Chapter 6: The Architect of Ruin
The manor was a maze designed by a madman.
Silence was heavy in the hallways, broken only by the sound of my bare feet on the cold marble floor. I moved like a ghost, the black silk of my dress a shadow against the darkness. The black-handled dagger was a cold, sharp comfort against my thigh.
I reached the grand staircase. Two security guards—heavy with muscle and light on intelligence—were stationed at the base, playing a low-stakes card game. They didn't see me, but I knew I couldn't pass.
"Go to the service lift," a voice whispered from the darkness above.
It was KYLO.
I looked up, my heart leaping into my throat. He was leaning over the second-floor railing, his presence a dark, beautiful omen in the moonlight. He wasn't helping me escape; he was ensuring I reached my destination.
"Why?" I mouthed, my voice a mere breath.
"They're waiting for you at the main entrance," he whispered back, a flicker of a jagged smile touching his lips before he melted back into the shadows.
Waiting for me?
The adrenaline hit me like a physical blow. Kylo was right. The guards at the bottom were a distraction. Xerxes wasn't just a possessive monster; he was a brilliant strategist. He had known I was going to the vault from the moment the ring touched my finger.
He wanted me to try. He wanted to watch me fail.
I backed away from the stairs, changing my path. The library. The false back. That was my only way to the service tunnels that led to the sub-basement.
I made it to the library in three strides. The trick with the book worked again. I pulled out my father's dagger, the weight of it grounding me, and slipped into the secret passage. The air inside was musty, thick with the smell of old paper and something else—something metallic and coppery. Blood. This house was built on it.
The tunnels were a crawl space nightmare. I moved on my hands and knees, the silk of my dress snagging on the rough stone, until I reached the main basement. It wasn't a cellar; it was a fortress. The vault door was a seamless circle of gray steel, a giant, sleeping eye.
I pulled out my burner phone. The coordinates from my source in Paris were there. The access codes. I entered them carefully, my fingers trembling. The mechanism whirred, hissed, and then clicked open with a sharp, industrial finality.
I stepped inside.
It wasn't a room full of gold. It was an office. A study that looked like it had been preserved in amber since the day I was born. A large oak desk, green banker lamps, and a massive, old-school safe behind the chair. It smelled of cigar smoke and the old man who had died in that morgue.
I went to the safe, punching in the secondary code my source had sent.
7... 3... 5... 8... 8... 2...
The safe door swung open.
Inside wasn't the file on Paris. Inside wasn't money or offshore account numbers.
It was a single, dusty folder and a small, silver locket on a chain.
I opened the folder, my hands shaking now. The pages were yellowed with age. It was a birth certificate. A hospital bill from a private clinic in Switzerland.
And a DNA report.
My blood ran cold. The world didn't just tilt; it shattered. I wasn't just an orphan. I wasn't just the girl who had buried a body in Paris.
I looked at the silver locket. I forced it open with a fingernail. Inside was a picture of my mother—younger, happy—and Silas Blackwood. They were holding a baby with eyes exactly like mine.
Me.
I wasn't a stranger. I was a Blackwood. I was Silas's illegitimate daughter. The fourth heir.
The "Paris File" wasn't blackmail. It was proof of inheritance. Silas hadn't forced his sons to marry a stranger to save his empire. He had forced them to marry their half-sister to keep the bloodline "pure" and the money under one roof. It was a twisted, sick game of legal loopholes.
The "anchor." I wasn't the girl who saved the brothers; I was the girl who owned them. And they knew. They had to know.
A single tear tracked down my cheek, not of fear, but of absolute, consuming rage. I wasn't just trapped; I had been played by a dead man. I had walked into this house armed for a war I didn't even understand.
The heavy steel door of the vault slammed shut behind me.
Click. The sound of the electronic lock engaging.
I spun around. The room was dark, save for the green glow of the banker's lamp on the desk.
ZION was leaning against the door, a dark, dangerous smirk on his face. He held my burner phone in his hand, the screen still glowing with the message I'd sent to Paris.
"Phase Two has been adjusted, Vesper," he murmured, his eyes locking onto mine. He looked at me with a new kind of hunger—one that was tainted by the secret I now held in my hands. "You found the truth. Now, we find out what we're going to do with it. Welcome home... little sister."
He tossed the phone onto the desk. It shattered on impact.
I reached for the dagger at my thigh, but he was faster. He crossed the room in two strides, his hand wrapping around my wrist like iron, pinning it to the desk. The locket flew from my other hand, skittering across the floor.
"We knew you were coming," he whispered, his face inches from mine, his scent of expensive bourbon and cold rain filling my lungs. "Xerxes set the trap. Kylo led you here. We just had to wait for our little spy to find her way to the heart of the web."
I looked at him, my teeth bared. "You're wrong, Zion. I'm not home. I'm the bomb that's about to blow this whole sick family to hell."
"Maybe," he breathed, his free hand coming up to tangle in my hair, pulling my head back. "But in the meantime... you're a Blackwood now. And we don't let our property walk away."
The vault was soundproof. The manor was silent. And for the first time since I arrived, I realized the dagger wasn't enough to save me.
I didn't need a weapon. I needed to become a monster.