Chapter 330 What exactly were you trying to find out?

Chapter 330: Chapter 330 What exactly were you trying to find out?

Author’s POV

Sylvia Smith had built her life on knowing things before other people did.

So when word reached her that Aria and Damian had started pulling threads on Byron Finch, the wine glass in her hand went suddenly, unpleasantly cold against her palm.

Byron. Of all the names in the world, they’d found Byron.

She set the glass down before her fingers could betray her.

Byron Finch wasn’t just a name on an old contract. He was hers. Her connection, her instrument, the man who’d handled the parts of Vincent’s death that no one was ever supposed to see. If they traced him back far enough, they wouldn’t find Aldric Blackwood at the end of the trail.

They’d find her.

She rose and crossed to the window of the hotel suite, the city glittering beneath her like something she’d once owned and lost.

"Stupid girl," she murmured, pressing two fingers to her temple. "You were supposed to sign the papers and disappear."

Her wolf stirred low in her chest, restless and hungry, and she let it. She’d spent nineteen years swallowing that hunger inside Crescent Moon Pack.

She thought about those years. About marrying Vincent, a human, and enduring the sneers of every she-wolf who thought a human’s wife could never hold real power. She’d smiled through all of it. She’d raised Nathan to be sharp, loyal, useful. She’d waited.

And then Vincent died, and instead of the empire falling into her hands, a lawyer named Richard Castellano had called a girl out of an orphanage and handed her everything.

Aria. Vincent’s bastard. His only blood.

"I didn’t kill him to grieve him," Sylvia said softly to the glass. "I killed him to take what was mine."

That was the truth she never spoke aloud. She didn’t want justice for Vincent. She didn’t care who the Smiths blamed or which pack burned for it. She’d handed Aria that file pointing at Aldric Blackwood because a war between two great packs was the perfect noise to bury one small death.

But Aria hadn’t behaved. She’d bonded herself to Damian instead of running from him. She’d gone digging instead of signing. And now the two of them were closing in on Byron Finch.

Sylvia picked up her phone and dialed.

"Nathan," she said. "It’s gone far enough. They found Byron."

A pause on the line. Her stepson’s voice came back flat and controlled. "How close?"

"Close enough that I want it finished. Here. Abroad. Make it look like an accident. Aria, the Blackwood, I don’t care which. One of them stops breathing, and the trail goes cold."

"That’s the Alpha King you’re talking about," Nathan said carefully.

"I’m aware of exactly who he is." Her voice went cold as winter. "Find someone with a reason to want them gone. Someone who won’t be traced back to us."

The silence stretched. Then Nathan exhaled, and she could almost hear the calculation running behind his eyes.

"There’s one option," he said. "Ethan Holt."

Sylvia’s lips curved. "The Silver Creek Alpha. Her little false mate."

"With her out of the picture, Silver Creek keeps everything V&A funneled to them while she was traveling. And with Julian Cross backing their expansion, that pack is finally clawing its way back up. Ethan has every reason to want her gone before she comes back and pulls the plug."

"Then call him."

---

Ethan took the call in his office, the lights of the recovering pack town glowing beyond the glass.

Two years ago Silver Creek had been drowning. Now the numbers were climbing again, and everyone knew why. The moment Aria left on business, Nathan had opened the taps, and V&A resources had poured in. Julian Cross had done the rest. For the first time in years, Ethan could breathe.

"Ethan," Nathan said. "There’s something I need done. Quietly. And there’s more where the last shipment came from if it goes well."

Ethan thought about the balance sheets. About Clara. About Marcus. About the throne he’d nearly lost and had only just gotten back.

He didn’t hesitate.

"Whatever you need," Ethan said. "I’m in."

---Julian Cross had spent three days chasing a ghost, and now he was almost certain the ghost had a name.

Aria Smith.

He sat behind his desk at Sentinel Energy, an old photograph in his hand, its edges soft from years of handling. A little girl with pale brown hair and eyes the exact shade of polished emerald stared back at him. He’d carried this picture for two decades, and every lead had died the same way, until Vincent Smith’s bastard daughter walked into the pack world and cameras finally caught her face.

Those eyes. He’d know them anywhere.

But certainty wasn’t proof, and Julian Cross didn’t build empires on feelings. He needed her to confirm it herself, without knowing what he was really asking.

He picked up his phone and dialed.

---

Aria’s phone lit up with a number she almost didn’t recognize.

Julian Cross. VP of Sentinel Energy. The man whose resources had been quietly propping up Silver Creek for months.

She’d met him exactly once, at a Council dinner, and he’d barely spoken three words to her.

Why on earth was he calling her now?

She glanced at Damian across the suite, then answered. "Alpha Cross. This is unexpected."

"Ms. Smith." His voice was smooth, careful, the tone of a man choosing each word like a chess piece. "Forgive the odd hour. I have a strange question, and I’d appreciate your patience."

"Go on."

"When you were a child," he said, "did you ever attend a winter camp? Sponsored, most likely. A program for children without families."

Aria’s spine straightened. The room felt suddenly smaller.

"I might have," she said slowly. "Why?"

"And before that." A pause. "Did you spend time in a children’s home in Harbor City? Before the transfer that brought you inland?"

The breath caught in her throat.

Harbor City. The winter camp. Those weren’t things anyone knew. Those weren’t things in a headline or a corporate profile. Those were buried in the sealed adoption records of a girl no one had ever come looking for.

Her fingers tightened around the phone until her knuckles ached.

"Alpha Cross," she said, and her voice came out low and cold, the voice that made grown wolves shrink back. "Those details only exist in one place. My childhood file. Records that were sealed."

Across the room, Damian went still, his black-grey eyes snapping to her face.

"So I’ll ask you plainly," Aria continued, every word edged like glass. "How do you know any of this. And what exactly are you trying to find out?"