I Rejected My Obsessive Werebeast novel Chapter 96

V

Chapter 96

But the thought of going back–facing the rumours, the courtroom, the old wounds reopening in front of strangers–made something inside me go heavy.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Tomorrow morning. First light.”

We thanked the auntie properly that evening. I left an envelope of cash on the kitchen counter–more than enough, but it was the least I could do. She waved it off at first, then pressed my hands between hers and told us to be careful.

“Come back and visit when things settle,” she said. Her eyes were warm. “This door’s always open.”

We left before dawn.

The sky was pale grey, the air sharp and cold. We packed light–what we’d arrived with, plus the clothes the auntie had lent us, folded neat in a bag. The little house grew smaller in the rear window as we drove away, until it was just a shape on the hill, then nothing.

The road unspooled ahead. The quiet town fell away behind us, and by degrees the landscape shifted–trees gave way to suburbs, suburbs to highways, highways to the dense concrete grid of the city. The skyline rose on the horizon like a wall of glass and steel.

We were almost at the city limits when my phone rang.

0.008

4

RG

15

Chapte

Kane.

answered. His voice came through tight, clipped faster than usual.

“Aurora. We’ve got a problem.”

My stomach dropped. “What happened?”

“One of the victims–shifters who agreed to testify in person–went dark last night. No answer at his door. Phone’s off. His neighbour said he didn’t come home.”

The road ahead blurred for a second. My grip tightened on the phone.

Lucien was locked up. But his people–whatever network he’d built, whatever reach he still had on the outside–they were moving.

They were already interfering with the trial.

Back in the apartment, everything was exactly as we’d left it. The air was still. The furniture sat in the same places. But my mind hadn’t settled since the moment we walked through the door.

Silas dropped the bags and didn’t sit down. His back was still stiff from the wound, every movement careful, measured. But he pulled out the hearing files anyway, spreading them across the dining table–witness lists, evidence logs, case summaries. We went through them line by line.

Kane arrived within the hour.

He looked tired. Dark circles under his eyes, jaw tight. He dropped into a chair and gave us the update.

“The witness’s apartment was tossed. Drawers pulled out, closet emptied. No signs of a struggle–no blood, no broken glass. He wasn’t taken by force. He was coerced. Someone got to him and moved him somewhere off the grid.”

23 90%

15.32

RG

Chapte196

“Police?” Silas asked.

Searching. But if Lucien’s people are hiding him, they know how to keep someone off the radar. Could be days. Could be longer.” Kane rubbed his face. “Losing one key witness weakens the case against Lucien’s illegal experimentation program. The defence will hammer that gap.”

He paused. Looked at both of us.

“And we have reason to believe there may be someone inside the justice system. Someone Lucien’s bought.”

The room went quiet.

Silas’s tiger ears, which had been flat against his head, twitched forward. His jaw tightened.

“So even locked up, he’s still pulling strings.”

I thought of Lucien’s face the moment he was cuffed. That smile–cold, amused, like he knew something no one else did. The words he’d murmured as they led him away:

“This story isn’t over.”

They’d been echoing in my head ever since.

Kane nodded. “Jessica’s campaign is getting worse. She’s been posting nonstop–twisting the narrative, painting S–class shifters as threats. A lot of people online are buying it. The public mood is shifting.”

I pulled the evidence folders toward me and laid them out on the table. Warehouse photographs. Connor’s intelligence records. The collective statements from the rescued shifters.

“We still have this. The warehouse photos. Connor’s files. The survivors‘ testimony. One witness missing doesn’t silence all of them. We go to

52523

4

RG

1532

court.”

We split up after that.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify