Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Ican’t sleep.
It’s been a long day, taking a flight across the country, then driving to the commune and getting my female settled inside my cabin.
Anna is in the bedroom now and I’m on the couch staring at the fire, trying not to think about the fact that my mate is twenty feet away and I can’t claim her. Not yet. Maybe not ever, if she decides this isn’t what she wants. The thought makes my chest tight.
I should be exhausted, but my mind won’t shut off. Can’t stop replaying the moment at the bus station when she took my hand and chose to trust me.
I shift on the couch, trying to get comfortable. It’s too small for my frame but I don’t care, Anna needed the bed and she needed privacy. I can handle a few uncomfortable nights on the couch. Hell, I’d sleep on the floor if it meant she felt secure.
The fire crackles and I watch the flames dance, letting the warmth seep into my skin.
This cabin has always been my refuge, now it’s hers too.
The thought should feel strange considering I’ve lived alone for years and used to prefer it that way.
But having Anna here feels right, like something that was missing finally clicked into place.
The bedroom door opens and my body goes on alert. I turn my head slightly. Anna hovers in the doorway, backlit by the lamp she left on. She wears an oversized t-shirt and leggings, and her short dark hair is mussed from lying down.
Beautiful. The sexiest female I’ve ever met.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask quietly, keeping my voice gentle.
“No.” She hovers there, uncertain. “You either?”
“No.”
My female moves slowly across the room and sits on the other end of the couch, as far from me as possible while still being on the same piece of furniture. The fire crackles between us.
“I was about to make myself some hot chocolate,” I tell her. “Do you want some?”
“Oh yes, thank you.”
In short order, I’m returning with two steaming mugs of chocolate magic.
We sit in silence and sip at our drinks.
I’m ninety-nine percent certain my female is readying herself to finally tell me what happened.
Meanwhile I study her lovely profile in the firelight.
The curve of her rounded cheek. The way her glasses catch the glow.
I want to pull her into my arms and tell her she’s safe now, that I’ll protect her from whatever’s chasing her. But I hold back. She needs space.
“Someone I cared about died,” she says suddenly. The words are quiet, directed at the fire, not at me but I hear them clearly and the pain underneath.
My hands clench into fists but I don’t move, just listen.
“He died because of what we knew,” she continues.
“Because we were going to do the right thing together. His name was Jonas Webb. Dr. Jonas Webb, the head of Special Collections at the university—the rare books collection. We’d worked together a lot over the years.
I studied Victorian literature and spent hours in the archives with those manuscripts.
A manuscript I’d studied before—a first edition Bronte—there was something that felt off about it compared to the last time I’d used it.
The paper, the ink, were wrong. I mentioned it to him and he agreed it felt almost tampered with and started checking other items in the collection. ”
Her voice gets quieter and I have to lean forward slightly to hear.
“They were forgeries. Multiple priceless manuscripts had been replaced with forgeries. Someone was stealing from the collection and selling the originals. But it was worse than that.”
She finally looks at me, those dark eyes full of pain and fear.
“The theft was connected to the university’s endowment fund.
Millions in ‘donations’ that were actually being used to launder money.
We found the paper trail. Donors were claiming massive tax deductions for donations to preserve the collection.
But those same donors were buying the stolen manuscripts for their private collections.
University administrators were taking kickbacks.
It was huge—tax fraud, theft, money laundering. Millions of dollars.”
I process that. This isn’t some small-time theft. This is organized crime at the highest level.
She takes a shaky breath. “Some of the people involved... they’re powerful. A US Senator. Billionaires. Tech CEOs. People with the resources to make problems disappear.”
Fuck. My jaw clenches but I keep my expression neutral, so she won’t see the rage building in my chest.
“Jonas wanted to go to the FBI. We compiled everything—financial records, emails, proof of the forgeries, sales records. We had an appointment scheduled and we were going to turn it all over together.” Her voice breaks on the last word and my heart cracks with it.
“The appointment was on a Friday. That Wednesday night, I got a call from campus police. Jonas was dead. They’d found him in his office.
They said it was a suicide, that he’d hung himself in his office.
” Tears start running down her cheeks. She doesn’t wipe them away, just lets them fall.
And I understand.
“Jonas didn’t kill himself,” she says fiercely. “Someone killed him and made it look like suicide. Two days before he was supposed to turn over evidence that would destroy powerful people.”
My hands are fists now. The rage is building, hot and fierce. Someone killed this man and now they’re hunting Anna.
Anna continues, her voice breaking, “He had a wife and twin daughters. A sabbatical planned in Greece. Jonas would never kill himself. He loved his family and his work too much.” She hugs her knees and I can see her trying to hold herself together.
“Someone knew. Someone knew we were going to the FBI. How else would they know to kill Jonas exactly two days before our appointment? Either there’s someone inside the FBI feeding information to these people, or someone at the university tipped them off, or our phones were tapped.
I don’t know. But someone knew. And Jonas died for it.
Why did he have to die instead of me? Jonas was the one with a family who would miss him.
I don’t have any family and I was single at the time.
Both of us were going into the FBI, if they were going to get rid of the evidence they should’ve taken us both out.
I think the only reason he was killed instead of me, was because he was the one who contacted the FBI. ”
The cabin is silent except for the crackling fire and Anna’s shaky breathing.
“So I ran,” she whispers. “Because I’d decided that if I went to that FBI appointment without Jonas, I’d be dead too.
I didn’t know who to trust and I still don’t.
It was too coincidental that he was murdered right after he’d made that appointment for us to go in.
Senator Vance sits on the Senate Finance Committee, she has oversight over the IRS, over federal law enforcement budgets.
What if she has someone in the FBI on her payroll?
What if I turn over the evidence and it just..
. disappears? Or worse, what if I end up like Jonas—another ‘suicide’?
” She looks at me again. “The evidence is the only leverage I have. It’s the only thing keeping me alive.
As long as I have it and they don’t know where it is, I’m valuable alive.
The moment I hand it over to anyone—FBI, journalists, anyone—what’s to stop them from just killing me? ”
Everything she’s saying makes perfect sense.
“You were smart not to trust them,” I say.
She blinks at me, surprised. “You think so?” Her voice is small, uncertain. “I’ve spent three years wondering if I made the wrong choice. If I should’ve just gone to the FBI anyway. I wonder if I’m a coward for running instead of fighting.”
“You’re not a coward.” My voice comes out harder than I intended but I need her to hear this.
“You stayed alive and kept the evidence safe.” I lean forward.
“If you’d gone to the FBI three years ago, using the same contact that Webb used, they would’ve killed you and made it look like another suicide, or an accident.
The evidence would’ve disappeared and these people would still be stealing and laundering money. ”
“But Jonas died for nothing,” she chokes out. “His wife thinks he killed himself. His daughters will grow up thinking their father abandoned them—”
“Jonas died because those humans are murderers,” I interrupt. “Not because you survived.”
I take her hand in mine. “And now you have something you didn’t have three years ago.”
“What?”
“An entire commune of orcs who can protect you. We can do this right. Make the evidence public in a way they can’t suppress, using multiple news outlets at once. Upload everything to secure servers. Make it so big that even Senator Vance and the others can’t cover it up.”
“You really think that could work?”
“Yes. But we need to be smart about it. Strategic. Tell me more about these humans. Who are we dealing with?”
She takes a breath, straightens slightly, and I realize she’s relieved to finally tell someone and not carry this alone anymore.
“Senator Bree Vance is a major donor to the university, she bought rare Whitman manuscripts for her private collection. Her whole political career is built on being an ‘arts patron and education advocate.’ If this comes out, she loses everything. Her seat, her reputation. Prison time.”
I nod and file the name away. Senator Bree Vance. Target number one. “Who else?”
“Larry Aldridge. Real estate billionaire. University Board Chairman. He orchestrated the whole scheme and used university donations to launder money from his real estate deals. Bought first editions—Dickens, Austen, Melville. If exposed, he goes to prison for decades and loses his empire.”
Larry Aldridge. Target number two.
“David Klein. Tech CEO. University board member. Used his ‘philanthropy’ to build political connections. Bought rare scientific manuscripts to establish his intellectual credentials. Those credentials helped him secure government contracts worth billions. If exposed, he loses his company, his contracts, his reputation.”
David Klein. Target number three.
“They all have a lot to lose,” I say quietly.
“Yes. And they’ve already killed once. Jonas’s death proves they’re willing to do whatever it takes.”
Silence settles between us again.
I’m already thinking through how to take them down. How to protect Anna while the evidence goes public and make sure she survives this.
“I’ve thought about this for three years,” Anna continues.
“Played it out a thousand different ways. Even if most FBI agents are honest, it only takes one person on Senator Vance’s payroll to tip her off that I’ve come forward.
One person to tell her where I’m staying, what safe house they put me in.
” She wraps her arms around herself. “And it’s not just the FBI.
These people have billions of dollars between them.
They can hire private investigators, hackers, ex-military contractors.
Larry Aldridge has a whole security company on his payroll.
David Klein runs a tech company with surveillance capabilities I can’t even imagine. ”
She bites at her lip again. “I’ve been so careful.
Burner phones, cash only, fake IDs, never staying in one place too long.
And they still found me even though I’d only been at that school for less than a year.
They’d been watching me in Truckee for weeks, maybe months. I was so careful and it wasn’t enough.”
“These people are used to intimidating humans but they’ve never dealt with orcs.”
She lets out a small, bitter laugh. “You think that matters?”
“I know it does. They can’t manipulate us the way they do humans and we don’t answer to their laws, their senators, their money.” I lean close. “You’re under orc protection now. That means something.”
“I’m tired, Keric,” she whispers. “I’m so tired of running. I want to fight back and I want justice for Jonas. I want his wife and daughters to know the truth. I want these people to pay for what they did and stop them from doing more of it in the future.”
“Then let’s make that happen.”
“How?”
“My family has resources. We can help you do this the right way and protect you while the evidence goes public. Make sure you’re safe when the arrests start happening.”
“You’d really help me do all that?”
“Yes. You’re not alone anymore. You don’t have to fight this battle by yourself. Let me help you.”
“Okay,” she whispers.
“Okay?”
“Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s go public. Let’s take them down.”
“We’ll be strategic. Take our time. Do it right.”
“How long?”
“A few weeks, maybe. We need to coordinate with journalists, lawyers, set up the secure uploads. Make sure everything is in place before we pull the trigger.”
“Thank you,” she says quietly. “For believing me. For not thinking I’m paranoid or crazy.”
“You’re not paranoid, you’re smart and brave. You’ve survived three years on your own against people who wanted you dead. That’s not nothing.”
Her throat works. She’s trying not to cry again.
I open my arms and she quickly moves forward and snuggles against my chest. My arms go around her and I settle my chin on her head. She lets out a deep sigh of contentment and a wide smile spreads across my face.
We sit in silence after that. But it’s comfortable now. The weight of her secret isn’t crushing her anymore. The fire crackles. The cabin is warm. And slowly, gradually, I watch the tension drain from Anna’s body. Her eyes drift closed and her breath evens out.
“Sleep, Anna,” I murmur, quiet enough that it won’t wake her. “You’re safe here. I promise.”