Whispers of Revenge

Pull

დ Rosalie დ

A few days of digging finally landed me a name. It hadn’t been easy, especially since I had run into so many dead ends. But as I sat in my father’s office yet again with the lamp casting a weak circle of light across the desk, I had it. My laptop was open, my notebook sat to the right of it, already filled with dates, amounts, and enough sharp little observations to make my hand ache. I had spent the last few days cross-checking everything I could get my hands on. Payments from me. Transfers from my mother. A pattern that never broke. No matter how many times I looked at it, the rage stayed fresh. My mother hadn’t missed one. Not one. Every time I had sent her money, she had passed most of it on.

I should have noticed sooner.

That thought came back often. Ugly and useless, but constant. I had been too comfortable in my distance. Too willing to believe that sending money was enough to cover the parts of the relationship neither of us wanted to examine too closely. Now I knew better. Outside, the wind moved softly against the side of the house. Somewhere down the hall, a floorboard creaked. My mother was asleep in her room. Or pretending to be. These days, I could never tell. I looked back at the screen and opened one of the scanned documents I had spent half the afternoon enlarging and adjusting until the print sharpened. It was the same account number. The same branch. The same sequence. My jaw tightened. It was a linked reference buried in a statement that had probably meant nothing to anyone who was not already hunting for blood. It was small. Easy to overlook. A formal account title connected to one of the older transfers. I leaned closer and read the name again.

Julian Ashford.

The name sat on the screen in plain black letters, neat and undeniable. Not hidden well enough. Not hidden from me, at least. My hands went cold on the desk.

Julian Ashford.

The Mayor.

The f*****g Mayor.

Jordan’s father.

I stared at it until my vision sharpened around the edges. My mother had been giving my money to Julian Ashford. Not once. Not twice. For months. Years. A harsh laugh escaped me before I could stop it. It sounded wrong in the quiet room. Too sharp. Too brittle. And yet, for some reason, I wasn’t surprised to find out that it was Julian. Because, of course. Of course, it would lead back to the Ashfords. Why had I expected anything else from this town? Everything rotten in Raven Hollow seemed to lead back to old names and polished smiles. Men who knew how to hide decay under public respectability. Men like Julian, who stood in front of the town hall and talked about loyalty as though his hands were clean. My stomach turned, and I pushed back from the desk and stood too fast. The chair scraped against the floor, but I ignored it as I crossed the room once, then again and again. The anger raged inside so harshly that I couldn’t be still.

“Why?” I asked aloud, because that was the question that confused me. Why would my mother pay money to him? Why would she do that? Especially when the roof had started to sag. When her cupboards were bare. When her health deteriorated. Why? And why would he accept it? Was it debt? Blackmail? Fear? For what possible reason? I stopped beside the desk and looked down at the screen again.

Julian f*****g Ashford.

The name made something old shift under my skin. Not memory. Not fully. Just the same cold instinct I had learned years ago. The one that told me where power lived in this town. The one that knew exactly how far people would go to protect men like him. I thought of Jordan next. It happened instantly. His face. His smile. That polished version of himself that he showed the town. My stomach clenched again. Then, because my mind enjoyed cruelty, it moved to Declan. I swore under my breath and dragged a hand through my hair. He had no business being in my thoughts.

None.

And yet, over the last few days, he had kept slipping back in without permission. The parking lot. The pharmacy. The way he had said my name as though it had weight. The way he watched too closely but never moved too fast. The restraint in him felt worse than swagger ever could have. More dangerous. More deliberate. I hated that I noticed any of it. Hated that his silence unsettled me more than Weston’s voice. Hated that some ugly part of me had already started trying to work him out. What he knew. What he remembered. What he wanted. What kind of man had he become when he stopped being the boy who had just stood there and done nothing?

“f**k,” I muttered. What was it about him that unsettled me? Attraction was too soft a word for it. It felt more like awareness. A sharp, unwanted pull that irritated me every time it appeared. Because Declan wasn’t supposed to be anything to me except another piece of what had gone wrong. I braced both hands on the desk and lowered my head for a second. The room smelled like paper, dust, and old wood. Familiar in a way that should have been comforting.

It wasn’t.

Nothing in this house was comforting anymore. Not my mother’s silence. Not my father’s office. Not the truth spread out in front of me like evidence waiting for trial. When I lifted my head again, the fury had settled into something colder. My mother had been paying Julian Ashford. That changed everything. This was no longer just about old wounds and the boys who had helped break me. This reached higher. Older. Deeper. It made the whole thing feel uglier than I had first imagined. I opened my document and typed his name carefully.

Julian Ashford. Why is my mother paying him?

I stared at the question until I tore my gaze away. I didn’t have the answer. Only more anger. And that same relentless awareness pressing at the edge of my thoughts. Declan again. His controlled face. His quiet voice. The way he gave me almost nothing and still managed to feel like a threat. Maybe that was why he kept getting under my skin. Because he was the one thing in this town I couldn’t read. And I was beginning to understand that not knowing him might be more dangerous than hating him. I shut the notebook and my laptop. I knew one thing for certain. I wasn’t going to stop until I had the answers. I wanted to know why my mother had been giving everything to Julian.

And I wasn’t going to let Declan Carrington distract me from it.

No matter how hard it was becoming not to notice him.

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