Chapter 137: Your Saviours Are Your Enemies

Adeline’s POV~

There was no greeting.

There was only a faint, static hum, and the sound of someone breathing slowly on the other side. Calm. Deep. Steady.

Way too steady, like a man who had been holding his breath for hours, days maybe, and was only now letting it slide past his lips.

Then, the voice came through the speaker.

"Hello."

It hit my ears like a physical shockwave.

It was deep. Low and smooth, but with a rough, dangerous edge hidden underneath.

Every single muscle in my body locked up instantly.

My fingers tightened around the edges of the phone until my knuckles turned completely bloodless.

I know this voice. I am hundred percent sure, I know this voice.

I have definitely heard it before.

"I was starting to think you wouldn’t call," the voice said quietly, the words dripping with a dark, heavy patience.

My heart skipped a violent beat.

Starting to think?

My mouth dropped open, but no words came out. My vocal cords felt completely paralyzed.

Where? Where the hell do I know that voice from?

My mind raced wildly, flipping through every memory I had.

Think, Adeline. For once in your life, think.

"I can hear you breathing," the voice said gently, almost tenderly. "You don’t have to speak right away. I’ve waited this long for you... I can wait a little more."

Like he already knows every single thought spinning around in my head before I even say it.

"Who..." My voice cracked, dry and weak. I swallowed hard, tasting copper, and forced the words out again. "Who is this?"

There was a pause on the line.

"You called me," the man said smoothly. "But I think you already know that I’ve been sitting right here, hoping against hope that you would."

"You’ve been waiting?" I stared blankly at the dark wall in front of me. "For what exactly? For how long? And what do you even..."

"Since the exact moment I left that note on your desk."

"It was you," I whispered, the breath leaving me in a ragged gasp. "You wrote that note. You left it in my room."

"Yes."

"You were in my room?"

"I was close enough."

"That is not an answer!" I hissed, my voice rising.

"It’s the only one I can give you over an unsecure phone line." His tone stayed impossibly calm, but I could hear the tight, coiled tension underneath it. "Adeline, listen to me very carefully right now. Are you alone in that room?"

I froze completely.

"Stop playing games with me. That’s not funny."

"I’m not laughing." His voice dropped turning darker, more serious. "Answer me. Are you alone? Just say yes or no. No other words."

I turned around slowly, my eyes darting across the empty room. The bedroom door was firmly closed. The heavy velvet curtains over the windows were still.

"Yes," I breathed out, my chest tightening.

"Good." I heard him let out a quiet, heavy breath through his nose, and it sounded dangerously close to relief. "Then listen to every word I say, because I don’t know how much time we have before someone notices."

"Wait. Wait, wait, just hold on." I shook my head hard, my hair flying across my face.

"Adeline. Listen to me," he said.

"Don’t talk. Don’t argue, and don’t speak in full sentences. Just answer me with a simple yes or no. You are currently inside the Second Throne’s pack house estate, aren’t you?"

My mind raced wildly, spinning out of control.

One frantic part of my brain just wanted to scream, to demand answers, to curse him out for playing these sick mind games while my entire life was falling apart.

But another, deeper part of me, a survival instinct I didn’t even know I had, was desperately clawing through my memories, trying to place where the hell I had heard that exact tone before.

And in the end, against every warning siren screaming in my head, I did what he asked.

"Yes," I whispered into the phone.

"Good," the man on the other line murmured, a strange tension bleeding out of his breath. "Then know that you are not entirely alone... In fact, you are not alone at all."

Panic spiked hot and fast in my chest.

"What?" I choked out, my voice rising in pitch. "What the hell do you mean by that?! That doesn’t make any goddamn sense at all! I locked the door myself! I just want you to tell me what you know about my parents, stop talking in riddles and—"

"This conversation isn’t private," he cut me off sharply, his voice snapping like a whip. "So shut the fuck up and don’t speak!"

"What?!" I gasped, my frustration boiling over. "What do you mean it’s not private—"

I heard him curse under his breath, a low, violent sound of pure irritation.

"Dammit, Adeline, I told you not to talk," he growled, his voice turning deadly serious, every syllable laced with a dark, terrifying warning.

But as he said it, as those rough, velvet syllables dragged out across the static-filled line, something inside my brain finally clicked. The fog in my head parted like smoke.

It wasn’t a stranger. It was him. 𝐟𝒓ℯⅇ

It was...

ADRIAN!!!

"Adrian..." I whispered, the name slipping out of my mouth before I could stop it.

There was a sudden, dead silence on the other end of the line.

"Finally..." he said softly, a dark, heavy amusement bleeding into his tone. "You figured out who I am, didn’t you?"

"It was you," I breathed out, the words shaking violently as shock paralyzed every muscle in my body. "It was you all along?!"

"Adeline," he said again, his voice cutting through my shocked and paralysed brain with a sudden, authoritative sharpness that made me snap my mouth shut.

"Listen to me. The ledgers at the academy, the official records, they are lying to you but not completely. Omega. Beta. None of those names actually match your mother Scarlett’s blood or yours."

My knees suddenly gave out beneath me, and I stumbled backward.

"How... how do you know about the ledgers?" I whispered, my voice shaking so badly I could barely form the words.

"I told you not to speak. Do you want the real truth about your mother, or do you want to keep living in their lies?"

His voice was like a whip cracking in the dark, sharp and merciless, cutting straight through my fear. I clamped my mouth shut.

My heart was pounding against my ribs so loudly I thought it might burst out of my chest.

"I do," I whispered, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. I want the truth. More than anything in this world.

"Then you have to do exactly what I tell you to do. Do you understand me? Don’t tell a single soul about this call. Not the dowager luna. Not the princes. Nobody."

"Why not? Why can’t I..."

"Because everyone who you think is your saviour," Adrian hissed through the static, his voice dropping into a lethal, terrifying whisper, "is actually your biggest enemy. Your foe. They are the ones who fucking want’s you dead and buried six feet under."