Blake finishes the thought. "I want you free."
"Why?" I turn to face him fully. "You don't know me. You don't owe me anything. Why risk your family's wrath for a stranger?"
"Because I've seen what happens when the Delanos decide someone is useful." His voice is quiet, lethal. "I've cleaned up the aftermath. Buried the bodies. Lived with the guilt. And I'm not doing it again."
The car feels too small suddenly. Too intimate. Blake's confession hangs in the air between us like heavy smoke, impossible to ignore.
Talia clears her throat. "The practical question is what we do next. Peyton, you have three options. One: Run and disappear before the activation window opens. Two: Sign. Give proxy authority to the faction least likely to kill you and hope they keep their word. Three: Fight. Activate the clause, claim your inheritance, and become a player instead of a pawn."
"Fighting sounds suicidal," I say.
"It is," Blake agrees. "It's also the only option that doesn't end with you dead or owned."
"He's not wrong," Talia adds. "Running just delays the problem. They'll find you eventually. And signing means you're useful only as long as you're compliant. The second you're not..."
She doesn't finish her sentence. She doesn't need to.
I look down at the folder in my lap. At the legal architecture of power my mother died trying to claim. At the inheritance, she wanted me to have. At the choice I'm being forced to make before I'm ready. I’ve been met with a lot of challenges in my life, but this one seems monumental.
"If I fight," I say slowly, "I need more than lawyers and bodyguards. I need leverage of my own. Information. Allies. Proof that I'm more dangerous alive and independent than dead or controlled."
"Agreed," Talia says, seemingly impressed with my response. "Which is why I brought this."
She pulls out a flash drive, sets it on the center console like it's a live grenade.
"Your mother's research," she says quietly.
“She kept a notebook of her research at home. I’ve seen that.”
“No, not that. This is something else. This is everything she compiled before she died. Genealogy, financial records, correspondence. And something she was going to use to force the Kingsleys to acknowledge her claim."
My breath catches. "How did you get this?"
"Your mother was smart. She sent encrypted copies to three different attorneys before she died, with instructions to release them if anything happened to her. I was one of them." Talia's expression is grim. "I've kept it sealed for three years, waiting to see if you'd come looking. Now you have."
I take the flash drive with trembling fingers. It's small, unremarkable, the kind of thing you'd lose in a drawer.
It's also the key to everything.
"There's something else you should know," Talia says. "The Frost Society is watching. They know about the clause. They know about you. And they're divided on whether you're a threat to Wintervale's balance of power or an opportunity to shift it."
"The Frost Society," I repeat. "The women's club?"
"The women who run this town while the men think they're in charge," Blake corrects me. "They're more dangerous than the Hollow Club because they're patient. Strategic. They are willing to lose battles to win wars.”
"And they want me for what?" I think about some of the Wintervale women who may be part of their club.
"That," Talia says, "is the question keeping me up at night. But my advice? Don't ignore them. The Evermoore matriarch has been asking questions. Careful ones. The kind that means she's planning something."
The Evermoores are a powerful matriarchal family around here. I didn’t know any of them were that involved in The Frost Society, but honestly, I never paid the club much attention.
My phone buzzes again.
Unknown Number: Final warning, Peyton. Come back now, or we come get you. And Blake can't stop all of us.
I show it to Blake.
His expression hardens. "They're tracking your phone."
