Ella's apartment felt smaller than usual when she got home that night. Maybe it was the weight of what she'd done at the Blackwood estate, or maybe it was the knowledge that monsters were real and one of them owned her soul. Either way, the familiar walls seemed to press in on her like a cage.
She kicked off her heels and poured herself a glass of wine that she didn't really want. The Blackwood files sat on her kitchen table, mocking her with their manila normalcy. Just another case. Just another client.
Just another covered-up murder.
The wine tasted like guilt.
Ella opened her laptop and pulled up everything she could find about the Blackwood case. Police reports, newspaper articles, social media posts from neighbors. She was a lawyer. Research was what she did. Maybe if she understood the full picture, she could find a way to live with herself.
The police reports were sanitized, professional. Male victim, age 37, found deceased in his residence due to "apparent animal attack." No witnesses. No suspects. Case ongoing but leads were "limited."
The newspaper coverage was more interesting. The San Francisco Chronicle had run a front-page story about "Urban Wildlife Dangers" and the need for better animal control. The Examiner had gone with "Society Heir Killed in Freak Attack." Both papers mentioned that Blackwood's security system had malfunctioned the night of his death.
Convenient.
Ella dug deeper. Social media posts from neighbors talked about "strange howling" and "something big moving through the gardens." One woman claimed she'd seen "a massive dog, bigger than any breed I know" running down the street around 10 PM.
Not a dog. A wolf.
She pulled up the police evidence files that Kaelan had somehow acquired for her. Most of it she'd already seen, but there were a few things that hadn't been in the initial folder. Crime scene photos from different angles. Forensic reports on trace evidence.
And security footage.
Ella's pulse quickened. The police report said Blackwood's security system had malfunctioned, but apparently they'd recovered some footage from a camera across the street. The timestamp showed 10:17 PM—right in the middle of the attack window.
The video was grainy, shot in night vision. She watched Blackwood's house from the perspective of a neighbor's security camera. For the first few seconds, nothing happened. Just a quiet residential street under streetlights.
Then something moved in the shadows near Blackwood's front gate.
Ella leaned closer to the screen, squinting at the pixelated image. It was large, definitely animal-shaped, but moving on four legs in a way that seemed almost... purposeful. Intelligent.
She enhanced the image as much as her software would allow. The shape was wolf-like but massive. Bigger than any natural wolf had a right to be. And there was something else. Something that made her blood run cold.
The way it moved. Familiar.
She'd seen that particular gait before. In the parking garage, when Kaelan had flowed through shadows to save her. But this wasn't Kaelan. The size was wrong, the build different.
There were others.
Ella sat back in her chair, mind racing. If there were other shapeshifters, other wolves, then who had really killed Marcus Blackwood? Had Kaelan lied to her about it being justice? Was this about territory disputes instead of trafficking?
Her phone buzzed. Text message.
Check your father's account. - K
Ella's stomach dropped. She hadn't told Kaelan about reviewing the case files at home. How did he know she'd be looking at her phone right now?
Was he watching her?
She opened her banking app with shaking fingers and navigated to her father's medical account. The balance that had read $87,423.45 in outstanding charges this morning now showed zero.
Paid in full.
But that wasn't possible. She'd paid the minimum to keep treatment going, but the full amount? Where had the money come from?
She clicked on the transaction history. One entry, posted two hours ago:
Wire transfer - $87,423.45 - Reference: Contractual obligation fulfilled
Contractual obligation.
The blood contract she'd signed. Kaelan had paid her father's medical bills. All of them.
Ella stared at the screen until her eyes watered. Her father was safe. Completely, totally safe. The experimental treatment could continue. He might actually beat this thing.
And all it had cost her was her soul.
She closed the banking app and looked back at the security footage. The wolf-like shape had disappeared from the frame, but she could still see it in her mind. Large, powerful, deadly.
Not Kaelan.
Which meant someone else had killed Marcus Blackwood. Someone Kaelan was protecting. Someone he was willing to let her help cover up a murder for.
The question was: why?
Ella spent the next hour creating a timeline. Blackwood's death, the police investigation, her contract with Kaelan, the family meeting today. Everything connected, but she couldn't see the full pattern yet.
What she could see was damning.
She opened a new document and started typing. A detailed report of everything she'd discovered. The enhanced security footage showing a shapeshifter at the scene. The convenient malfunction of Blackwood's security system. The suspicious wire transfer to her father's account.
Evidence of a cover-up.
Evidence that could destroy Kaelan Wolfram.
Her finger hovered over the save button. One click, and she'd have documented proof of everything. She could send it to the police, to the FBI, to the media. Expose the whole thing.
But then what?
Her father would die. The money keeping him alive would disappear, along with any chance of recovery. The blood contract would activate, and she'd become Kaelan's property. Assuming he didn't just kill her outright for betraying him.
And there were others like him out there. Others who might decide that a lawyer who exposed their secrets was too dangerous to live.
Ella saved the document anyway. Then she created a second file, this one containing only the wire transfer information. Proof that Kaelan had paid her father's medical bills. Proof of the "contractual obligation" he'd referenced.
Two files. Two choices.
Evidence of his crimes, or evidence of his... what? Generosity? Manipulation? Both?
She stared at the computer screen, cursor blinking in the darkness. Outside her apartment window, San Francisco stretched out like a circuit board, all lights and shadows and hidden connections. Somewhere out there, monsters walked among humans. Somewhere out there, people were making deals with devils to save the ones they loved.
Somewhere out there, her father was sleeping peacefully in a hospital bed, his bills paid by blood money.
Ella's phone rang. Unknown number.
She almost didn't answer. But after everything that had happened tonight, curiosity won over caution.
"Hello?"
"Ms. Winters." The voice was unfamiliar. Male, middle-aged, with an accent she couldn't place. "I understand you've been asking questions about the Blackwood case."
"Who is this?"
"Someone who has answers. Someone who knows why Marcus Blackwood really died."
Ella's grip tightened on the phone. "I'm listening."
"Not over the phone. Too many ears in this city. Meet me tomorrow night. Golden Gate Park, near the AIDS Memorial Grove. Ten PM."
"Why should I trust you?"
"Because I can tell you who really killed Marcus Blackwood. And why Kaelan Wolfram is so desperate to cover it up."
The line went dead.
Ella set down the phone and looked back at her computer screen. The two files stared back at her like opposing futures. In one, she exposed Kaelan and probably died for it. In the other, she became complicit in murder and lived with the guilt.
But there was a third option now. The mysterious caller who claimed to have answers.
She thought about the wolf in the security footage. The way it had moved with purpose through Blackwood's neighborhood. The timing of Kaelan's appearance in her life, just when she was desperate enough to sign anything.
What if this wasn't about justice at all? What if this was about something else entirely?
Ella opened a new browser window and started researching Marcus Blackwood's business interests. Not the shipping company everyone knew about, but the smaller ventures. The side investments. The companies buried in footnotes of financial reports.
What she found made her blood run cold.
Blackwood Industries had shell companies in twelve countries. Most of them were fronts for shipping operations, but three stood out. Research facilities in remote locations. Places where experiments could be conducted away from prying eyes.
Places where shapeshifters could be studied.
Tortured.
Killed.
And according to the financial records, all three facilities had been shut down in the past six months. Permanently.
Ella leaned back in her chair, pieces clicking into place. This wasn't about one murder. This was about a war. A systematic campaign against people who trafficked in shapeshifters.
And Kaelan wasn't just covering up one killing. He was covering up all of them.
The question was: was he the one doing the killing, or was he protecting someone who was?
Outside her window, fog rolled in from the bay, obscuring the city lights one by one. By midnight, her apartment felt like it was floating in a cloud, cut off from the rest of the world.
Ella saved both files to an encrypted drive and hid it in her bedroom. Then she poured herself another glass of wine and sat down to wait for morning.
Tomorrow night, she'd meet with the mysterious caller and get some answers.
Tomorrow night, she'd decide which future she wanted to live with.
But tonight, she'd drink wine in the fog and try not to think about the wolf in the security footage. The wolf that wasn't Kaelan. The wolf that might be coming for her next.
Her phone buzzed with another text: Sleep well, Ms. Winters. Tomorrow we begin the real work.
Ella looked at the message for a long time before deleting it. She didn't recognize the number, but somehow she knew it wasn't from Kaelan.
Which meant someone else was watching her.
Someone else knew where she lived.
She double-checked her locks, closed her curtains, and went to bed with a kitchen knife under her pillow. But sleep was a long time coming, and when it finally arrived, it brought dreams of golden eyes and silver claws.
Dreams of choices that couldn't be undone.
Dreams of wolves.