LOGINAurora’s POV“Then use it.” The words leave my mouth before anyone else can breathe. Every head in the room turns toward me, not the board screens, not Vincent. Sebastian. Good.Let him hear it from me. He is still standing near the center of the study, shoulders locked, eyes sharp, carrying the weight of his father’s name like it just turned into a weapon he never asked to inherit.“Use what?” Vincent asks, though he already knows. I do not look at him. I keep my eyes on Sebastian. “The founder clause,” I say. “If Adrian wrote it for this, then use it.”Sebastian’s face doesn’t change.That means he’s thinking too fast to show anything.Arthur answers before he can. “Emergency bloodline authority only opens archived material. It does not remove Vincent from operational power.” The silver-haired woman on the board screen cuts in. “It does if those archives prove misuse of Foundation assets and unauthorized child detention under board cover.”That lands not with surprise, with timing.
Aurora’s POV“Answer the question.” My voice cuts through the room before the silence settles properly. No one pretends not to know which question I mean.Why, Damien?Why not Sebastian?Why all those years of steering me toward the safer man when the more dangerous one had my whole life sitting quietly inside his family name.Vincent looks at me first. Then at Sebastian, and then back at the page now hidden inside my bag, like he still believes paper is the most dangerous thing in the room. He is wrong, not tonight. “Because Damien was easy,” Catherine says. That surprises all of us, even Vincent. Good. Let her keep doing that. I turn toward her. “Easy how?”“Easy to flatter. Easy to fund. Easy to make feel important.” Her eyes flick once to Vincent. “He wanted power, but he wanted it the lazy way. Men like that are simple to use.”Megan laughs once. Cold. “You mean he was stupid.” “No,” Catherine says. “Stupid men break too early. Damien was patient. That made him useful.” I feel Se
Nadia’s POV“Read it.”Catherine says it like she’s tired of everyone protecting each other from words.Lucas still doesn’t move. He stands there with the sealed plastic sleeve in one hand and those two men behind him like borrowed muscle, his face caught somewhere between useful and trapped.“Lucas,” Catherine says again, sharper this time. “Show them.” He hesitates. That tells me everything I need to know. Whatever Victoria wrote, it matters more than the rest. I hold out my hand. He looks at me, then at Vincent, then back at me, and finally gives me the sleeve.The plastic crackles in my fingers. My hands are steady enough to open it, which feels wrong because nothing inside me is steady right now.Aurora steps closer without touching me.Sebastian does the same on my other side. I can feel both of them there. Good. I need that more than I want to admit. I unfold the page.Typed first. Clinical. Cold. The kind of language people use when they want to hurt you without ever saying th
Aurora’s POV“Behind me.”Sebastian says it without looking at me. I don’t move.The vault door groans wider. Red light from the corridor spills across the floor in a thin line. For one second, all I can see is shadow. A shape. Then another. Then one person steps into the opening fully, and the whole room changes.Lucas, of course. His shirt is bloodstained at one shoulder. His face is pale. But he’s standing, breathing hard, and very much alive. Behind him are two house security men I recognize from earlier.Vincent’s smile disappears. Good.Lucas looks past us, straight at Vincent, and says, “Sorry, sir. We had to improvise.” Sir. Not Sebastian.Vincent. I grip my bag tighter. So the traitor came back. That should surprise me less than it does.Sebastian steps forward. “You picked a side.”Lucas finally looks at him. His expression is almost apologetic. “Too late,” he says. That answer should not sting Sebastian. I see it land anyway. Small. Sharp. The kind of hurt pride refuses to
Aurora’s POV“Give me the tape.”Vincent says it like that is still how rooms work for him. Like he asks, and people hand things over. I tighten my grip around the cassette instead. “No.”Sebastian has him pinned half against the cabinet, one hand twisted in his coat, the other braced hard enough to keep him from lunging again. Nadia is on the floor by the open leather case, flipping through the files with fast, shaking hands.The red emergency lights make everyone look wrong. Vincent's face looks worse. Good. “You have no idea what that tape is,” he says. “I have a better idea than you want me to.” He tries to pull free.Sebastian pushes him back harder. “Stay still.”Vincent glares at him. “You really think she should hear it?”That lands too neatly. He wants me to hesitate. He wants me to start wondering if whatever is on this tape will hurt me more than it hurts him, so it must matter.I look around the vault quickly. Shelves. Boxes. Metal cabinets. A small recorder on the far tab
Aurora’s POV“Move!”Sebastian’s voice hits the room at the exact second the floor jerks under us.The boardroom screens flicker. The lights cut out. For one blind second, all I hear is glass rattling, someone swearing, and the deep mechanical grind of something old waking up inside the walls.Then red emergency lights come on. Everything in the study turns the wrong color.Vincent is already moving. Of course he is.He steps back from the table, remote still in his hand, and a section of wall behind him shifts with a hard click. Not a full door. A narrow panel. Just wide enough for one person to slip through if they knew it was there.Catherine goes pale. “No,” she says. That gets my attention faster than the hidden opening.Sebastian hears it too. “What is it?”Catherine looks at the panel like it just became a grave. “The lower vault.”Vincent smiles once. “Too late.” Then he disappears through the opening.Sebastian goes after him instantly. I grab his arm. “Wait.” He turns on me,







