Chapter Twelve:

Aurora's POV

"What did it say?"

Sebastian's voice is low, but there is nothing soft in it now. I close my hand around the phone. "Nothing." His eyes drop to my fist, then come back to my face. "That isn't true." "No," I say. "It isn't."

For one second, neither of us moves. The air between us changes so fast it almost feels physical. A minute ago, he was the one person in this room who seemed to see what Damien was doing without me naming it. Now all I can see is the message burning behind my eyes.

Don't trust Sebastian Reed. He is closer to your mother's death than you know. I should not look at him like this. He notices too much. He will read something from my face if I let him.

So I give him less. "I need to go back," I say.

He does not step aside. "Did the message mention me?" That lands too close to the truth. My silence answers before I do. Something sharp moves across his face. Not guilt. Not shocked. Irritation, maybe. The look of a man who is used to facts and hates being shut out of one.

"Aurora." The way he says my name should not matter after that message. It still does.

"Move," I say quietly.

He does; that almost makes it worse.

If he had pushed, if he had smiled, if he had tried to manage me the way Damien does, this would be easier. But Sebastian just takes one step to the side and lets me pass like my no actually means no to him. I walk back toward the main hall too quickly, then slow myself before I reach the light. My pulse is still wrong. My fingers are too tight around my clutch. I force both to soften before anyone sees them.

Damien is already looking for me.

Of course he is.

The second I step fully back into the room, his eyes find me. Then they shift past me, and Sebastian follows a few seconds later. That is all it takes. Something closes behind Damien's expression like a door locking. He meets me halfway. "What took so long?" His voice is calm. His hand on my waist is not. "We were talking."

"About what?"

"Things that aren't yours."

His fingers tighten for one brief second, then loosen again because he remembers where we are. Around us, people keep smiling, keep drinking, keep pretending none of this is happening right beside them.

Megan appears at Damien's shoulder like she was waiting for exactly this moment.

"There you are," she says brightly. "Your father wants everyone for the next toast."

I almost say no.

Not because of the toast. Because I need one second to think, and every person in this room keeps trying to occupy the exact space where my thoughts should be, but Damien is already guiding me back to the table. I let him, because pulling away now would make a scene, and I am not done choosing my scenes carefully.

Cross, senior, lifts his glass the moment we return. People are quiet around him. "Tonight," he says, "is about new partnerships, strong futures, and the kind of trust that builds real empires."

Trust.

The word almost makes me laugh.

I feel Sebastian's gaze from across the table before I look at him. When I do, he is not watching Cross, senior. He is watching me. Not openly enough for anyone else to call it out. Openly enough for me to feel it.

Then Vincent speaks.

"Trust," he says, almost lazily, "only matters when the people in the room deserve it."

The glass in my hand goes still.

There is something in the way he says it. Not casual. Not careless. A message dropped into the middle of a toast like a blade slipped under silk.

I look at him.

He is not looking at me.

That is what tells me the line was meant for me.

Cross's senior laughs to smooth over the oddness. Damien lifts his glass. Megan follows. I do too, because not doing it would be louder than I can afford.

But I do not drink.

Neither does Sebastian.

The toast breaks. The noise rises again. Conversations reopen. A waiter passes. Someone at the far end of the room starts laughing too loudly at nothing.

Then my phone buzzes. Once, I do not move immediately. Neither does Vincent. But his eyes flick to my clutch. That is enough; he knows. Maybe not everything. Maybe not enough. But enough to know the messenger is still active. Enough to know I am getting something in real time. I excuse myself before Damien can stop me. He catches my wrist lightly. "Where are you going now?" "To the restroom." His eyes search my face. "Should I be worried?"

I give him a small smile. "You tell me."

I pull free and walk.

Not to the restroom.

To the narrow hallway that leads toward the private offices near the back of the venue. I do not check whether anyone follows me. If they do, I want to know where they stop.

I unlock my phone.

One message.

Third door on the left. Two minutes. Come alone. That should be enough to send me back. Instead, I keep walking. Maybe that is reckless. Maybe it is the same flaw that got me killed once already, the part of me that cannot leave a thread alone once I know it is connected to something bigger than I understand.

The third door on the left is half-open.

I stop outside it and listen.

Nothing.

Then I push it wider.

It is a small office. Desk. Side cabinet. One wall lined with shelves. No person waiting in the shadows. No dramatic reveal. Just silence and a folder sitting in the middle of the desk, like someone placed it there and walked away two seconds before I arrived. My heart starts beating harder for reasons I do not let myself name.

I cross the room and open the folder.

Documents.

Old ones.

Property filings. Account transfers. A company name I do not recognize at first. Then one page lower, another. And there it is, a signature.

Elena Sinclair. My mother. My breath catches. I turn the next page too fast and almost drop it. A second signature sits beneath hers.

Adrian Reed.

Sebastian's father. For one suspended second, nothing in my body works properly. Not my hands. Not my lungs. Not my sense of where I am standing or how long I have been in this room. My mother and Sebastian's father knew each other, but not casually. Not distantly. Legally. Financially. On paper. The next sheet is older. A transfer document. A sealed account. Three names tied to it in print.

Elena Sinclair.

Adrian Reed.

Vincent Reed. My blood goes cold. So this is it. This is the thread. This is the thing buried deep enough that I had to die once before I got close to seeing it. The office door shuts behind me. I spin around so fast the folder slips in my hands.

Sebastian is standing there. Not angry. Not breathless. Not surprised to find me here. Just watching me with eyes that drop once to the papers in my hands and then come back to my face.

"I guessed you wouldn't ignore the message," he says quietly.

My grip tightens on the folder.

"And I guessed," I say, my voice lower than I expect, "that maybe I shouldn't trust you at all." For the first time since I met him, Sebastian Reed looks genuinely thrown.

Then his eyes shift to the top page in my hand.

To his father's name.

And whatever he was about to say dies before it reaches his mouth.

Aurora just found proof that her mother, Sebastian's father, and Vincent Reed were tied together long before anyone died, and Sebastian just walked in on the evidence neither of them was supposed to see.