Chapter Twenty:

Aurora's POV

"Describe it."

Sebastian's voice is sharp now. No softness. No patience.

I hold the phone away from my ear. Nadia is still talking, but I can't hear her properly because my pulse is too loud.

"Aurora," Sebastian says again. "The box. Describe it." "Blue." My voice sounds strange. Faraway. "Small. Metal corners. A lock on the front that never had a key." His face changes. That is the confirmation I did not want.

"Same one," he says quietly.

"How do you know?"

"I told you. There was a photo taken the night my parents died. My father is holding it in the background. No one ever talked about it afterward. No one claimed it."

"It wasn't in the wreck?" "No. It disappeared." The word lands like a stone, disappeared. My mother's box is not just mine. It is connected to whatever Adrian Reed was carrying the night he died.

Nadia's voice cuts through again. "Aurora? Are you there? Who are you talking to?" I lift the phone back. "Nadia, I need you to leave the apartment." "I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on."

"I can't explain right now." "Then explain later. But I'm not leaving you alone with whatever this is." That is the problem with Nadia. She is loyal to a fault. She does not know when to let go.

Right now, that loyalty could get her killed. "Please," I say. "Go to your place. Lock the door. Don't tell anyone you were there tonight. "A beat of silence.

"Aurora, you're scaring me." Good. She should be scared. "I'll call you tomorrow," I say. "I promise. But you need to leave now. Another pause. Then, quietly, "Okay. But if you don't call me by noon, I'm going to the police."

I almost laugh. The police. As if they could do anything against the kind of people behind this.

"Noon," I say instead. "I'll call."

The line goes dead.

I stand there holding the phone, staring at the screen without seeing it.

Sebastian moves first. He walks to the window and looks out at the street like he is expecting someone to already be watching.

"We need to go back," he says.

"To the apartment?"

"To the venue."

I turn to look at him. "Why?" "Because whoever broke into your apartment did it while we were at dinner. That means they knew where you were and how long you would be gone. They had access to your schedule."

My stomach drops.

He is right.

"Damien," I say. "Or someone working with him. " Sebastian turns from the window. "He knew you were coming tonight. He knew you would be there for hours. He had every reason to want whatever was in that box before you figured out it mattered."

That makes sense; I hate that it makes sense. "He wouldn't know what he was looking for," I say. "He doesn't know about any of this. The messages. The documents. Your parents."

"Are you sure?" The question stops me. Am I sure? Three days ago, I would have said yes. I knew Damien. I knew how he thought, what he wanted, and how far he was willing to go.

But three days ago, I did not know Vincent Reed was involved in my death. I did not know my mother had ties to Sebastian's father. I did not know a mysterious messenger was pulling strings on both of us.

What else have I missed?

"No," I say finally. "I'm not sure."

Sebastian nods once, like he expected that answer. "Then we need to find out who he's working with."

"How?"

"By getting to him before he gets to us."

I think about Damien sitting in that wrecked car. The blood on his forehead. The way he slumped against the wheel when the crash stopped. "He's probably at a hospital by now," I say. "Or calling lawyers."

"Good." Sebastian's voice goes flat. "Hospitals have visiting hours. And lawyers take time. " I stare at him. "You want to confront him while he's injured?" "I want to get answers while he's too shaken to lie properly."

There is something cold in the way he says it. Something that reminds me is that this man runs a billion-dollar company and did not get there by asking politely, "And if he doesn't talk?" I ask.

Sebastian's eyes meet mine. "Then we find out what scares him more than us." For one second, I see something dangerous in his face. Not anger. Calculation. The look of a man who knows exactly how much pressure to apply before something breaks.

I should be afraid of that.

Instead, I feel something closer to relief.

Because for the first time since I woke up in this second life, I am not the only one willing to fight dirty. "Fine," I say. "But I'm coming with you." "I assumed you would." He walks toward the door. I follow. Then my phone buzzes again. Not Nadia this time, but an unknown number, so I stop walking.

Sebastian notices. He turns back.

I open the message.

One line.

The box isn't what you think. But what's inside it will destroy one of you.

I read it twice, and then I showed it to Sebastian. His face does not change. But something behind his eyes goes very still. "One of us," he repeats.

"That's what it says. " We look at each other. The silence stretches long enough to feel permanent. Then Sebastian says, "We need to find that box before anyone else opens it."

I nod.

But the message sits in my chest like a splinter I cannot reach.

One of us.

Which one?

And what could be inside that box that is worth destroying someone over? The car is waiting outside. Lucas stands by the door, his face carefully blank.

I climb in first. Sebastian follows.

The door shuts behind us.

The city slides past the windows in streaks of light and shadow, and somewhere out there, someone is holding the last piece of my mother's life. I just don't know yet whether finding it will save me or finish what my first death started.

The messenger just warned them that whatever is inside the blue box will destroy one of them.

Aurora and Sebastian are about to race Damien, Vincent, and whoever else is watching to find it first, but the real question is no longer what the box contains. It is the question, which one of them will not survive, and the answer.