Rowe exhales but doesn’t argue.
The explosion whites out the feed for a fraction of a second. When it stabilizes, the lab is in ruins. Their bodies—
A guttural and broken sound tears out of me before I can contain it. Rowe’s hand presses hard on my shoulder, meant to steady, but I shove it off.
“Again,” I demand, even as my vision blurs. “Frame by frame. There has to be something—”
“Aria . . .” Rowe tempers his voice, but the strain beneath it betrays him. “If Alexander’s involved, you know he wouldn’t leave a trail. He’s meticulous.”
“Show me earlier.” I can’t look away from the frozen image of destruction. “The whole day. From the moment they arrive.”
“This isn’t healthy—”
“Please.”
He watches me for a long beat, then nods. “Alright. But promise me you’ll try to be objective about what we find. Or don’t find.”
The feed reverses with brutal precision. Time unspools backward. I watch their bodies rise from the wreckage, reassemble frame byframe, limbs knitting, walls repairing. Each second stabs deeper. The rewind feels crueler than the destruction.
“There. Pause.”
9:47 AM.
My mom stands frozen in the doorway, three hours late, her movements jerky and unfamiliar. Nothing like the woman who drilled precision and protocol into me since I could walk.
“That’s not right.” My voice comes out thinner now. “She’s never late. Not once in twenty years. Not unless someone made her.”
Rowe leans forward, eyes narrowing. “Wait. Let me check something.” His hands move through the projection, pulling up new angles. “The hallway feeds might show—”
He goes still. In the silence, I can hear my own heartbeat pounding against bone.
There, lurking in the shadows of the service entrance, is a sleek black vehicle. Its surface gleams obsidian under the security feed’s lens, the Blackwood crest stamped on the hood. My mother steps out and smooths trembling fingers over her usually pristine hair, glances over her shoulder once, and disappears into the building.
“That’s impossible. She hated Kian. She would never—”
“The timestamp’s authentic,” Rowe says quietly. “I checked for tampering before I brought this to you.”
I shake my head, nausea rising in my throat. “No. No, there has to be a reason. Maybe she needed something. A resource. An agreement for—”
“Aria. You know what this looks like.”
I wrap my arms around myself, moving to the window to put more space between us. “You don’t understand. My mom was principled. Ethical. There has to be an explanation.”
I sense him behind me, holding his distance. In the glass, I see him rake a hand through his hair, that familiar gesture that means he’s struggling with what to say.
“Everyone keeps secrets,” he says finally. “Especially in families like ours. You, of all people, should know that.”
I spin around. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“That maybe you don’t know everything. About your parents. About the Blackwoods.” He hesitates, and I see him wrestle with whether to continue. “About Dom.”
“Don’t do this.”
“I’m not doing anything.” He raises both hands, eyes never leaving mine. “Only trying to help you see what’s right in front of you. Your mother, who supposedly hated the Blackwoods, met with them the day she died. The same day your family’s research was incinerated.”
“Alexander has access to these feeds,” I argue, but even I can hear how hollow the words sound. “If Kian was behind it, why wouldn’t he retaliate?”
Rowe takes another step closer, and I have to force myself not to retreat. “Maybe because it benefits him.” He shrugs. “Think about it. Your parents’ research, their breakthroughs—all of it now belongs to Darkmoor Industries. And you’re about to marry into the family that might have killed them.”
