Chapter 393: The Morrigans Are Guilty, But Not to This Extent!

I turned to Malcom with a frown. "Based on what’s in these letters, Grandma and the Commander’s wife seemed to have a decent relationship at least not a bad one. So why would she have sent a woman to the Commander in the first place?"Malcom let out a short, cold laugh. "Do you think power ever works that cleanly?" He shifted in his seat, his jaw tightening. "Mrs. Blackwell Senior had just been released after a brutal delivery. She was on her way home, weak and recovering, when something happened along the road. She pulled back the curtain to look outside and that was the moment the Commander first saw her. One look was all it took."

He paused, letting that settle before continuing. "The Commander found out who she was and made it clear to my mother what he wanted. The Morrigans depended on him for everything back then, so my mother did what she felt she had to do for the family’s sake. She handled the parts of it the Commander couldn’t be seen handling himself. She kept the peace between him and his wife. The Morrigans are guilty I won’t pretend otherwise. But the real villains were the Commander and his wife. They used my mother’s hands to do their dirty work and then walked away without a scratch, leaving our family to face the wreckage alone."

Malcom went quiet for a moment. I could see it move across his face the thought of his child, gone before they ever had a chance. His leg, which would never be fully his again no matter how good the prosthetic was.

His eyes went slightly red. "The Morrigans made mistakes. But not to this extent. Not enough to deserve all of this."

I kept my voice steady. "What else do you know? Where did the Commander and his wife go after everything fell apart?"

"After the Blackwells’ bodies were sent back, Mom suggested offering compensation proper burial, proper comfort for the family, a quiet resolution. The Commander’s wife shut it down. I still remember what she said." His voice dropped. "’A worthless life. They deserved to die.’" He shook his head slowly. "Mrs. Blackwell Senior was beautiful. Gentle. Soft-spoken. During the time she spent at the Morrigans’ place, the Commander came to see her nearly every night. His wife couldn’t touch him for it, so she turned everything on that woman instead. Found ways to torment her constantly. I was young, so I only caught pieces of it raised voices, doors slamming, a few confrontations I wasn’t supposed to witness. Eventually, my mother sent Mrs. Blackwell Senior away, and I thought it was over." He rubbed the side of his face. "Then, at a dinner the Hales hosted, Ronald tried to take out my mother and the Commander both. Mr. Hale stepped in and stopped it." He looked up at me. "I don’t know the Commander’s family well enough to tell you more. But Hale would. He was there for all of it."

Mr. Hale.

I’d nearly set him aside in my mind entirely. He had been present through all of it, but the Hales were never the same kind of power as the Morrigans. The Morrigans had risen fast and burned bright. The Hales had simply endured rooted for generations, quiet and unshakeable. He had to know the Commander. He had to know far more than anyone had told me yet.

The picture was getting sharper now. The Blackwells had always been moving toward the Morrigans that much had been clear from the beginning. The Hales weren’t their target. So why had Wisteria been so determined to marry into the Hale pack? And Sheila’s death there was still something buried in that, something none of us had dug up yet.

This wasn’t over.

"Keep digging," I told Malcom. "Anything that connects back to the Commander or his wife I want to know about it."

He nodded, his tone more focused now. "Got it, sis. I’ll go deeper."

"Good. I’m going to the Hales."

The drive over gave me too much time to think. When I pulled up to the Hale residence, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.

Adam was outside in the yard, stretched out in a chair with a blanket pulled up to his chest, face tilted toward the weak afternoon sun. He looked the way Malcom looked hollowed out, like the life had been quietly drained from him. After losing his mate and his child, whatever fire had kept him sharp and present had simply gone out. He looked decades older than he was.

Hugo appeared beside me and raised a hand before I could say anything. "Mr. Adam just fell asleep," he said quietly. "He hasn’t been sleeping well. This is the only rest he gets."

I nodded and followed him inside without a word.

"Where’s Mr. Hale?" I asked once we were in the living room.

"In the study. Mr. Lewis’s in Jaford, and with Mr. Adam unable to focus, even Mr. Julian helping out can only do so much he’s mostly resting and recovering himself. Mr. Hale is the only one holding the pack together right now."

A quiet ache moved through my chest. Whether I had been in Riley’s body or Elena’s, that old man had never once made me feel like I didn’t belong. After Grandma passed, he was the only elder who still treated me like I mattered. I wasn’t going to walk in there empty-handed.

I went to the kitchen and made a simple ginseng soup, then knocked on the study door.

A cough came from inside. "Come in."

I pushed the door open. "Dad."

Jeffrey had assumed it was the butler and hadn’t looked up right away. But the moment he heard my voice, his head lifted. Beneath his reading glasses, his eyes were slightly wet. They softened the instant he saw me.

"Good girl. Come here. Let Grandpa have a look at you."

He said Grandpa, not Dad. Lewis had already told him everything.

I closed the door behind me and set the soup on the corner of his cluttered desk. He took his glasses off and reached out one hand, beckoning me closer. "Come. Let me have a proper look at you."

Just hearing him call himself that Grandpa hit somewhere I wasn’t expecting. When I had existed as a spirit, I had watched everyone’s reactions from a distance, seen exactly who cried and who didn’t, who searched and who moved on. Jeffrey had warned Julian again and again. He had quietly looked for me on his own. On that night in the snow when he found the statue, I had seen him break.

My voice came out unsteady. "Grandpa."

"Ah. My good child." He pushed himself up with both hands on the armrest, shaking slightly, and pulled me into his arms. "I’m so relieved you’re alright. If something had happened to you, the Hales would have carried that debt forever. Julian is a fool, and as his grandfather, part of that falls on me too."

"It’s alright," I said, and I meant it. "Lewis has been good to me. Finding him in this life that’s the best thing that could have happened."

Jeffrey pulled back and looked at me with a warmth that made his whole face look younger. "You may not have become my granddaughter-in-law the first way around, but you’ll still be family. That’s more than enough." He patted my head gently, that familiar rhythm. "Living is good. It’s so good to be alive." Then the coughing came, rattling through him.

I helped him sit back down. "Are you coming down with something?"

"Caught a chill at a board meeting a few days ago. Old age doesn’t forgive you the way youth does. There was a time I could swim across the river in the middle of winter without blinking." He waved a hand as if dismissing the memory. "Don’t make that face. I’m fine."

He wasn’t fine, and we both knew it. Losing his mate had taken something from him that no doctor could measure. The only thing keeping him upright was the responsibility of holding the Hale pack together. Without that, I wasn’t sure he’d still be here.

"Take care of yourself," I said quietly. "The pack needs you. So if you’ve caught a cold, please listen to the doctor for once."

"I’m happy as long as you and Lewis are doing well." He glanced at the soup. "You made this yourself?"

"I did."

"Good child." He picked up the spoon.

I let him drink while I looked at the papers stacked across his desk documents, reports, things that should have been handled by men half his age. It wasn’t right. He should have been relaxing somewhere, letting the world carry itself for once.

I understood Lewis’s mother a little better now, if I was honest. Jeffrey was principled and strong-willed and deeply capable. Even now, at his age, you could see traces of the man he’d been the kind of presence that drew people in without trying. Of course women had been drawn to him. Of course holding his attention had meant something.

"Dad," I said, setting those thoughts aside. "There’s something I need to ask you."

"The Commander." He didn’t miss a beat. "Lewis already came to me about it."

I nodded. "Things are falling into place for me now. The Morrigans are where they are. The Hale pack has been shaken. There were pieces I couldn’t connect before, but I think I’m close."

He set down the spoon and looked at me steadily. "Tell me what you’ve worked out."

"I spent a long time assuming the Blackwells were at the center of all of it," I said. "But their goals have always been specific they’re going after the Morrigans bloodline. There’s even a kind of principle to the way they operate. They didn’t touch Vivian. So whatever happened to the Hales Sheila, Wisteria, Silas that wasn’t the Blackwells. They were being used, same as everyone else." I looked at him directly. "Someone else has been pulling at the Hales from behind the scenes. Someone who wanted the pack damaged in a way that couldn’t be traced back to them."

Jeffrey held my gaze for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.