POV: Silas

Nolan Keene had written seventeen lies about Evelyn and signed every one Doctor.

Silas read them at the safe-house dining table while the woman beside him slowly stopped shaking.

Miriam had divided the record into three stacks: impossible dates, invented symptoms, and statements only Grant could have supplied. The third stack was the thickest.

Ronan leaned over Silas's shoulder.

"Session six says Evelyn displays paranoia regarding her husband's professional friendships."

"Sit down," Miriam said.

"I read better standing."

"You breathe louder standing."

Ronan sat.

Evelyn turned another page. The embrace in the garage still lived on Silas's skin. So did the moment she had imagined his mouth against her neck and the bond had delivered the image with enough force to bring his wolf to its feet.

Now her scent held no desire. Only cold anger.

He welcomed it.

Anger made her reach for evidence instead of the old wedding ring inside her pocket.

"This one says I missed an appointment on March third," she said.

Miriam uncapped a red pen. "Where were you?"

"Sophie's school. She played a cloud in the spring weather pageant. Grant arrived halfway through and complained there were too many songs."

"Witnesses?"

"Thirty parents. Two teachers. A video on the school's website."

Miriam drew a clean line beside the date.

"Good."

Silas hated the word.

Nothing about a mother proving her sanity with a child's school play was good. But Miriam was not praising what had happened. She was naming a weapon Evelyn could use.

That distinction kept him in his chair.

Maeve placed coffee beside Evelyn and took the next page.

"These medication doses are wrong."

"Nolan named them at the gas station," Silas said.

"He named what Grant told him. But this says he monitored her response over twelve weeks." Maeve tapped two lines. "If Evelyn had taken this combination at these doses, she wouldn't have been driving Sophie to school. She'd have struggled to stand."

Evelyn stared at the page. "Grant used to crush something into tea when I couldn't sleep."

The room went silent.

Silas's wolf hit his bones.

Wood cracked beneath his right hand.

The corner of the table broke off and dropped onto the floor.

Ronan looked down. "That table has been in the club since 1987."

"Send Grant the invoice," Maeve said.

Evelyn's hand closed around Silas's wrist.

Not to restrain him. To call him back.

He opened his fist. A splinter had entered his palm.

"May I?" she asked.

He nodded.

She removed the splinter with her fingernails, then released him and returned to the file. The small contact steadied his wolf more effectively than chains ever could.

"I never saw the bottle," Evelyn said. "He said it was an herbal sleep aid. Sometimes I woke up with no memory after dinner."

Maeve's face hardened. "We document that as reported history. We don't call it proof until we have toxicology, packaging, a witness, or a purchase trail."

"The crash hospital drew blood," Miriam said. "I'll request the retained sample and toxicology panel."

Silas forced himself to follow the distinction. Evelyn's memory was real. The crime remained to be proved.

He wanted Grant's throat.

She needed a case.

"What can this record prove now?" Evelyn asked.

Miriam arranged four pages side by side.

"The clinic claims you attended seventeen sessions. The landlord confirms the suite was empty during the first six. Nolan's own public conference schedule places him in another state during three more. Your school video covers one. That gives us ten appointments that are physically impossible before we touch the contents."

"And the other seven?"

"We make them impossible too."

There was no triumph in Miriam's voice. Only work.

Evelyn reached into the third stack and drew out a page covered in Nolan's narrow clinical language. Halfway down, one sentence had been placed inside quotation marks.

My wife confuses independence with disobedience and becomes unstable when corrected.

She touched the line as if the ink could burn her.

"Grant said this at our anniversary dinner," she said. "He took me into the pantry because I disagreed with him in front of his captain. No one else heard it."

Silas saw the scene without wanting to: Grant closing a pantry door, Evelyn measuring the distance to the handle, a celebration continuing on the other side while a husband taught his wife what disagreement cost.

Jealousy had no place beside that image, yet it came anyway—ugly and human. Grant had been allowed into her ordinary life. He had received invitations, anniversaries, a child, and a thousand mornings. Then he had used that access to catalogue the words that hurt her most.