Chapter 394: Unexpected Situation: Attack!

On the drive to the Hale residence, my mind hadn’t stopped moving. Spending time up close with Dominic and his family had given me a clearer picture of who they actually were. His two sons were nothing alike one was almost painfully earnest, the kind of person who led with his heart before his head, while the other had quietly made protecting his family his entire purpose. Amber’s focus had been fixed on Lewis from the start. And Dominic himself had been so consumed by his need for revenge against the Morrigans that the Hales barely registered as a concern to him.

That was the part that kept pulling at me.

If the Blackwells weren’t interested in the Hales, then whoever was targeting them had simply used the Blackwells to do it. They were a weapon pointed in the right direction by someone else entirely. And the more I turned it over, the more I suspected that the Commander and his wife weren’t just connected to the organization they were likely near the top of it.

The letters made more sense now. The Commander’s wife had written to Grandma asking her to finish off the Blackwells. Grandma had refused. Then she’d written again, inviting Grandma to come join her “money-making operation” overseas and the Morrigans had never once left Snowville in all those years. I didn’t think it was a business opportunity she was being offered. I thought it was something far darker, the kind of trade that moved in the spaces where no one asked questions. Grandma had turned that down too.

That refusal must have lit a fire under them. People at that level of power didn’t forgive the ones who disobeyed them especially not people who had once been loyal and useful. So they’d redirected the Blackwells’ hunger for revenge toward someone else, taken over the family’s plan, and quietly pointed it like a loaded weapon. And what better position to operate from than inside the territory of your real target?

The Blackwells had been fooled. The Morrigans had been used as cover. But the true target the one this had always been building toward was the Hales.

Jeffrey confirmed it without blinking when I laid it out for him. He set down his pen and said, “I’ve had people quietly looking into this for some time. Your instincts are right. They want the Hales’ assets.”

It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it still landed hard. The Hales weren’t just wealthy they were old wealth, the kind that had survived every shift in power Snowville had ever seen. Most of the undeveloped land in this city still had a Hale name on the deed somewhere. After the old order changed, Jeffrey had used every advantage he had to build a second fortune on top of the first. To someone who operated the way this couple did, the Hales weren’t just a target. They were the prize they’d been circling for decades.

It explained everything. Mr. Hale had been strong enough even then to make the Commander and his wife move carefully around him. That’s why Hale had been able to step in and stop Ronald’s assassination attempt right in front of them without consequence. They hadn’t been ready to move against him openly. So instead, they’d sent Sheila. When she failed, they sent Wisteria. Getting revenge on the Morrigans had probably been part of Wisteria’s mission, but only part of it. Her real job had been to slowly work her way into the Hale bloodline and hollow it out from the inside.

Jeffrey’s expression had gone dark and flat in a way that made the room feel smaller. “That couple used military backing for years to do whatever they wanted. They tried more than once to take control of what’s ours, and when the risk of being held accountable became too great, they ran. I never thought they’d still be out there, still scheming, still coming after us from the shadows.” He paused. “Sheila failed. So they sent Wisteria instead. The patience of it the sheer calculation it’s frightening.”

If what the Blackwells had done to the Morrigans was cold, then what this couple had been doing to the Hales was something else entirely.

“Do you think the twins are part of the organization?” I asked.

“Whether they are or not, they’ve most likely been shaped into tools aimed at me, pointed by people who knew exactly which wounds to press.” Another cough moved through him, deep and rattling. He pressed both hands flat on the desk and steadied himself, and despite how frail he looked, something in the room shifted around him a pressure, a weight, the faint echo of the man who had once made enemies think twice.

“If I had known their true purpose back then,” he said quietly, “I would never have shown mercy. I saved them, and all I did was leave a threat alive.”

I didn’t say anything to that. I was just grateful that whatever protection had been watching over things, Sheila had never actually harmed him during the years she was close to him. Jeffrey had been the real force behind the Hales all along strong enough that even now, with age and illness wearing him down, the Commander and his wife had never dared to move against him directly.

“Elena.” He looked at me steadily. “Don’t worry. I will find those two, wherever they’ve hidden themselves, and I will make them answer for everything they’ve done.”

Something in my chest loosened that I hadn’t known was tight. “Do you know where they are?”

“Give me a target,” he said, “and it doesn’t matter where they’ve gone. They will pay what they owe.” Then the cough came again, harder this time, and the fierceness in his face gave way just slightly to exhaustion.

It was painful to watch. A man like that, reduced to this.

“Dad.” I kept my voice gentle. “Lewis is back now. You don’t need to carry all of this alone. Please let a doctor look at that cough it’s been going on too long.”

Jeffrey’s eyes softened, and something quieter moved through them. “I’ve wronged that child,” he said, almost to himself. His loyalty to his first mate had made him cold and distant toward Lewis for most of his life the illegitimate son who had never asked to be caught in the middle of it.

I didn’t have the right to weigh in on the complicated history between them. I simply helped him to his room and called for the family doctor, then stayed close while we waited. Watching him move through the hallway, I noticed how much older he seemed than even a few months ago. The year had taken something from him that rest alone couldn’t replace. I had just said goodbye to Grandma. The thought of losing him too sat in my stomach like a stone.

Please, I thought. Give this old man more time.

The doctor arrived and ran through his examination while I sat nearby, peeling fruit for Jeffrey to keep my hands busy. When the doctor opened his kit and began preparing the drip, I glanced over out of habit.

And then I stopped.

His hands.

A doctor’s calluses lived at the fingertips from instruments, from sutures, from years of precise work. But this man’s knuckles were rough and thickened in a specific way, the kind of wear that came from one repeated motion. Index finger. Thumb. The heel of the palm.

The grip of a gun.

I kept my expression completely still and let my eyes move upward. Tall. Straight-backed. Dark skin on every exposed surface, the kind of tan that came from working outside, not from a hospital ward. White coat, white mask, but the neck and the posture wrong. Every detail of him said outdoors. Said trained. Said something that had nothing to do with medicine.

I glanced at Jeffrey and saw that his eyes had also moved to the man, quiet and watchful. He had felt it too.

“Where’s Dr. Laurence?” Jeffrey asked, his tone perfectly even. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you before.”

“He’s tied up in surgery,” the man replied, drawing a cloudy liquid from a small glass bottle with practiced calm. “Don’t worry. My skills are more than adequate.” As he pressed the plunger lightly to check the flow, the veins on the back of his hand stood out sharply. Whatever was under that white coat, it wasn’t soft.

I looked at the fruit knife in my hand. Then at the room. Jeffrey, the butler, and me. That was all.

One chance. That was all I was going to get.

I told myself to breathe. Don’t panic. Don’t show it. Move when it counts.

I picked up the fruit plate and walked toward Jeffrey slowly, naturally, like I was just bringing him something to eat. “Dad, I peeled an apple. Have some.”

As I moved closer to the man, I caught the small shift in his eye just a flicker, just a fraction of attention turning my way.

I swung the plate hard into his face.

He raised his arm on instinct to block it, and in the opening that created, I drove the fruit knife straight toward his chest.

His eyes went sharp and cold. His reaction was faster than it had any right to be he deflected the strike with his forearm, minimizing the damage, and in the same fluid motion his other hand came up with a gun.

The shot rang out.

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