# Chapter 16
Constantin Duval did not survive the week.
Reyes brought the news to Angelo personally, his face carrying none of the satisfaction one might expect from a man who had finally confirmed his suspicions.
"A car accident," Reyes said, "on a road he had driven a thousand times, on a clear night, in a vehicle later found to have no mechanical faults."
"You don't believe it was an accident."
"I believe it was extremely convenient for someone." Reyes sat heavily. "Duval was the one thread we had. Now he's gone, and whoever gave him those payments has made certain he can never explain why."
"Then we've lost them."
"We've lost him," Reyes corrected. "Not necessarily them. Men careful enough to silence a source are rarely careful enough to leave no other trace at all. But it will take longer now. And it means whoever is behind this understands they're being watched."
Angelo felt the weight of that settle over him.
"They know someone is investigating."
"They may only suspect it," Reyes said. "But suspicion is often enough to make dangerous people more dangerous, not less."
---
That night, Angelo told Elena everything Reyes had shared. She listened without interrupting, her hands folded tightly in her lap, until he finished.
"They'll come after my father next," she said quietly. "Or Marcus."
"We don't know that."
"Don't we?" She looked at him. "If frightening my father wasn't enough, what's the next step for someone who wants this family destabilized? A conveniently ailing heir. A monarch already unsettled. What's left, Angelo, except to remove someone entirely?"
Angelo didn't have an answer that would comfort her, so he didn't offer one.
"I want to increase security around your father and brother," he said instead. "Quietly. Without alarming them, if we can manage it."
"You want to protect my family without telling them they need protecting."
"Yes."
"That's an impossible position to put you in."
"I've been in worse."
Elena managed a small, tired smile. "Have you?"
"No," Angelo admitted. "But it sounded like the kind of thing a lieutenant should say."
That, finally, made her laugh — a real laugh, brief but genuine, cutting through the heaviness of the evening.
"I'm frightened," she admitted, once the laugh had faded. "I don't say that often. I'm not sure I've said it since I was a child."
Angelo took her hand again, the gesture becoming familiar now, no longer uncertain.
"Then let me be frightened with you," he said. "It's easier, carried by two people instead of one."
Elena looked at him for a long moment, and something settled in her expression — not relief exactly, but the particular calm of someone who has stopped trying to carry a weight entirely alone.
"My father chose well," she said quietly, "the day he decided to trust a stranger on a roadside in Sanjara."
Angelo said nothing, but he held her hand a little tighter, and outside the palace walls, unseen by either of them, the people responsible for Duval's silence had already turned their attention toward Valoria's next weak point.