Dominic Stone POV
The phone slipped from my hand and crashed to the floor.
"What do you mean the letters were never delivered?" I asked Marcus, my old Beta, who was calling from three states away.
"I'm cleaning out my old office, and I found them, Dom. All of them. Lily's letters to you from five years ago. They're still sealed." Marcus's voice was shaky. "Someone intercepted them before they ever reached you."
My heart stopped beating for a second. Letters. Lily had written me letters.
"How many?" I whispered.
"Seventeen. The first one is dated two weeks after she left town. The last one..." Marcus paused. "The last one is from the day Emma was born."
I sank into my office chair, my legs suddenly too weak to hold me up. For five years, I thought Lily had disappeared without a word. I thought she didn't want me to find her.
But she had been trying to reach me all along.
"Who had access to your office mail?" I asked, my Alpha voice starting to growl.
"Only three people back then. Me, Victoria, and..."
"And who?"
"And Uncle Richard. The old Alpha." Uncle Richard. The man who had raised me after my parents died. The man who had planned my marriage to Victoria. The man I had trusted more than anyone.
"Send me pictures of every letter. Now." I hung up and immediately called my private detective.
Within an hour, my phone was buzzing with pictures. Seventeen letters from Lily, filled with words I should have read years ago.
The first letter was simple: "Dominic, I know you're busy with pack tasks, but we need to talk. Please call me."
By the fifth letter, her tone had changed: "I've been trying to reach you for weeks. Are you ignoring me on purpose? I have something important to tell you."
The tenth letter made my hands shake: "I'm pregnant, Dominic. With your baby. I know this affects your marriage plans, but please, just call me back. We can figure this out together."
I had to stop reading. My wolf was pacing inside me, angry and heartbroken at the same time.
She had been pregnant and alone, thinking I didn't care enough to react.
I forced myself to keep reading.
Letter fifteen: "I understand if you don't want to be involved. But I thought you should know I'm having a little girl. The doctor says she's healthy and strong. I can already tell she's going to be stubborn like her father."
The last letter, written the day Emma was born, was only two sentences: "Her name is Emma Rose Evans. She has your eyes."
I threw my phone across the room and yelled with pain and anger. Emma had been born, and I hadn't even known. Lily had needed me, and I had failed her because someone had made sure I never got her texts.
But who? And why?
My office door burst open. Victoria stood there, her face pale.
"I heard you screaming. What's wrong?" she asked.
I stared at her, my mind running. Victoria had access to Marcus's office. Victoria who had everything to lose if I had chosen Lily instead of following our marriage contract.
"Did you know?" I asked quietly.
"Know what?" "About Lily's letters. About Emma."
Victoria's face went even whiter, and I had my answer.
"Dom, I can explain—"
"You knew." My voice was deadly calm now. "You knew she was trying to reach me, and you stopped the letters from getting to me."
"I was protecting our future!" Victoria said, stepping backward. "If you had gotten those letters, you would have broken the marriage contract. The pack partnership would have fallen apart. There would have been war!"
"So you let her think I abandoned her. You let my daughter grow up without a father."
"I thought... I hoped you would forget about her eventually," Victoria whispered. "I never meant for it to go on this long."
The anger building inside me was so strong I had to grip the desk to keep from shifting. "Where is Uncle Richard now?"
"Why?"
"Because I'm guessing he helped you. The former Alpha who cared more about politics than family."
Victoria's silence told me everything.
I pulled out my phone and called Uncle Richard's number. He answered on the first ring.
"Dominic! How's my favorite nephew?"
"Cut the show, Uncle. I know about the letters."
The line went quiet for a long moment.
"Ah," he said finally. "I wondered when that would come back to bite us."
"Us?"
"Victoria came to me when the first letter arrived. She was afraid you'd throw away everything we'd worked for over some omega girl. I told her we'd handle it quietly."
"By stealing my mail and lying to me for five years?"
"By protecting the pack!" Uncle Richard's voice turned hard. "That girl would have been a disaster as Luna. She had no training, no contacts, no political value. Victoria was the right choice."
"Emma is my daughter!"
"And now she's becoming a problem too, isn't she? Word goes fast in pack circles, Dominic. A four-year-old with uncontrolled Alpha powers? That's dangerous."
My blood turned to ice. "What do you mean?"
"The group of elders has been talking. Some think Emma should be... managed before she becomes a danger."
"Managed how?"
"There are shelters for dangerous supernatural children. Places where they can't hurt anyone while they learn control. Or if they can't learn control..."
He didn't finish the sentence, but I understood. They wanted to lock up my daughter. Or worse.
"You touch one hair on Emma's head, and I'll rip your throat out," I snarled.
"You're getting emotional, cousin. Think about the bigger view. The pack's safety comes first."
I hung up and immediately called Lily's number. It went straight to voicemail.
Panic shot through me. Where was she? Where was Emma?
I called Ethan next.
"Dom? What's wrong?"
"Where are Lily and Emma? I've been trying to reach them."
"They went to the food store about an hour ago. Why?"
"Uncle Richard and Victoria have been working together. They stole Lily's letters five years ago. And now they're planning something with Emma."
"What kind of something?"
"The kind that ends with my daughter disappearing into some supernatural prison."
Ethan was quiet for a moment. "Dom, there's something else. This morning, three black SUVs drove through town. Government plates. They parked near the school, asking questions about Emma."
My heart stopped. "Government?"
"The kind that deals with supernatural danger. I think someone called them about yesterday's event."
I was already grabbing my keys and running for the door. "Find Lily and Emma. Get them somewhere safe. Now."
"Where are you going?"
"To have a talk with Uncle Richard. And this time, I'm getting the whole truth."
I sped through town, my truck's engine roaring as I pushed it to the limit. Uncle Richard lived in the old pack house on the hill, the same place where I'd grown up thinking he was the only family I had left.
But as I pulled into the driveway, I saw something that made my blood freeze.
The three black SUVs Ethan had stated were parked outside Uncle Richard's house.
And through the window, I could see him shaking hands with guys in dark suits.
Whatever they were planning for Emma, it was already in motion.
I grabbed my phone to call Ethan, but before I could dial, someone tapped on my passenger window.
Victoria stood there, her eyes red from crying.
"Dom, please. You have to listen to me. It's not what you think."
"Then what is it?"
"Uncle Richard didn't just steal the letters. He's been planning this for years. Emma isn't just any Alpha child." Victoria's voice was shaking. "She's the promised one. The Alpha who's supposed to join all the packs. And there are people who will do anything to stop that from happening."
"What people?"
Victoria pointed at the house. "The ones who've been hunting magical children for decades. The ones who Uncle Richard has been quietly working with."
My phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number: "We have the girl. Come alone to the locations attached, or she disappears forever."
Emma. They had Emma.
And I was about to find out that everything I thought I knew about my family, my pack, and my daughter's fate was a lie.