Chapter 79

Emily

“Pull it together, Emily, it’s just a folder.” I scolded myself. The folder in question, that had been anonymously delivered, was thinner than I expected for something that might change everything.

It felt alarmingly light.

My fingers kept hovering over the seal, hesitation coiled low in my stomach like a warning: Don’t get your hopes up.

I decided to heed my own lecture and opened it anyway.

The first page was a property ledger.

Estate Holdings – Revised 4th Quarter. The ink was faded but legible. A column of property sales, some marked in red, others with scribbled notations.

And there, three parcels of land that should’ve never left my mother’s control. One sold under my father’s authority after my mother’s death. Two transferred quietly, without Pack approval, to a now-defunct ally.

I scanned down. A familiar signature caught my eye. Not my father's. My grandfather’s. The original Alpha.

Flipping the page, my heart picked up its pace.

It was an old letter. Written on formal stationery, watermarked and signed by one of my grandfather’s closest allies. The same man whose estate had been shuttered and absorbed into another Pack nearly a decade ago.

It was addressed to me.

‘To be delivered to Emily Blackwood when she comes of age to contest.’

The date was years old. The envelope had never arrived.

I pressed a shaking hand to my lips, eyes scanning the contents. There was confirmation of property rights, a copy of an early will, notes on Pack transfers, and worst of all… evidence that someone had deliberately buried this.

A slip of paper, folded into the bottom of the letter, fluttered to the table

‘I couldn’t let this vanish completely. I hope it finds you in time.’

I sat back in the chair, letting the papers rest on my lap.

This wasn’t just evidence. It was everything I needed to win this lawsuit. It was proof that I hadn’t been imagining it, hadn’t been bitter without cause.

My instincts were right. My inheritance had been stolen, manipulated, and paved over without my consent. And now, someone had cracked the foundation open again.

The old feeling of being voiceless, powerless, dismissed, it tightened in my ribs out of habit. But I didn’t want to let it hold.

Not anymore. Because this… it was the beginning of a case I could actually win. Something in my spine straightened. Something in me steadied.

I gathered the documents in careful order, fingers pressing out every old crease, eyes devouring every signature and seal like scripture.

There was still a long road ahead. Legal strategy. Expert witnesses. Pushback from the remnants of the old loyalists who’d benefited from this.

Losing the family I had left.

But I could feel it. A door that had been sealed for years was open now, just a sliver. And I wasn’t going to let it close on me again.

Reaching for my pen I began to take notes, organizing the strongest pieces of evidence first, smoothing out the timeline in my mind.

I knew I should let the lawyers do it, but this felt too personal to leave to anyone else.

I was so engrossed that I didn’t hear the footsteps outside the door. Didn’t notice the shift in the light. I was too focused on the beginning of something that felt like returning to who I was always supposed to be.

My mother’s daughter and not so easily erased.

The knock came softly—one tap, then another.

I blinked away from the dense lines of handwritten shorthand, my eyes burning from too much reading and not enough blinking.

The room had gone quiet, and I was buried in time. For a few hours, it had been enough to keep the rest of the world away.

Another knock.

I stood slowly, the stiffness in my back reminding me just how long I’d been sitting. I wasn’t expecting anyone.

When I opened the door, Logan stood on the other side. He just held out a porcelain cup filled with steaming tea.

I stared at it for a second too long, confused by the gesture. But then the scent hit me. Black rose and chamomile. A blend I’d only ever found in one apothecary shop near my childhood home.

I hadn’t asked for it. Hadn’t mentioned it was my favorite. But here it was. And here he was.

I took the cup carefully. “Thank you,” I said, automatically, though my voice came out softer than I intended.

He nodded once and stepped back like he meant to leave. But I didn’t close the door. And he lingered.

The moment stretched between us.

Logan shifted his weight, his gaze drifting toward the table behind me. The scattered documents. The ledger book. The crumpled notes.

“You can come in,” I said, finally.

He did. And he didn’t ask what I was reading. Just pulled out the chair across from mine and sat down without a word.

The silence settled again—but it felt different now. Steady as a heartbeat.

I sipped the tea. It was perfectly steeped. Stronger than I remembered, but grounding.

Logan leaned back slightly, his hands clasped in front of him. Watching.

I looked back down at the papers. I could have stayed guarded. Could’ve kept the discovery close, locked behind legal privilege and fear.

I’d done that before, but I didn’t want to do that with him.

Not now.

I turned one of the sheets toward him. The one with my grandfather’s old signature scrawled across the top. A name that meant everything and nothing, depending on who you asked.

“He wrote this for me,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Years ago. Before he died. My father buried it.”

Something in Logan’s expression shifted. A quiet understanding passed between us, wordless and real.

I slid the page a little closer to him. “It’s enough to win the case.”

His eyes flicked up to meet mine, holding something I wanted more of. Approval.

And for once, the warmth I felt wasn’t from anger or fire or survival. It was from being seen. Fully and without needing to be anything but what I was in that moment.

He didn’t reach for the paper right away. Instead, he held my gaze and looked at me as if he was trying to memorize me. Take in the look of my relief.

“I’m glad,” he said quietly. “You deserve this.”

The words were simple. But they felt larger than life.

I smiled, just a little. “It’s not over yet.”

He nodded once. “No. But now you’re more prepared to give them hell.”

I looked down quickly, unsure what to say to that. My fingers adjusted the edges of the page, smoothing it flat again though it didn’t need it.

Logan reached across the table and tapped the edge of one of the signatures.

“He thought ahead,” he said, meaning my grandfather. “Even when no one else did.”

I nodded. “He saw more in me than most people did. Including my own father. He never cared that I’m dormant.”

“He wasn’t wrong,” Logan said, and his voice was so certain it made something in my chest ache.

We stayed there together, the documents still spread between us, and I wanted to share the whole thing with him.

But I also didn’t want to depend on anyone else to provide for me. To have something to hold over me and control me.

I needed to reclaim what was mine so that I’d have something to fall back on when this contract with Logan was finished.