Silas’s POV
He was up before everyone else.
That was normal.
What wasn’t normal was standing in the kitchen at five in the morning running through every conversation he’d had with Callum in the past three weeks and looking for the gaps.
They were there.
He just hadn’t been looking before.
Callum arrived at seven.
Sa ti he always arrived. Sa knock on the study door. Sa cup of coffee in hand.....black, no sugar, the specific creature of habit that twenty years of pack routine produced.
He looked exactly the sa.
That was the thing.
Silas had expected sothing visible. So tell. So quality that would announce itself now that he knew what he was looking for.
There was nothing.
Just Callum. Steady. Familiar. The man he’d trusted with the east wing logistics and the border rotation schedule and the nas of every pack mber’s children.
"Morning," Callum said.
"Morning," Silas said.
He poured his own coffee.
They sat across from each other at the small table in the corner of the study the way they had every morning for three weeks.
Silas gave nothing.
The morning ran normally.
Correspondence. Scheduling. A dispute between two families on the southern grounds that needed diating before it beca sothing larger. Callum handled the details the way he always handled details....efficiently, quietly, without needing to be told twice.
Silas watched him work.
Watched the way he moved through the study. The things he picked up and put down. The questions he asked. The ones he didn’t ask.
The ones he didn’t ask were more interesting.
Yesterday Silas would have said Callum’s silences were just Callum. The economy of a man who didn’t waste words.
Today he was reading them differently.
Damian found him at noon.
Ca into the study, waited for Callum to leave with the afternoon schedule, closed the door.
Looked at Silas.
"Well," he said.
"Nothing obvious," Silas said. "He’s careful."
"Malachai wouldn’t use soone who wasn’t."
"No." Silas looked at the door. "He asked about the Aldenre trip this morning. Casually. Where we’d been."
Damian was quiet.
"What did you tell him," he said.
"That it was a personal matter," Silas said. "Nothing pack related."
"How did he take that."
"Fine," Silas said. "That’s the problem. He took it completely fine." A pause. "Callum doesn’t take things fine when he thinks he’s being kept out of sothing. He pushes. He asks follow up questions. He makes it clear he considers pack business his business." Silas looked at his brother. "He took it fine and moved on."
Damian looked at the table.
"He already knew where we’d been," Damian said.
"That’s what I think," Silas said.
The study was quiet.
Twenty years.
Silas kept coming back to that number. Twenty years of trust built conversation by conversation, decision by decision, the slow accumulation of a working relationship that had beco sothing closer than professional without either of them naming it.
Malachai hadn’t needed to buy Callum.
He’d just needed to find the right question and the right mont and let Callum’s own doubt do the rest.
That was the worst part.
Callum probably believed he was doing the right thing.
***
Eve ca in at two.
She had the pendant on. Silas could see the chain at her collar....small, dark, sitting still against her skin like it had always been there.
She looked at him.
"Anything," she said.
"He knew about Aldenre," Silas said.
Her jaw tightened. Just slightly.
"How," she said.
"We don’t know yet," Damian said.
"Which ans there’s either a second person," Eve said. "Or he has a way of getting information out that we haven’t found."
"Yes," Silas said.
She sat down.
Pulled her legs up under her the way she did when she was settling in to think rather than act.
"We can’t confront him yet," she said.
"No," Damian said.
"But we can’t keep giving him access either." She paused. "We need to feed him sothing false. Sothing specific enough to be useful but wrong enough that when Malachai acts on it we know exactly where the leak is."
Silas looked at her.
Damian looked at her.
She looked back at both of them.
"What," she said.
"Nothing," Damian said. The corner of his mouth moved. "Keep going."
She almost rolled her eyes.
"We give Callum one piece of information," she said. "Sothing about our counter to the Biological Sovereignty Clause. Sothing that sounds like our actual strategy but isn’t." She paused. "If Malachai files based on it we know it ca from Callum. And we know exactly what shape the leak is."
"And if he doesn’t file based on it," Silas said.
"Then either Callum didn’t pass it on or Malachai is smarter than the bait." She paused. "Either way we learn sothing."
The study was quiet.
Silas thought about twenty years.
About the man who had sat across from him every morning and handled the details and known the nas of everyone’s children.
About the question planted in a supply delivery by a man who had no idea he was being used.
About how easy it was.
How ordinary.
"Who delivers the false information," he said.
Eve looked at him.
"You," she said. "He trusts you most. It has to co from you for it to be believable."
Silas held her gaze.
Nodded once.
It sat wrong. The whole thing sat wrong. Not the plan....the plan was right. Just the specific weight of being the one to do it. Of sitting across from a man he’d trusted and giving him sothing false and watching to see if he passed it on.
But sotis the right thing sat wrong.
That didn’t make it less right.
***
Damon appeared in the doorway at three.
Looked at the three of them assembled in the study.
"I missed a eting," he said.
"Not a eting," Eve said. "Co in."
He nodded and entered the room and sat on the edge of the desk.
Silas updated him on what they have discused.
Damon listened without interrupting.
"Callum," he said when Silas finished.
"We don’t know how deep it goes," Silas said.
"Deep enough that he already knew about Aldenre." Damon looked at the window. "Deep enough that he asked about it casually and took the answer fine."
"Yes."
Damon was quiet for a mont.
"I trained with him," he said. "When I was sixteen. He was the one who....." He stopped. "Doesn’t matter."
"Damon," Eve said.
"It matters," he said. "I’m just....." He exhaled. "I’m allowed to feel it and then do the right thing anyway. That’s what Silas said."
Silas looked at him.
Damon looked back.
"You were right by the way," Damon said. "When you said that. I didn’t tell you at the ti."
"I know," Silas said.
Damon almost smiled.
Didn’t quite.
"So we feed him sothing false," he said.
"Yes," Eve said.
"And then what."
"Then we watch where it goes," she said. "And when we know....when we have proof, not just suspicion.....we deal with it."
"Deal with it," Damon said. "aning."
"aning Damian decides," Eve said. She looked at him. "He’s pack. That’s an alpha decision. Not mine."
Damian held her gaze.
Sothing passed between them.
"Thank you," Damian said.
She smiled at him and nodded once.
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