Chapter 69

I wasn’t supposed to find it.

I was looking for a distraction, something to keep me from spiraling, something to busy my hands while I tried to convince myself I still had a reason to stay. My conversation with Richard kept replaying in my head, looping endlessly with no resolution, no peace. Part of me still wanted to believe him. Part of me wanted to pretend things could settle if I just gave it time. And yet, I couldn’t shake the voice that whispered maybe Elsa was the cleaner option, the easier story, the one that wouldn’t cost him so much.

I was still trying to decide what I wanted. Still unsure if I even knew. Frustration pooled in my chest, hot and bitter, because I hated how much I wanted to stay, how much I wanted to be chosen, even as the rational part of me kept whispering about optics and alliances and everything I could never be. I told myself I was being useful, that maybe something in the old campaign records could make me feel like I had a place here, that sorting through forgotten drawers wasn’t desperation. But I was lying to myself more than anyone else.

I hadn’t meant to open the old filing cabinet tucked into the corner of Richard’s office. It looked like it hadn’t been touched in years, and I’d always assumed it was locked.

It wasn’t.

The top drawers were full of what I expected: outdated spreadsheets, annotated briefings, hastily scrawled notes from staffers who had long since moved on. I was about to close it again when I noticed the uneven base of the third drawer—a false bottom, just slightly misaligned.

I pried it up with the corner of a binder clip and found a set of files labeled only by initials. Donation records. Transaction summaries. Typed memos bearing Richard’s quiet, unmistakable signature.

At first, I thought they might be sensitive campaign expenditures, the kind you didn’t log officially. But the deeper I read, the clearer it became.

These weren’t political. They were personal.

He had been quietly funding shelters across the territory, for lone wolves, rogues, Packless mothers and their children. There were grants issued to medical clinics in underserved regions. Anonymous payments made to keep certain community programs from shutting down. A blind trust established to support educational outreach initiatives for wolfless youth. One of the line items was marked as a bulk purchase of textbooks for a small orphanage.

My orphanage.

His name wasn’t on any of the public documents, but it was there, hidden in the internal ledgers and signed approvals, always just R. No speeches. No credit. No leverage. Just help, offered in silence.

I stood frozen, the folder open in my hands, my heartbeat too loud in my ears.

He hadn’t used it. Not to defend himself. Not to defend me. He could have stood before the council and shown them the kind of leader he truly was, the one who gave in silence, who supported the most vulnerable without asking for recognition.

He could have turned the press storm into a story of private morality, of real leadership rooted in compassion. He could have changed the narrative with these receipts, rewritten the headlines by simply holding them up. But he didn’t. He never used this to shield himself or to shield me, even when it would have made things easier, even when it might have bought him favor or calmed the storm. I thought I had understood the kind of man he was. I thought I had already counted the cost of standing beside him.

But this was a corner of him I hadn’t seen before.

The ache behind my ribs flared again, sharp and relentless.

I remembered the way he had looked at me when he said he would stand behind me. I remembered how quiet he’d gone in the council chamber. I remembered Elsa’s return, her perfect smile, the way the room tilted toward her.

The door opened behind me, and I didn’t have time to put the files away. Richard stepped into the room, halting when he saw what I was holding. His face didn’t change, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes.

"You weren’t supposed to find that," he said softly. He didn’t sound angry. Just resigned.

I didn’t look away. "Are you going to marry her?"

He blinked once. "No."

"You should," I said, setting the file down with deliberate care. I tried to sound steady, like I was thinking about logistics, strategy, optics. But the words tasted like ash. "If it would help. If it would make things easier."

He stepped fully into the room then, closing the distance between us. "Don’t do that. Don’t talk like you’re a liability. Like you’re something I need to erase."

"It’s not just about me," I replied, folding my arms tightly across my chest. "If the rumors became a marriage announcement, everything would stabilize. The council would back down. The press would stop speculating. You could get back to what actually matters."

"They want a symbol," he said. "Not a solution."

"Exactly," I shot back. "And Elsa can give them that."

He shook his head. "Elsa gives them comfort because she never challenges them. You do."

"And I keep getting punished for it," I said, voice rising. "Every time I tell the truth, they make me pay for it."

"Because truth scares them."

"Then maybe it’s time to stop trying to change them. Maybe it’s time to give them what they want."

"You think I want to be tamed?"

"I think you want to win."

That stopped him. Not because he disagreed. But because he knew I wasn’t wrong.

He turned from me then, walking slowly toward the far side of the room. For a moment, I thought he might leave. But he paused, hand resting on the edge of his desk, then turned back to face me.

"Do you really believe I would marry someone I don’t love?"

I hesitated. Then said, quietly, "I believe you’ve let me stand alone more times than I can count. I believe you watched them turn on me and didn’t stop them."

He closed his eyes briefly. "I thought if I defended you, it would only get worse. I thought I was protecting you. I thought that's what we agreed on"

"You weren’t. It wasn't."

We stood in the quiet of his office, surrounded by the weight of everything unsaid. The rumors were out there, pressing against the walls. The council was waiting for clarity. So was I.

"Pick," I said. "Her or me. But don’t make me keep pretending you haven’t already decided."

Richard didn’t argue. He didn’t make excuses. He crossed the room, sat behind his desk, and pulled a blank sheet of letterhead from the drawer.

I watched him write. The pen scratched across the page steadily, each line direct and unflinching. I couldn't make out what he was writing but I knew—he was ending it.

Not just the rumors.

The narrative.

The story they had been trying to tell about him. About us. About power.

While he wrote the final sentence, I stepped away from the door, turning the handle quietly so it wouldn’t echo. I told myself it didn’t matter what he was writing, but I couldn’t help the thoughts crowding in.

Maybe it was a statement denying the rumors about us. Maybe it was an announcement, a public engagement to Elsa that would make everything clean, palatable, politically sound. Maybe it was a compromise. Something that named me but didn’t claim me.

I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Because if I stayed and watched him finish, I might hope. And if it wasn’t for me, if it wasn’t what I needed it to be, I didn’t know how I would survive the confirmation that I had always been the risk, never the reward.