My Alpha's Mistress Mistook His Sister for His Pregnant Luna novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The File

Hazel left the Council binder on the kitchen island and went to the estate to sleep in the Alpha's bed for the first time.

She said she would hate it.

I stayed up with the binder.

Poppy's message from the ward was still on my phone.

If she ever talked, the driver would come for the proof.

The driver was in a Council cell, but I checked the lock on the balcony door twice anyway.

The proof was in this binder.

It was the evidence against Margaret and Caleb, tabbed by date, with a Council stamp on every page.

I was looking for the date of the first payment to Poppy.

I found it in the back.

A ledger sheet, a year and two weeks old. Tuition payments, a flat lease, Poppy's name.

At the bottom was a red stamp that said NO ACTION, and under it a signature I knew.

T. Mercer, Witness.

I read it three times.

Then I closed the binder and put both hands flat on it.

"Mom?" the pup said, half asleep. "Why is your heart doing that?"

"Go back to sleep."

"It's the nap hour. I can't. You're loud."

"Please, baby."

He grumbled and went quiet.

Torin was across the living room, in the armchair by the door.

He had sat there every night since the clinic, with a book he never turned the pages of.

"You can come over," I said.

He put the book down.

He crossed the room slowly and stopped at the end of the island.

I turned the binder around and slid it to him.

He looked at the stamp.

He did not look surprised.

"A year," I said. "A year, Torin. You had a ledger of my husband paying his girlfriend's rent, and you stamped it and went home."

"Yes."

"Say something else."

"I can't. It's true."

My voice rose.

"I could have walked into that house a year ago and known. I could have left on my own, with my own money, before a woman stood in my living room and wanted my seat. I could have had my life."

"You could have."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"The rule said a witness who warned a Luna lost his seat." His voice was flat. "I chose the seat. I hadn't met you. I told myself that was an excuse. It was."

"You scented me at the gate and said nothing."

"I did that too."

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