"You Rejected Me, Now Beg"

The Name

I don't have Enzo's number saved under his own name in my phone, an old habit from a childhood spent learning that some conversations aren't meant to be traced back easily. I call him from a hallway two floors away from the study, my voice low, my eyes on the door in case anyone comes looking.

"You sound like you're about to ask me for something you know I'll say no to," he says by way of greeting.

"I need you to run a name for me."

A pause, the particular silence of my brother deciding whether to argue first or just listen. He chooses to listen, which tells me he already suspects something is wrong.

I give him the name from the ledger, spelling it carefully, telling him as little as I can while still giving him enough to work with. I don't tell him about the debt yet, or the marriage, or what I think it means. I want confirmation before I hand him a theory that could send him straight to our father, and our father is the last person I want involved until I understand exactly what I'm dealing with.

"Give me a day," Enzo says finally. "Selene. Whatever this is, be careful. You're not just my sister anymore, you're married into a family that plays a different kind of game than ours."

"I'm aware."

"Are you? Because from where I'm standing, it sounds like you're already digging somewhere you shouldn't."

"Someone has to." I keep my voice steady, even though my pulse is doing anything but. "Nobody else in that house is going to tell me the truth voluntarily."

He sighs, the particular exhale of a brother who knows arguing with me has never once worked. "A day. Maybe two. I'll call you."

I hang up and stand there a moment longer, staring at nothing, feeling the weight of what I've started settle onto my shoulders. It's easier to feel brave over the phone with my brother than it is standing alone in a house that isn't mine, married to a man who called me nothing in front of everyone I'll spend the rest of my life among.

I find Damian that evening in his study, not the one I searched, a different room entirely, smaller, more personal, papers spread across his desk in a mess that looks nothing like the careful control he shows everyone else.

He looks up when I enter, and something in his face shifts, guarded and tired in equal measure.

"You wanted to finish our conversation," he says. Not a question.

"I did some thinking today." I close the door behind me, because whatever comes next, I don't want it overheard. "About the debt. About your uncle. About how convenient it was that a fated mate marriage happened to solve a financial problem at exactly the right moment."

His jaw tightens. "I spoke to Lucian this morning."

"And?"

"He says the debt is real. He says the timing is coincidence, not design." His voice carries none of the conviction the words are supposed to hold. "He says a lot of things, actually, and none of them add up the way they used to."

Something in me softens slightly, unwillingly, at the exhaustion in his voice. This isn't a man defending his uncle. This is a man realizing, slowly and painfully, that the foundation he's built his entire life on might be built out of lies.

"I found paperwork," I say quietly. "In the study. A debt agreement with numbers that don't match what my father actually owed. And underneath it, a ledger. Payments to a name that has nothing to do with either of our families. Payments that stopped two years before our wedding was arranged."

He goes very still. "What name?"

I hesitate, only for a second, weighing how much to give him before I have confirmation from Enzo. But his eyes are steady on mine, and underneath the careful control there's something that looks almost like a plea, a man asking to be told the truth by someone who has no obligation left to give it to him.

"I'll tell you," I say. "Once I know for certain what it means. I'm not interested in handing you a theory that gets dismissed the same way everything else has been dismissed in this family. I want proof first."

He studies me for a long moment, and something shifts behind his eyes, respect maybe, or something close enough to it.

"You're not what I expected," he says quietly.

"No," I agree. "I imagine I'm not."

Neither of us says anything else for a moment, the bond humming quietly between us the way it always does now, patient, unbothered by everything standing in its way.

Then he looks back down at the papers on his desk, and I let myself out, already thinking about how many hours are left until Enzo calls me back, already bracing myself for whatever name comes back attached to a debt someone was willing to build an entire marriage to hide.