MATED TO MY DEAD HUSBAND'S BROTHER

Chapter Two: The First Lead

I didn't sleep.

Every sound felt too loud. Every shadow felt like it was watching me.

By the time the sky started to lighten, I wasn’t tired anymore—just wired. Awake in a way that felt dangerous.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling until 5am, then gave up and got dressed. Black jeans, grey sweater, boots. The kind of clothes that said I'm grieving without saying I'm falling apart.

I’d deleted the message. It didn’t matter.

The words were burned into my mind like they’d been carved there. Kieran didn’t fall. You’re next.

Which meant someone knew I was suspicious. Someone was watching me. And someone thought a threat would be enough to make me stop.

They were wrong.

I made coffee in the empty kitchen, poured it into a travel mug, and walked across the grounds to the archives before anyone else was awake.

The archives were mine. The one place on this entire estate that felt like it belonged to me.

Kieran had brought me here a year and a half ago, shown me the converted stone building full of records no one had touched in decades, and asked if I wanted to organize them. It had been something to do. A reason to exist here beyond Kieran's human wife.

Now it was the only place I could think clearly.

I unlocked the door, stepped inside, and breathed in the familiar smell of old paper and dust.

Then I got to work.

The financial records were kept in a locked cabinet in the back room. I'd been given access six months ago when I'd asked Caden if I could digitize some of the older documents for preservation. He'd agreed without much interest — pack finances weren't exactly thrilling reading material.

But now I was looking at them differently.

I pulled the files from the last five years and spread them across my desk. Income, expenses, transfers, allocations. All documented in meticulous detail by whoever kept the books.

At first glance, everything looked normal. The pack had steady income from investments, land holdings, business ventures. Expenses were what you'd expect — property maintenance, security, council salaries.

But then I noticed something. At first, it didn’t feel like anything. Just a number slightly out of place. Then another. And another. My pulse started to pick up.

A quarterly transfer. Fifteen thousand dollars. Every three months like clockwork. Always to the same account: External Consulting Services.

No invoice attached. No description of what the consulting was for. No contract.

Just money leaving the pack accounts and disappearing.

Not stolen in a way that screamed theft. Stolen in a way designed never to be noticed.

I pulled up the digital records and searched for any council meeting minutes that mentioned it.

Nothing.

I checked enforcement logs in case it was related to security.

Still nothing.

Then I cross-referenced the dates with the guest logs — the record of who entered and left pack territory.

And there it was.

Every single time that transfer went through, Marcus Hale left the territory for the day. External meeting. Returned by evening.

For five years.

I sat back in my chair and stared at the screen.

Marcus was the Beta. Caden's second-in-command. Trusted, competent, beloved by the pack. The kind of man who gave speeches at funerals and checked on widows and always seemed to be exactly where he needed to be.

And he'd been taking money out of pack accounts for five years without documentation.

I pulled out my phone and took pictures of everything. The transfers, the dates, the guest logs.

Then I heard footsteps outside.

I minimized the files and turned just as the door opened.

Marcus stood in the doorway, holding two coffee cups and smiling that warm, paternal smile he always wore.

"Elara," he said gently. "I thought I might find you here."

My heart was hammering but I kept my face neutral. "Marcus. You're up early."

"So are you." He stepped inside and set one of the coffee cups on my desk. "I brought you something. Thought you might need it."

I looked at the cup. Then at him. "That's kind of you."

"It's the least I can do." He pulled up the chair across from my desk and sat down without asking, which immediately made the space feel smaller, like this wasn’t my space at all "How are you holding up?"

"I'm managing."

"I can't imagine how difficult this is." His voice was genuinely sympathetic. Concerned. "Losing Kieran so suddenly. And now everything with the pack — I know Caden spoke to you last night."

I kept my expression carefully blank. "He did."

"And?"

"And I'm still thinking about it."

Marcus nodded slowly. "For what it's worth, I think you're making the right choice. Staying with the pack. It's what Kieran would have wanted."

"You think so?"

"I know so. He loved you, Elara. He'd want you taken care of." He paused. "And Caden is a good man. He'll protect you."

There was something about the way he said it. Protect you. Like I was a problem that needed managing.

"I appreciate your concern," I said.

"Of course." He stood, still smiling. "I just wanted to check in. Let you know my door is always open if you need anything. Advice, support, someone to talk to." He glanced at my desk — at the files I'd closed, the laptop screen that was now just showing my desktop wallpaper. "What are you working on?" His eyes flicked to my screen—not casually. Precisely.

"Just cataloging. Same as always."

"Good. Good." He nodded. "Keep yourself busy. It helps with grief."

Then he left, taking his coffee with him.

I waited until his footsteps faded completely.

Then I locked the door.

And for the first time since Kieran died…I wondered if that would actually stop anyone.

I spent the next two hours digging deeper.

The more I looked, the more irregularities I found. Not just the quarterly transfers. Small things. A council meeting from three years ago where pages four through six were missing from the minutes — removed cleanly, renumbered to hide the gap. An enforcement report from eighteen months ago that referenced "the northern border incident" but the actual incident report was nowhere in the files.

Someone had been editing these records. Carefully. Professionally.

And they'd been doing it for years.

I was downloading everything to an encrypted folder when someone knocked.

I jumped, heart in my throat.

"Elara? It's me."

Iris.

I unlocked the door.

She slipped inside, closed it behind her, and looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read.

"We need to talk," she said.

"About what?"

"About last night. About the meeting. About—" She stopped. Took a breath. "About Kieran."

I waited.

Iris sat down in the chair Marcus had vacated and looked at me steadily. "You don't believe it was an accident, do you?"

The question hung in the air.

I could lie. I could play it safe. I could say all the right things and keep my suspicions to myself.

Instead I said, "No. I don't."

Something in her expression shifted. Relief, maybe. Or vindication.

"Neither do I," she said quietly.

And just like that, I wasn’t alone anymore.

Which somehow made everything feel worse.

We stared at each other for a long moment.

"Why?" I asked. "What do you know?"

"Not enough. But—" She hesitated. "Kieran was acting strange in the weeks before he died. Distracted. Paranoid, almost. He kept asking me questions about pack finances, about council decisions from years ago. He wanted to know who had access to certain records."

My chest tightened. "Did he say why?"

"No. But he was looking into something. Something he didn't want anyone else to know about." She paused. "Three days before he died, he came to my room at 2am. He looked terrified. He said if anything happened to him, I should—" She stopped.

"Should what?"

"He said I should make sure you were safe. He said you were in danger and I needed to protect you." Her voice cracked slightly. "I thought he was being dramatic. Paranoid. I told him to get some sleep and we'd talk in the morning."

"And then he died."

"And then he died," she repeated. "And I've been trying to figure out what the hell he was so afraid of."

I pulled out my phone and showed her the threatening text I'd received last night.

She went pale.

"Someone sent this to you?"

"Right after I left Caden's office."

"Do you know who?"

"No. Unknown number. I tried calling back — disconnected."

Iris stared at the message. Then she looked at me with something that might have been fear. "Elara. If someone killed Kieran, and they know you're asking questions—"

"I know."

"You need to be careful."

"I know," I said again. "But I'm not stopping."

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she nodded. "Okay. Then I'm helping."

"Iris—"

"He was my brother. If someone hurt him, I want to know who." She straightened. "What do you need?"

I thought about the financial records. The missing pages. Marcus's unexplained absences.

"I need to know who else had access to pack records over the last five years," I said. "Who could have altered them without anyone noticing."

"I can get you that list."

"And I need to know more about the night he died. Who was on that hunt. Who saw what happened."

"I'll ask around. Quietly." She paused. "What about Caden? Are you going to tell him?"

"I don't know if I can trust him yet."

"He's my brother. I love him. But—" She stopped. "Yeah. I don't know either."

Iris left to avoid suspicion, promising to get back to me with information.

I stayed in the archives and kept working.

Around noon, my phone buzzed.

A text from an unknown number. Different from last night's.

I opened it.

I know what happened to Kieran. If you want the truth, come alone. East garden. 7pm. Tell anyone, and you’ll regret it.

My hands went cold.

This could be a trap. Obviously. It could be whoever sent the threat last night, luring me somewhere isolated.

Or it could be someone who actually knew something.

I stared at that message for a long time.

Then I texted back.

Who is this?

The response came immediately.

Someone who worked for Kieran. Someone who knows what he was investigating. 7pm. East garden. Alone.

I sat very still.

Kieran had someone working for him. Someone inside the pack who knew what he'd been looking into.

And they were reaching out now.

I checked the time. Six hours until the meeting.

Six hours to decide if I was walking into a trap or the first real lead I'd had since he died.