The week passed faster than I expected, filled with a strange, fragile rhythm of ordinary routine stitched between careful preparation for whatever waited in Ferro territory.
Nova trained with Sal each morning, throwing herself into the work with a fierce determination that reminded me, painfully and proudly, of exactly how much of our shared upbringing had shaped us both into people who refused to simply wait for danger to arrive unprepared.
I continued my own training with Lucian, the gold warmth answering more reliably now, steadier under pressure, though he remained cautious about promising it would hold under the kind of sustained hostility we might face in unfamiliar territory.
“You’re improving faster than the old records suggest should be possible,” he told me, one afternoon in the garden, watching me hold the light steady through nearly two full minutes of Sal’s staged, aggressive questioning.
“I don’t know if that’s simply your own strength, or something about how directly you’re forced to use it, but either way — I’d rather not question good fortune too closely.” Adrian split his time between security briefings with Enzo and long, careful phone calls I wasn’t always included in, though he never fully hid the tension those conversations left behind.
I found him one evening in his study, the same amber glass from our first late-night conversation sitting untouched in front of him, exhaustion carved deep into features that rarely allowed themselves to show it.
“Bad news?” I asked, settling into the chair across from him.
“Complicated news.” He rubbed a hand across his face, some of the careful composure finally slipping in front of me alone.
“Rocco’s gone fully silent since the ceremony.
No movement, no contact, nothing.
Enzo thinks he’s genuinely spooked by what he witnessed — realized he’s out of his depth against whatever’s actually hunting you now.” “That sounds like good news.” “It would be, if I trusted it.” Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“Rocco Moretti doesn’t simply retreat from a fight.
If he’s genuinely gone quiet, it’s because he’s recalculating an entirely new strategy, not because he’s given up his interest in you.” “And Ferro territory?” “Chaos, mostly.
The old Alpha’s brother has claimed provisional leadership, but there’s at least two other challengers contesting it already.
Sal’s contact says the whole territory’s balanced on the edge of internal war.” He met my eyes, something careful and searching in his gaze.
“Which makes it either the perfect moment to find sympathetic allies desperate for outside legitimacy, or the worst possible moment to walk into a territory that might collapse into civil conflict the moment we arrive.” “Lucian still thinks it’s worth the risk.” “Lucian’s spent eighteen years studying this world from a careful, theoretical distance,” Adrian said, an edge of genuine worry creeping into his voice.
“I’ve spent my entire life managing actual, practical danger.
Theory and practice don’t always agree on acceptable risk.” I reached across the desk, my hand finding his, grounding us both in the same steady connection that had carried us through every crisis so far.
“What does your practical experience actually suggest, then?” He was quiet for a long moment, turning the question over with the same careful weight he gave every decision that mattered.
“That we go,” he said finally, “but prepared for the territory to fracture around us the moment we arrive.
Full security detail.
Contingency extraction already planned before we even cross the border.” His eyes held mine, fierce and certain.
“I’m not walking you into another situation where we’re simply reacting to whatever happens, Wren.
Not after the ceremony.” “Agreed,” I said quietly.
We left three days later, a careful, coordinated convoy carrying myself, Adrian, Sal, Lucian, and four of Adrian’s most trusted men, Enzo remaining behind to hold the estate and coordinate Nova’s continued safety alongside Isabella.
The drive toward Ferro territory passed in tense, watchful silence, every one of us scanning the passing landscape for any sign of the ambush none of us fully trusted wouldn’t come.
It was nearly two hours into the journey when my burner phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number — not Lucian’s careful formal phrasing, not Damian’s urgent pack updates, but something colder and considerably more unsettling.
You’re heading in the wrong direction, Wren Calloway.
Ferro territory holds nothing but chaos and false hope.
The records you’re hoping to find there were removed decades ago, long before this current succession crisis ever gave you reason to look.
Whoever suggested this path either doesn’t know that, or is deliberately wasting your time while more important pieces move elsewhere on the board.
I would suggest turning your attention toward something closer to home instead.
Ask yourself who benefits most from keeping you occupied with a dead end, while your actual protection remains distracted managing a crisis that was never real to begin with.
Consider this a professional courtesy.
I don’t often extend them.
I stared at the message, ice creeping slowly down my spine, and felt Adrian’s attention sharpen the moment he registered the sudden stillness in my posture.
“Wren.” His voice had gone tight with immediate concern.
“What is it?” I turned the phone toward him wordlessly, watching his expression shift from confusion into hard, focused alarm as he read the message through twice.
“That’s the same faction,” he said slowly.
“Has to be.
Which means either they’re trying to manipulate us away from a genuinely useful lead, or—” “Or Ferro territory really is a dead end,” I finished, dread coiling tight in my chest, “and something else, somewhere closer to home, is the actual target they’re trying to keep our attention away from.” Sal’s eyes met Adrian’s in the rearview mirror, both of them clearly running through the same terrible calculation at once.
“If this is a distraction,” Sal said grimly, “and we’re two hours from the estate already—” Adrian was already reaching for his phone, dialing Enzo’s number with hands that had gone visibly unsteady for the first time since I’d met him.
The call rang twice before connecting, and Enzo’s voice, when it finally answered, carried a raw, ragged edge of panic that told us, before he’d said a single coherent word, that whatever the erasure faction had actually been planning, it had already begun.
[End of Chapter 25]