needed to see the outcome before they moved." A pause. "Someone who waited for a reason to stop waiting."

The room sat with that.

"So we respond," Eve said. "Carefully. We give nothing. We open the door a crack and see what comes through." She looked at Damian. "They moved first. That already tells us something."

Damian nodded.

He looked at his brothers.

Damon had his arms crossed. Jaw set. The expression he got when something was sitting wrong with him and he was deciding whether to push it.

Silas was still at the window.

Still.

Too still.

"Silas," Damian said.

Silas turned around.

He looked at Damian with the expression he used when he’d been carrying something and had decided it was time to put it down.

"After Dad died," he said. "When we cleared his study."

Damon went quiet.

"There was a drawer," Silas said. "Left side of the desk. False panel at the back." He paused. "I found it by accident. I wasn’t looking for it." Another pause. "There was an envelope inside."

The room was completely still.

"You didn’t tell us," Damian said.

"No."

"Silas." Damon’s voice was flat. Not angry. Just.....flat.

"I didn’t read it," Silas said. "It had his name on it. I looked at it for about thirty seconds and I put it back." He met Damian’s eyes. "It felt like something private. Something he’d kept deliberately." A pause. "I made a call."

"You made a call," Damon said.

"Damon," Damian said.

Damon looked at the ceiling. Let out a slow breath.

"The handwriting," Silas said. He looked at the letter on the table. "I only saw it for thirty seconds six years ago." Another pause. "But I think it’s the same."

The sitting room was very quiet.

Eve looked at the letter. Then at the three of them. Reading the room the way she read rooms....taking stock, not inserting herself.

Damian stood.

"Where’s the envelope now," he said.

"Same place," Silas said. "I put it back and I left it."

He went to the study alone.

Didn’t ask his brothers to come. Didn’t ask Eve. Some things you did by yourself first and then brought to the people you trusted.

The study was quiet.

He sat down behind his father’s desk.

Six years he’d been sitting here. Six years of pack business and correspondence and decisions and the daily weight of the Blackwood name. He’d stopped thinking of it as his father’s desk a long time ago.

He was thinking of it now.

He opened the left drawer.

Felt along the back panel. Found the seam....obvious once you knew it was there, invisible if you didn’t.

He pressed.

It opened.

One envelope. Old. The paper had gone soft at the edges the way paper did when it had been sitting untouched for years. His father’s name on the front.

He picked it up.

Looked at the handwriting.

Small and precise, with even spacing.

His hands were steady when he opened it.

Two pages. Filled on both sides. The date at the top....twenty two years.

He read it.

The sitting room was down the hall. He could hear them....Damon’s voice, low, Silas answering, Eve quiet between them. The sounds of his family waiting.

He finished the letter.

Read it again. ƒгeewebnovёl.com

Set it down on the desk.

Twenty two years.

His father had kept this for twenty two years in a drawer with a false panel and had never said a word. Not once. Not to any of them.

V had not just known his father.

V had known what his father was carrying.

And now V was writing to Damian.

He sat back in the chair.

Looked at the two pages on the desk.

At the date thirty two years ago.

At the handwriting that matched the letter in his jacket pocket exactly.

Outside the study door his family was waiting.

He picked up both letters.

Stood.

Walked back down the hall.