Evaline:
I watched Kieran’s expression harden as he took my phone from my hand. His fingers brushed my palm - warm, steady, grounding - but my heart still hamred unsteadily in my chest.
He lowered his head, his eyes scanning the words on the screen with a growing stillness that was far more unnerving than panic. River leaned in first, then Oscar, their shoulders brushing Kieran’s as they read. The three of them were so silent that even the soft hum of the basent lights felt loud in the background.
I remained where I stood beside Draven’s bed, hands curled tightly at my sides as I watched them absorb what I had just discovered.
This particular screenshot was of a full page... a long one.
It stated how one of the victim’s mate confessed to have noticed weird, unusual dark veins on the victim the very night before they were found soul dead. But when the healers checked, there was no sign of such veins.
Initially, it was ignored as there was no evidence to prove the family mber was speaking the truth... until another person claid to have seen similar marks on their son and once again the healers found nothing on the victim’s body.
However, further investigation proved that family mbers or friends of so other victims had also noticed these marks. Out of thirty-two recorded cases, eight if them seed to have marks that were noticed by their family or friends.
But the investigation led to no other new findings. There was no origin recorded of these black markings or any explanation on how they kept disappearing from the victims’ bodies. Everything was left unexplained.
And the description of these marks was exactly of the back veins I saw on Draven’s chest... exactly the night before his incident.
Kieran finished first. The mont his eyes reached the end of the paragraph, he stopped, blinked once, and slowly lifted his gaze to mine.
He was clearly shocked. But there was also sothing else in his golden-green eyes... sothing tense and dark and quietly furious.
"Evaline," he said softly, "where did you get this?"
I closed my eyes for a second, steadying myself. "It’s one of the screenshots I took back when Oscar and I broke into the old council headquarters." My voice ca out lower than I expected. "I was going through my gallery just now... deleting things. I wasn’t even paying attention until I saw the words ’black veins’."
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
River exhaled sharply. Oscar’s hand brushed my back as if sensing how cold my skin had suddenly beco.
Kieran didn’t look away from . "There’s no such thing in the reports I read."
I nodded at once. "I know. Rowan and I went through the ones you gave today. Every page, every line. We didn’t find anything about dark veins there either... because it wasn’t there."
He went still.
Completely still.
Like soone had frozen every muscle in his body.
"And you are saying," he murmured, voice low, controlled, "that this entire section was present in the original docunts you saw?"
"It was," I whispered. "It is. I still have the screenshot. And now I know why we found nothing today. Soone removed this part from the copy you had."
There it was.
The truth hung between us, thick and suffocating.
Soone tampered with the records.
Not the original ancient records.
No.
The only version that had been altered was the file Kieran’s team put together.
And just like that, the realization hit every single one of us at the exact sa ti.
Soone on Kieran’s team... soone currently working under him... soone with full access... had intentionally erased the information.
My stomach sank.
The basent felt colder suddenly.
I took my phone back as Kieran silently handed it to . My fingers shook only once before I steadied them and went into the recently deleted folder. I restored every image I had trashed earlier of the records, then began scrolling through them one by one.
There were twenty-two screenshots in total.
So blurry, so crooked, so half cut off because I had taken them in a hurry.
But every word mattered now.
The n didn’t speak as I read through them. They waited... Oscar sitting on the armchair, River leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, and Kieran... Kieran standing utterly still beside Draven’s bed.
He wasn’t pacing.
He wasn’t frowning.
He wasn’t even blinking normally.
He was thinking.
Dangerously.
After nearly fifteen minutes of silence, I finally lowered the phone. "There’s nothing else," I said quietly. "No ntion of the veins anywhere else except that one page. But... that page is missing from the version your team compiled."
Kieran closed his eyes for a mont.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t curse.
He didn’t panic.
He just looked... disappointed.
Deeply.
Almost painfully.
Not at .
But at the implications.
River straightened. "So soone on your team tampered with the records."
Oscar’s hands clenched around the armrest. "They didn’t just tamper," he muttered. "They erased one of the most crucial information... sothing that could have probably helped us in saving Draven."
A beat of silence passed between us.
I swallowed, my voice barely above a whisper. "Kieran..."
He finally looked at . His eyes were calm... too calm... but the storm underneath was unmistakable.
"What are you thinking?" I asked gently.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he glanced at Draven’s still, peaceful body, his expression tightening for just a second.
Then he looked back at .
And for the first ti since I t him, I felt sothing that sent a shiver down my spine... because the look in his eyes was anything I had ever seen before, or even considered ever seeing.
His voice ca out low and rough when he finally spoke. "It ans what I feared is true."
I held his gaze.
Then, quietly, trembling but steady enough to speak the truth aloud, I voiced the thought that had been growing in all our minds...
"There’s a mole in your team."
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