CHAPTER 466: A MOLE IN ALPHA’S TEAM

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 hammered 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 basement 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 member was speaking the truth... until another person claimed 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 members or friends of some other victims had also noticed these marks. Out of thirty-two recorded cases, eight if them seemed 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 moment 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 something else in his golden-green eyes... something 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 came 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 become.

Kieran didn’t look away from me. "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 me 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 someone 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 documents you saw?"

"It was," I whispered. "It is. I still have the screenshot. And now I know why we found nothing today. Someone removed this part from the copy you had."

There it was.

The truth hung between us, thick and suffocating.

Someone 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 same time.

Someone on Kieran’s team... someone currently working under him... someone with full access... had intentionally erased the information.

My stomach sank.

The basement felt colder suddenly.

I took my phone back as Kieran silently handed it to me. 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.

Some blurry, some crooked, some half cut off because I had taken them in a hurry.

But every word mattered now.

The men 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 mention 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 moment.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t curse.

He didn’t panic.

He just looked... disappointed.

Deeply.

Almost painfully.

Not at me.

But at the implications.

River straightened. "So someone 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... something 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 me. 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 me.

And for the first time since I met him, I felt something 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 came out low and rough when he finally spoke. "It means 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."