This wasn’t wedding planning. This wasn’t oversight.
This was a war room disguised as a home.
On the far side of the room, I found a glass cabinet built into the wall. Inside were items I didn’t have names for—military-grade tech, knives with inscriptions etched into the hilts, a set of metal vials in a foam casing labeled with Cyrillic I couldn’t read.
And then—beneath all that—a red ribbon.
Silk. Clean. Unfolded and untouched.
But I knew what it was.
Another message.
Another threat.
The drawer below it was cracked open, and inside were folders. I pulled one free, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Silas hadn’t stirred.
He hadn’t.
The folder was unmarked. I opened it anyway.
There were notes inside, in sharp, masculine handwriting. Schematics. Maps. A name scrawled over and over again.
Carolina Dane.
His mother.
I felt something twist in my gut.
Because this wasn’t about Monte anymore. Or weddings. Or even me.
This was bloodline-deep.
Generational war.
I flipped to the last page and found a grainy black-and-white photo. A woman in a sleek coat, standing on the steps of a courthouse. Her face half-turned. But I recognized her.
I’d seen that face once before.
On a screen. In a dossier Bea had hidden from me.
I stepped back, hands trembling. My stomach turned. I nearly dropped the folder.
I didn’t hear Silas move until I felt him behind me.
His voice was quiet. A rasp. “I didn’t want you to find that yet.”
I turned, slowly.
He stood bare-footed, still in the clothes from the night before, hair rumpled, eyes dark and unreadable.
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have left me in your war room,” I said, voice thin with betrayal.
“I brought you here to keep you alive,” he said. “You almost died.”
My throat closed. “Then maybe you should start telling me what the plan is.”
His eyes flicked to the file in my hands.
