Chapter Sixteen:

Sebastian's POV

"She's asleep."

Lucas says it without turning around. His eyes stay on the road, but I can hear the question underneath the words. The one he won't ask out loud because he knows better.

I look at Aurora. Her head is tilted against the window, her breath fogging the glass in small, even clouds. The cut on her temple has stopped bleeding, but the bruise forming around it is already turning dark. She looks smaller like this. Less like the woman who stared down my uncle at the dinner table and more like someone who has been carrying something too heavy for too long.

"She's exhausted," I say. "Not asleep."

"There's a difference?"

"Yes."

Lucas doesn't push. He just takes the next exit and steers us toward the private residence I keep off the books. The one even Vincent doesn't know about.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

I pull it out. Unknown number. One message.

*Good. You got her out. Now keep her alive long enough to hear the truth. She's stronger than you think, but she doesn't trust you yet. Earn it.*

I stare at the screen until the words blur.

Three months of these messages. Three months of cryptic instructions and impossible information. Three months of feeling like a puppet whose strings are being pulled by someone I can't see.

I hate it.

But I can't deny the results.

Every tip has been accurate. Every warning has been real. Whoever this person is, they know things about my family that I spent years trying to uncover on my own. They know about the crash that killed my parents. They know about the accounts Vincent managed. They know about Aurora's mother.

And now they know Aurora is sitting in my car, breathing softly against the window, completely unaware that I've been watching her for weeks.

That part sits badly in my chest.

Not the watching. The secrecy.

I don't like lying. I've built my entire reputation on being the man who says exactly what he means and means exactly what he says. But with Aurora, everything has been a lie from the beginning. The "accidental" meeting at the coffee shop. The dinner. The way I maneuvered myself into her orbit without her knowing I was already circling.

She's going to hate me when she finds out.

I look at her again. Her fingers twitch against her clutch, like she's dreaming about reaching for something. Her lips move slightly, forming words I can't hear.

What does a woman who died once dream about?

"We're here," Lucas says.

The car stops in front of a narrow townhouse tucked between two larger buildings. No signage. No security cameras visible from the street. Just a plain black door and a single light burning in the upstairs window.

I get out first and walk around to Aurora's side. I open the door slowly, not wanting to startle her, but her eyes snap open the second the cold air hits her face.

"Where are we?" she asks. Her voice is rough. Guarded.

"Safe."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one that matters right now."

She looks at me for a long moment, then at the building behind me. I can see her calculating exits, risks, and the odds of this being another trap. I don't blame her. After what Damien just tried to do, I wouldn't trust anyone either.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I say.

"People who say that usually do."

"I'm not people."

Something flickers in her eyes. Not trust. Not yet. But something close to curiosity. She gets out of the car without taking my hand. I lead her inside. The townhouse is sparse, with clean lines, minimal furniture, and nothing personal on the walls. I keep it that way deliberately. This is a place for thinking, not living.

Aurora walks to the center of the room and stops. She doesn't sit. She just stands there, her arms crossed, her eyes moving over every corner like she's memorizing the layout in case she needs to run.

"Talk," she says.

"You should sit down. You're hurt."

"I'll sit when you start making sense."

I almost smile. Almost.

"Three months ago," I begin, "I started receiving messages from an unknown number. At first, I ignored them. Spam, I thought. Or a competitor trying to get inside my head. But they kept coming. And they kept being right."

"Right about what?"

"My parents." I move to the window and look out at the empty street. "The official story is that they died in a car accident. Mechanical failure. Tragic but clean. That's what I was told. That's what I believed for fifteen years."

I turn back to face her.

"The messages told me it wasn't an accident. They told me someone tampered with the brakes. They told me to look at the accounts my uncle managed right before the crash. They told me there was a connection between my father and a woman named Elena Sinclair that went deeper than business."

Aurora's face doesn't change, but I see her swallow hard.

"My mother," she says.

"Yes."

"And you believed them, these messages from a stranger."

"I verified what I could. The accounts were real. The transfers were real. The timing was real. Everything the messenger said checked out." I pause. "And then they told me about you." Her arms tighten across her chest. "What did they say?"

"That you were important. That you would come back. That I needed to be ready when you did." "Come back," she repeats slowly. "You keep using those words."

"Because those are the words they used."

"And what do you think they mean?"

I hold her gaze. "I think they mean exactly what they sound like. I think you died, Aurora. I think somehow, impossibly, you came back. And I think whoever is sending these messages knows why."

The silence that follows is so heavy I can feel it pressing against my ribs.

Aurora doesn't move. Doesn't blink. She just stares at me like she's trying to decide whether I'm her enemy or her only way out. "Why should I believe you?" she asks finally. "Why should I believe any of this isn't just another trap?"

"Because if I wanted to trap you, I would have let Damien finish what he started."

That lands. I see it hit her; see the way her shoulders drop just a fraction.

"You don't trust me," I say. "I understand that. But right now, I'm the only person in this city who knows what you are and isn't trying to kill you for it. So maybe we can figure out the trust part later and focus on keeping you alive first."

She's been quiet for a long time.

Then she walks to the couch and sits down. Not relaxed. Not comfortable. But there. "Start from the beginning," she says. "Everything the messenger told you. Every single word."

I sit across from her, and I start talking.

And for the first time since all of this began, I tell someone the truth.

Sebastian just admitted he's been watching Aurora for months because a stranger told him she would "come back."

But the real question isn't whether she can trust him.

It's about whether the messenger who brought them together is trying to save them or finish what Vincent started.