The Girl He Sold Returned As The King’s Mate Chapter 05
The moment Adrian realized his mistake, he scrambled to recover.
“I was just… thinking of the Evelyn who went missing. It was a slip of the tongue.”
“Naomi is close to her age, and she knows that sentence. Of course I was startled.”
I looked at him, my voice flat.
“A moment ago, you swore you’d never been to the south bank.”
“And now you know that sentence was connected to Evelyn?”
His lips moved, fumbling for an excuse.
“Maybe… maybe she said it to me when we were children.”
“So you finally admit you knew me.”
Daniel shot to his feet.
“Naomi, who are you? What is this—”
“First, listen to the testimony.”
The Royal Guard escorted a woman in her sixties into the chamber.
Her name was Nora Blake. She had once managed the children’s costumes and meals at the Starlight Carnival.
After taking a seat, Nora studied Adrian for a long time through the protective screen.
“That’s him.”
“He’s older, but that mole at the end of his right eyebrow hasn’t moved.”
Adrian’s voice rose, sharp with panic.
“You saw me once, thirteen years ago. How could you possibly recognize me?”
“It wasn’t once.”
Nora produced a patched and repaired ledger from an evidence bag.
“You were afraid the girl would wake up and run, so you stayed at the carnival’s south-bank warehouse for two days.”
“The first night, she had a high fever. She kept calling for someone named Adrian in her sleep.”
“I asked if you were a friend. You said she was just delirious.”
“The second day, you pushed the boss to brand her with the number Seventeen and demanded she be transferred to an out-of-town buyer the second the truck left Riverbend.”
She opened the ledger to a specific page.
“This is the record of the twenty-two thousand dollars you were paid.”
“Ten thousand in cash up front, and another twelve thousand after the girl was resold.”
“The collateral you left was that D-19 identification card.”
Adrian’s voice was cold. “You people wrote that ledger. To save your own skins, you’d point your finger at anyone.”
Nora didn’t flinch.
“The boss was afraid you’d deny taking the money, so he made you leave a thumbprint from your right little finger on the transaction page.”
A technician displayed the scanned fingerprint from the ledger, then had Adrian submit a new print under witness supervision.
The ridge patterns and the distinct interruption in the print were a perfect match.
The examiner confirmed the result on the spot.
When Adrian was a boy, his right little finger had been crushed in a door, leaving a permanent transverse scar across the tip.
That wasn’t the kind of detail a stranger could pull from public records.
Even so, the appointments councilor remained cautious.
“Old paper can be artificially aged. Fingerprints can be copied.”
The chief investigator produced a second, independent record.
It was the identification card receipt book from Riverbend Preparatory School.
Each card had a unique number. When students collected them, they had to sign the corresponding line and leave a fingerprint.
Next to number D-19 were Adrian’s signature from age thirteen and the very same little-finger print.
His former classmates also recalled that he’d replaced his card right after the river festival, claiming the old one had fallen into the river.
The ferry company’s cargo manifest further confirmed that the Starlight Carnival left the south bank on the third day after the festival with one more undocumented girl than they’d arrived with, forcing them to pay an additional passenger surcharge.
A school card left as collateral. A receipt in a school archive. A passenger surcharge no one had noticed.
Three separate records, from three separate sources, all converging after thirteen years.
At last, Adrian’s shoulders slumped.
But even then, he refused to confess.
“Fingerprints can be forged.”
“Naomi has the resources of the Royal Castle at her disposal. It wouldn’t be difficult for her to fabricate an old ledger.”
Elliot’s eyes turned to ice. The silent pressure of the Alpha King fell over the chamber, silencing every whisper.
He didn’t use his power to force a confession. He simply said, “That’s why there’s a third witness.”
A man with a heavy limp entered, escorted by the Guard.
The moment Adrian saw him, every trace of blood drained from his face.
The man’s name was Peter Lane. Thirteen years ago, he had been a driver for the Cole family.
On the day of the river festival, he had driven for Adrian, stashing the dry clothes and shoes for him.
“Adrian said he was taking Evelyn to a quieter dock to watch the race boats.”
“When we got to the parking lot, he came up behind the girl and pressed a cloth soaked in wolfsbane over her face.”
“I got scared. I asked him if he was going to kill her.”
“He said no. He was just sending her away.”
“He said once the Hawthorne family only had Isla left as their recognized daughter, the engagement and the inheritance would no longer be a problem.”
The blood drained from Isla’s face.
Daniel had to grip the table to keep from collapsing.
Adrian clenched his teeth.
“You stole money from my family. You’ve held a grudge ever since you were fired.”
“Naomi found you and paid you to get her revenge.”
Peter gave a bitter smile.
“I wasn’t fired for stealing.”
“The next day, I asked you if Evelyn was ever coming back.”
“You had your relatives break my leg and ship me off to an illegal mining camp in the north so I could never return to Riverbend.”
“The old employee files from the mine and the medical records are all here.”
The investigator displayed the records.
The dates, the injuries, the termination papers—they all matched.
Peter then pulled half of a yellowed medical form from an inner pocket of his jacket.
Back then, the mining camp’s Healer had reset his broken bones. After hearing how he’d been injured, the Healer, fearing Peter might not survive, had quietly written Adrian’s name on the back of the form.
For all these years, Peter had been too afraid to set foot in Riverbend territory. He’d sewn that piece of paper into the lining of his winter coat.
He only came forward after hearing the Crown had reopened the old dock case.
“I’m not here to help anyone get revenge.”
“I’m here because I owe Evelyn the truth.”
He turned to me, his voice shaking.
“That day, I could have hit the emergency alarm in the parking lot. But I was afraid of Adrian and his family, so I just watched that truck drive away.”
“They broke my leg, but the guilt I’ve carried for thirteen years… that’s on me.”
I had a Guard bring him a chair.
“Your silence makes you complicit.”
“But you’re speaking now. You don’t have to carry Adrian’s crime for him anymore.”
Adrian could no longer dismiss this as a simple case of mistaken identity.