Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Layla
I sat on the study sofa, fingers digging into the fabric bunched on my knees. The second I heard about Victoria's death, I'd rushed to find Kayden.
"What did she say?" I was still reeling.
"She confessed to everything." Kayden moved to the fireplace, his back to me. Firelight danced across his profile. "The leak—she arranged it. Lucas—she bought him."
"And the vampires..." He turned. "That too. She said she hated you. Wanted to destroy you."
I stared into the flames, my mind racing.
Victoria.
The woman who'd clung to Kayden's arm in that café, triumph in her eyes when she'd said, "I'm his fiancée." Would she really go this far for him?
"Do you believe it?" I looked up at him.
Kayden was quiet for several seconds.
"No." He crossed to me, sat down opposite. "The motive's too weak. She hated that you took her place. Hated that I broke my father's promise. But that kind of hate..."
"Isn't enough to drive all this." I finished his thought. "Going after me is one thing, but hiring vampires takes resources, connections. Attacking the pack takes inside help, planning..."
"It's too complicated. Too dangerous. If it was just about becoming Luna..."
Kayden nodded. "Plus, the timeline doesn't work." He stood, went to his desk, picked up a file, and handed it to me.
"Full records of the attacks on Silver Moon Pack."
I took it, scanned quickly.
First attack. Seven years ago. November.
"Victoria didn't return to the pack until after the first attack," Kayden added. "Before that, she was abroad the whole time."
"So..." I looked up. "She couldn't have arranged the initial attack."
"Unless she had an accomplice," Kayden said. "Someone inside the pack."
The study fell silent except for the snap and crackle of burning wood. An image suddenly flashed through my mind—
Victoria's eyes in those final moments.
Kayden had described them to me. She'd professed her love for him over and over, but what he'd sensed was... like she was looking through him. At someone else.
She was taking the fall for someone.
Protecting someone.
Someone worth dying for.
"What makes a woman willing to die?" I stood, pacing the study.
Not power. Victoria's family already had that.
Not status. The Luna position mattered, but not enough to die for.
Not revenge. Even if she saw me as a rival, it wasn't hatred.
Then what?
I stopped dead, a single word freezing me in place.
"Love."
I turned to Kayden, my lips trembling like I was speaking a secret.
"Love, Kayden. Only love could make a woman willing to die."
Kayden stared at me for several seconds. Then his eyes slowly widened.
"You're saying Victoria loved someone?"
"Loved them enough to take the fall," I spoke the guess slowly, shocking even myself. "Loved them enough to give her life."
"But the person she loved..." Kayden frowned. "Wasn't me."
"Of course not," I said. "When she looked at you, there was never love. Just obsession. Like you were something to possess. But real love... she loved someone else."
Kayden strode to his desk, fingers flying over the keyboard.
"Evan, deep dive on Victoria. Everything. From birth. Especially her romantic history."
"Yes, Alpha."
Minutes later, files started coming through.
Kayden opened the first—Victoria's academic records.
"Victoria Claire, enrolled at Northern Academy at eighteen..."
He scrolled quickly, mouse clicking.
"Here." He stopped suddenly. "Campus gossip mentions she dated some guy off-campus. Unknown identity. The Claires hired the school to investigate. They found the guy was..."
He clicked an attachment. A blurry photo appeared on screen. The shot was unclear, but that gaunt profile, that brooding quality...
"Finn." My voice shook.
Kayden kept scrolling.
"A week after the rumors surfaced, Victoria's parents pulled her out and sent her overseas. The guy disappeared, too. No trace."
"This relationship..."
He opened another encrypted file—something Evan had obtained through special channels from the Claire family's internal records.
"Was deliberately buried by her parents. They paid to delete all records, threatened anyone who knew... Like the relationship never existed."
My fingers went cold.
Victoria and Finn.
They'd been in love.
The cemetery lay north of the pack, some distance from the estate. Moonlight spilled across the headstones, pale light reflecting off stone like silent ghosts.
Kayden brought two warriors carrying shovels and flashlights. I followed, my heart hammering like it might burst through my ribs.
If it really was empty...
Night wind stirred, bringing the scent of earth and dead grass, and something else—a faint whiff of decay. Finn's grave was in the far corner, an inconspicuous spot. The headstone was small, black marble, carved with just a few simple words:
Finn Blackwood. Birth and death dates.
No epitaph, no flowers, no decoration. Like a forgotten person. Or rather... a family shame.
"Begin," Kayden ordered, his voice cutting through the silence.
The warriors started digging. Shovels bit into earth with dull thuds. One scoop, two, three... dirt piled up beside the grave.
I stood by the headstone, fingers twisted together. The moonlight was cold, so cold I got goosebumps. Time crawled. The scrape of shovels echoed through the night like some eerie rhythm. My breathing grew ragged, palms slick with sweat.
"Alpha." A warrior said suddenly. "We hit it."
Kayden moved to the edge of the grave. I followed.
Looking down—
A corner of a black coffin showed through, wood covered in thick dirt.
"Keep going," Kayden said.
The warriors worked faster. Soon, the entire coffin was exposed.
Kayden jumped into the grave, crouched beside the coffin. He reached out, brushed dirt from the lid. Gentle, like touching something fragile.
"Open it."
The warriors wedged crowbars into the gap between the lid and box.
One heave—
Click.
The lid loosened.
Another heave—
Click.
My heart jumped into my throat.
"One, two, three!"
The warriors pulled together. The lid came free. Heavy wood crashed onto the dirt pile, throwing up a cloud of dust.
Kayden aimed his flashlight inside. The beam cut a bright path through the darkness. Then he froze, motionless like someone had cast a spell on him.
"Alpha?" A warrior asked carefully. "It's..."
Kayden didn't answer. He just slowly stood, climbed out of the grave. His face was ghostly white in the moonlight.
"Empty."
His voice was barely audible.
"The coffin's empty."
My legs gave out. If I hadn't grabbed the headstone, I would've collapsed.
Empty. Finn's coffin was empty.
He wasn't dead. All these years... he'd been alive.
Cold horror crawled up my spine like icy fingers on skin. My breathing turned sharp, chest tight like something was pressing down.
He was alive.
That brooding man I'd met before the engagement ceremony. The one whose eyes had flashed with malice when he'd said "my fiancée."
He wasn't dead.
He'd faked his death. Framed me. Let me be accused of murder...
Then what? Watched from the shadows as I jumped? As I struggled in the water? As I "died"?
Seven years. What had he been doing?
"Layla."
Kayden's voice pulled me back. He stood before me, hands on my shoulders.
"Breathe. Don't be afraid."
I tried, gulping air, but it stuck in my throat.
"At the engagement ceremony, you said you smelled vampire on him, right?"
"Yes." I nodded, trembling with bone-deep fear. "Faint, but it was there."
"The coffin has claw marks, but they're not wolf claws. Combined with the vampire scent..." Kayden paused, forcing out the answer we'd both been afraid to believe. "He likely consumed vampire blood. Underwent partial transformation. Entered a state of feigned death."
"Heart stops, temperature drops, all vital signs vanish. But it's just deep hibernation. Hours later, automatic revival."
"So he fooled everyone," I said, cold sweat breaking out on my back, hair standing on end. "Including the healer. Then after burial..."
I didn't finish, but we both knew.
Finn had crawled out of that coffin.
Like some monster from a horror story, risen from the grave.
"Why... why would he do this?" My voice shook, nearly desperate. "I never wronged him. Why frame me?"
"I don't know," Kayden said, pulling me close. "But I'll find out. I swear it."
I leaned against his chest, listened to his pounding heart. Thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud. The rhythm steadied me slightly. Kayden released me, pulled out his phone, and called Evan.
"Evan, pull Victoria's complete movements for the past seven years," Kayden ordered. "Call logs, bank statements, social media... everything."
New files started arriving.
"Here." Evan's voice came through the phone. "Victoria's been back at the pack seven years, but her bank account shows... Monthly fixed payments. Not huge amounts—five to ten thousand. Transferred to an offshore account."
"Can you trace it?" Kayden asked.
"Difficult, but we used some methods..." Evan answered. "Eventually tracked it. The account holder..."
He paused. "Someone named 'F.B.'"
Kayden and I locked eyes.
"F.B.," I repeated the letters. "Finn Blackwood."
"There's more," Evan said, pulling up another file. "Victoria's call logs show an encrypted number."
"At least one call per week. Each lasting over an hour. We traced the signal source..."
A map appeared on the phone screen, a red dot blinking.
"Near Silver Moon Pack. Direction of the abandoned mines."
"So Victoria's been funding him for seven years," Kayden said, his voice growing unsteady as this seven-year conspiracy finally began to unravel. "Finn, hiding in the abandoned mines."
My throat tightened, mind blank.
"She agreed to the old Alpha's wishes for him," I suddenly understood. "She'd rather marry someone she didn't love."
"It gave her access to the pack's core," Kayden realized too. "Let her gather intelligence for Finn."
His eyes widened slowly. "Made her the inside accomplice."
"Alpha!" Evan's voice suddenly turned urgent and frantic. "Emergency! Internal breach at the estate!"
"What's happening?" Kayden went rigid.
"It's chaos, and Elsa's been knocked out..."
Wasn't Elsa watching Kai?
I shot to my feet, grabbed Kayden's arm.
"Where's Kai?" My voice came out as a scream. "Where is Kai?"
"He's... he's been taken," Evan's voice trembled. "Security footage shows Elder Drake. He took Kai and left the estate. Direction unknown..."
The phone slipped from Kayden's hand, hit the ground. All I could hear was a roaring buzz in my ears.
Kai had been taken.
My Kai.
My baby.
"And..." Evan's voice drifted up from the phone on the ground, distant and muffled. "Emergency report from the border, full-scale attack by the mystery force. They're breaking through the first defensive line!"