Alaric
I sat down slowly, understanding from Bear's careful, deliberate tone that whatever came next was going to matter considerably more than the name he'd already given me.
"Whitfield wasn't just some random prospect who washed out," Bear said, voice low. "He was my cousin."
I felt the words land with real weight, understanding immediately why he'd kept this particular detail buried for decades. "You never mentioned having a cousin in this club."
"Because I spent thirty years trying to forget I did." Bear's jaw tightened, old shame visible beneath his usual gruff composure. "He was ambitious in the worst way. Always looking for an angle, a shortcut, something that would let him skip the years of earned trust everyone else had to actually put in. When he started asking those question
