49 Chapter 49 LET. IT. GO
49 Chapter 49 LET. IT. GO
I clenched my teeth. “The hospital.”
His eyes widened. “What?”
He gave a half-smile. “She painted the inside with a special powder. Heat-reactive. It lights up when a hand grips it tightly enough for the body heat to trigger it. Pretty smart,
huh?”
1 1 2 2 2 1 3 E
My gut twisted at the mention of Lucian and that damn dance.
He stepped back and let me in, closing the door behind me with another sigh. His place was quiet, the faint scent of saffron and eucalyptus lingering in the air, mixing with
Ethan’s.
He sighed. “You’re going to hate my response.”
My mind was already spinning ahead. Someone-with access and knowledge-had covered the details of that night. Or tried to.
***
“I’m not,” he said evenly. “She bought that rock at some overpriced vendor stall at the flea market. She carries it around as if it’s sacred because it feels that way. People believe it. That’s the point.”
Who?
I swallowed hard. “But…” I was even more confused than ever. “If the stone wasn’t magic, what made him speak?”
“Fucking hell.” I raked a hand through my hair.
A chill crept up my spine. “Do we know who made the request?”
Ashar wouldn’t give them to me.
“It might,” I said tightly. “It might help her heal. Help me understand.”
My grip tightened on the phone. “What? You’re telling me someone erased it?”
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I said nothing.
I stared at him, feeling pressure build behind my eyes. “So everything that happened tonight was a goddamn performance?”
I didn’t bother with small talk. “Is Maya here?”
“Just do me a favor,” Ethan added.
I stared at him. “The fuck do you mean it’s not real? I saw it work.”
My throat tightened. “I never meant for either of them to get hurt.”
When I arrived, I sat in the driveway with the engine off, bathed in silence and the judgmental glow of the moon, my hands wrapped around the steering wheel as if it were the only thing keeping me grounded.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t get the truth,” Ethan continued. “But be sure you’re doing it for the right reasons-not because you think it’ll magically fix everything.”
“Don’t lose yourself trying to fix the past. And don’t drag everyone down with you. Sometimes the truth doesn’t come with peace-it just comes with more consequences.”
Ethan’s gaze was knowing. “Maybe it wasn’t about the stone.” He shrugged. “Maybe it was just time.”
“Let. It. Go.”
His expression shifted-mild curiosity giving way to caution. “Why?”
He answered shirtless, barefoot, and annoyed, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Kieran?”
Ethan raised an eyebrow. “No. She’s with Sera.”
Ethan studied me for a long moment, his eyes slowly growing more alert. Then he sighed. “You should probably come in.”
Celeste wouldn’t give them to me.
My grip on the wheel tightened. “And?”
I barely remembered the ride home-just the steady rumble of the engine and the taste of
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guilt and unease souring in my mouth.
I took a step forward, fists clenched. “Don’t play games with me, Ethan. I’m not in the fucking mood.”
He leaned against the counter. “Not everything.” He narrowed his eyes like he could see through me. “Ashar’s confession was real.”
Logic dictated there could be other reasons why the footage was deleted, but I knew deep in my bones that it had to do with what happened between Sera and me.
I looked up.
“You need to hear this,” Gavin said without preamble. His voice was clipped, cautious. “I pulled the server logs from the security archive of the hotel for the Blood Moon Hunt, just like you asked.”
“But it glowed.”
Gavin.
My fists clenched, everything in me instantly revolting at the idea.
I said nothing. Because I didn’t have an answer to that.
I looked up. “What?”
I frowned. “I don’t doubt it.”
“I need answers, Ethan,” I snapped.
Tense silence settled between us. And then, Ethan broke it.
“She’s fine now,” I gritted out. “You can go see her tomorrow. I didn’t come here to be scolded, Ethan.”
“And now,” he went on, “you’re trying to claw your way to the truth when the people around you-Celeste, Sera, even yourself-don’t fully remember the story. Or they remember it wrong.”
I looked down at the tiled floor, guilt coiling around my spine like a python.
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“Where’s Celeste?”
I stared at the screen for a second, chest tight, then answered,
I swore. “I need her truth stone.”
My voice dropped. “Emma confessed.”
I looked away, jaw tight. I couldn’t believe I’d been manipulated that way. What’s worse, it had actually worked.
Ethan tilted his head. “And what then? You sweep in, tear her away from Lucian, and pretend the last decade didn’t happen? What does it even matter? You never loved Sera. Celeste is the one you chose. Is the truth going to change that?”
I nodded stiffly, glaring at the stained marble of his kitchen countertop.
My phone rang.
“It wasn’t real,” he said.
“You think getting closure is going to change anything?” Ethan asked, tone not unkind. “You think knowing whether or not Celeste set her up will undo the last ten years?” “The truth stone,” he clarified, voice calm, deliberate. “It’s not real.”
“I’m still digging,” Gavin said. “But it’s clear someone had something to hide about what happened that night.”
Maya.
“|—”
“Can’t,” he finished for me.
He nodded, a slight smirk pulling at his lips. “Because Maya’s presence alone is enough to make people crack. The stone? That’s just a prop.”
“But what?”
“You’re not angry because the stone wasn’t real,” Ethan added quietly. “You’re angry because you don’t know what to believe anymore. Because your memory is shit, and
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because you let someone else write the narrative-for ten damn years.”
“You know why? You heard it all, didn’t you? I need more answers.”
But why?
“That’s the thing, Alpha. It was run through a proxy ID with Admin-level clearance. But no name. No trace.”
“For fuck’s sake, Kieran.”
KIERAN’S POV
“I know,” he said softly. “But they did.”
“Yeah?”
I took a breath. “Then what the hell should I do?”
“There was footage,” he said. “Corridor cams, lobby, elevator-hell, even the vending machines had security cameras. But…”
My pulse pounded. I needed answers.
“You and Sera are divorced. You’re not mates. And she has someone else now. I missed it, but I heard they led the opening dance together. You know what that means.”
Gavin’s research had hit a seemingly dead end.
“About three months ago, someone put in a formal request to delete specific recordings from the night of the Blood Moon Hunt.”
I followed him into the kitchen, where he poured himself a glass of water before speaking.
He took a long sip of water, then shrugged. “What you saw was Maya doing what she does best-getting into people’s heads.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
I was knocking on Ethan’s door fifteen minutes later.
I glared at the glass cup. “I tried to question her some more, and she…fainted. Apparently,
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the stress was too much for her weak wolf.”
“I know you do,” he said calmly. “But here’s the part you’re avoiding-what difference will
it make?”
There was only one other person I could think of. The one who’d gotten the ball rolling in
the first place.
He pushed off the counter. “Let me be blunt, Kieran. What’s done is done. Your marriage to Sera is over, and you’re with Celeste now. If you waver again-if you go chasing after ghosts-both my sisters are going to pay the price.” His eyes narrowed. “Again.”
“They tried,” he said. “But the thing is, the system doesn’t just wipe it completely. It flags deletion attempts, and if the request isn’t fully authorized or finished…fragments get
stored.”
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