Chapter 111: I Have Him Now

SELENE’S POV

"Thank you, Lucian, for saving me."

The words felt awkward leaving my mouth. Unnatural, even. Because I never ... not in a million years ... would have imagined that Lucian Thornveil would be the one to pull me back from the edge. I had always thought I was alone in everything. That I was doomed to fight and fall alone.

While the doctor attended to me, treating the damage that night had left behind, I needed answers. I couldn’t let it go.

"How did you know?" I asked Lucian.

He dismissed the doctor with a calm but firm instruction ... ten minutes alone with me. The door clicked shut.

"I told you, you’re my responsibility, Selene," he said. "It’s my duty to protect you. You belong to my pack and my territory now."

He paused, then added, "I also told you not to trust anybody."

"But how did you know I was out with him? The specific location ... how?" I pressed.

He held my gaze steadily. "From the very first day you went out alone, I put a detail on you. Someone to track your every move. I watched and I waited while you enjoyed yourself." He laughed softly. "I kept quiet."

The embarrassment hit me like a wave. I had been trying to love again. Trying to stitch myself back together, move forward, feel something good. And I had nearly been killed for it.

"Thank you, Lucian," I said again.

"It’s alright," he said. Then he left.

The doctor came back and finished his work.

I lay there, burning with a pain that had nothing to do with my wounds. How could I have been so gullible? So damn easy to fool?

I already knew it would be all over the news. Lucian still didn’t know the full reason I had been kidnapped ... not yet. But he had sensed from the very beginning that something was wrong, and he had acted on it.

In that moment, as much as it stung my pride, I was glad to have someone like him.

The breeders came to see me not long after, and the moment Valerie walked through that door with the others, my face softened for the first time all day.

"Selene, what happened? We heard," Valerie said, rushing to my side.

It was a long story ... too long ... but I gave them a summary. That was all I could manage. I had been through too much to unpack it all at once.

They brought gifts. Self-care packages. Little comforts wrapped in warmth and concern. I was grateful. Still hurting, but grateful.

Later that evening, the doctors ran their final tests and cleared me to go home. Lucian sent his car and driver to take me straight to the chambers.

I called Ms. Ashlyn from the backseat. She hadn’t heard yet, and I couldn’t let her find out through anyone else.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Hello, Ms. Ashlyn. Something happened," I said, keeping my voice low.

I didn’t want the driver to catch a single word. She was my closest confidant ... the closest thing I had to a mother ... and this conversation belonged to her alone.

"What happened, Selene?" Her voice shifted immediately, tender and alert.

"I was kidnapped. Almost killed."

"What? By who? How?" The alarm in her voice shot up instantly.

"I trusted someone I shouldn’t have. Turns out Aiden was a criminal who wanted the secret to my goods." I kept it vague ... the driver was right there.

"Are you serious? But you’re safe now ... how did you get out?" she asked.

"It was Lucian, Ms. Ashlyn. He said he had been keeping tabs on me ever since I started going out alone."

A long exhale on her end. "Oh, thank God. I’m so glad you’re okay. When can I... actually, no. I’ll come to you tomorrow. Don’t go anywhere, you hear me?"

"Yes, ma’am. I’ll be waiting."

We hung up.

I stared out at the passing dark as the car moved through the night.

My trust was shattered. Completely. Lucian’s act tonight had shifted something, yes ... but one act doesn’t rewrite an entire arc. It takes more than that. Far more.

I was done opening myself up. I would go back to my books, my work, my own mind. At least books didn’t betray you.

God, I had been such a fool.

When I finally walked through the doors of the chambers and sat down on my bed, I couldn’t think ... not clearly. My thoughts were tangled in pain and humiliation. But then, slowly, something darker and sharper began to rise through it all.

Anger.

If they had been doing this to other people ... hunting them down, stealing their inventions by force, crushing them before they could rise ... then they had been doing it for a long time. And they would keep doing it.

Unless someone stopped them.

I wasn’t going to let that happen.

Right there, in my room and in my pain, I started plotting.

I was going to dismantle Aiden ... or whatever the hell his real name was. Because I knew one thing for certain: "Reid" was a lie. No man that calculated would be foolish enough to hand over his real name to a woman he intended to destroy.

A woman who loves can also take revenge. And I intended to take mine.

I didn’t sleep. Not once.

Instead, I sat up through the entire night making sketches ... pulling his face from my memory detail by detail, feature by feature. I drew him over and over until the image came through clear and sharp. But I needed precision. Clinical, undeniable precision.

There was an artist in the chambers ... Ben, the one who did all the official portraits for the Alpha’s halls. He could give me what I needed.

The next morning, I went to him.

"Ben, I need your help finishing this portrait." I laid my sketch in front of him. "This is the shape and basic structure ... I just need a cleaner, more accurate representation."

He studied it carefully. "This is already solid work. I can add the finishing touches, no problem. But what do you need it for?"

That was none of his business.

He sharpened the image without asking again. When he handed it back, it was perfect ... a face I could use.

I took it straight to 3D rendering, digitised it, and fed it into the system. I let the computer do what it was built to do ... run the face against every database in Winterwood.

Nothing came back.

Of course. He didn’t exist. Not officially. No registered identity, no record. His mother, the house, the whole setup ... all fabricated. All smoke.

So I went deeper.

Underground.

I bypassed the surface databases and pushed further into the dark layers ... the ones where people who didn’t want to be found still left traces.

And there he was.

Dax Ashstone.

His full lineage pulled up on my screen. His face confirmed. And the company he was hiding behind ... Real Enterprises Inc. ... a so-called consulting firm for business start-ups and invention development.

A perfect front.

A perfect lie.

But I had him now. I knew where to find them. I knew what they were and what they did and who they were doing it for.

And I was going to hit hard.