**Chapter Thirteen**

**Adrian's POV**

The drive back from the gala was quiet. City lights blurred past the windows, but I barely registered any of them. Sam sat beside me, her hands folded in her lap, fingers twisting together in a way she probably didn't realize she was doing.

She was still tense. I could feel it in the rhythm of her breathing, in the way she kept her eyes fixed on the glass.

When the car stopped at the mansion, I stepped out first and opened her door myself. She got out slowly, her black dress still holding its shape despite the length of the night behind her. She really looked breathtaking. Dangerous, in a quiet way without even doing anything. Mine, whether she'd fully accepted that yet or not.

A message came through my phone as she started up the steps toward the entrance.

*Grave excavation complete. Three bodies recovered. One is a close match*

I stared at the screen longer than I needed to, then I slipped it back into my coat. Sam had already reached the top of the steps.

"I won't be here tonight." I called out to her. My voice came out calm, but firm enough that she wouldn't mistake it for a suggestion.

She stopped and turned slightly, looking back at me over her shoulder. Her eyes were tired, worn down from the gala, but there was still that same spark of defiance sitting underneath the exhaustion. She held my gaze for a second, then nodded once and continued inside without another word.

I turned to Theo waiting near the car.

"Tighten everything tonight. No one gets in or out without my approval. Watch her closely. If she tries anything, I want to know immediately."

—————

The rain had started up again by the time we pulled away from the gates, I leaned back into the seat and lit a cigar, watching the smoke curl up toward the roof of the car in slow, unhurried ribbons.

My sister has been gone for years now. The Salvatores had made sure of that, one way or another, and I'd spent most of those years assuming the worst without ever letting myself say it out loud. But if there was even a chance she was still alive, if they'd hidden her somewhere instead of simply erasing her the way they erased everyone inconveniently.

I intended to find her, however long it took.

The warehouse was dark and quiet when we arrived, the kind of quiet that only exists in places built to keep secrets. A handful of my men waited outside under the eaves, sheltering from the rain. They nodded as I passed and pulled the heavy oak door open without a word.

Inside, the air smelled like damp concrete layered under something sharper —preservation fluid, and underneath all of it, the particular sweetness of decay that never quite scrubs out of a room once it's settled in.

Doctor Morre was waiting near the back table, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves with the unhurried precision of a man who'd done this more times than he cared to count.

Three black body bags lay across the table, zipped and waiting.

"Show me."

He unzipped the first bag slowly, the sound of it dragging through the silence of the warehouse louder than it had any right to be. The body inside was badly decayed, skin gone the color of old paper, and even from a distance I could see it was male. Wrong build. Wrong height. I shook my head once, and he zipped it back up without comment.

The second bag came next. Also male.

"Negative." he confirmed.

I moved to the third table.

I stood there for a moment before he unzipped it, and something in me tightened in a way I wasn't used to feeling, in a way I didn't have a name for and didn't particularly want to examine too closely.

He pulled the zipper down slowly, the sound crawling up my spine one inch at a time, and the bag fell open.

I made myself look. It was a female.

The hair was long and dark, matted with years of dirt, tangled in a way that made it impossible to tell what color it had actually been in life. He lifted a strand of the hair between two gloved fingers, studied it under the hanging light, then set it back down without a word.

The nails were broken, packed with old soil, some of them missing entirely. The face was close to unrecognizable, sunken in ways that made it hard to trust anything I thought I was seeing.

I reached out and lifted one of the hands myself. The dirt packed under the nails was old, compacted, years old by the look of it. I studied the wrist, the shape of the bones beneath what was left of the skin.

"Wrist was broken once," He said quietly, tracing a line along the bone with one finger. "Healed before death. Old fracture."

My sister had broken her wrist when she was twelve, falling off the back stairs of our old house, chasing after a dog that never came back either. I hadn't thought about that afternoon in years, and now it sat lodged directly behind my ribs like something physical.

"How old?" I asked, and I heard the change in my own voice before I could stop it.

He didn't answer right away. He turned the wrist gently under the light, angling it, taking his time in a way that felt, in that moment, like the cruelest thing anyone had ever done to me. He measured something with a small caliper, checked it twice, and made a note.

The seconds stretched out longer than seconds should be able to stretch.

"Ten, maybe twelve years," he said finally. "Consistent with a childhood injury."

My hand tightened around the wrist without my permission. Twelve years old fracture. That would put it close, close enough. I studied the jawline again, the shape of the skull, searching for something — anything — I could hold onto as proof.

"The jaw's wrong," I added.

"My sister had her dentition corrected with braces when she was fourteen. This woman's bite is straight. Natural, not corrected."

He looked up at me, and for once there was something almost apologetic in it.

The room seemed to exhale around me, though nothing in it had actually moved. I kept my hand on the wrist a moment longer than I needed to, and then I let it go, laying it back down with more care than the situation probably called for.

"Discard the bodies," I said. "Continue the search. Wider this time. I want every cemetery, every unmarked grave within two hundred miles checked, and I want it done faster than this."

"Understood."

I lit a cigar again, the flame flaring bright against the dark for a second before settling.

I left the warehouse without saying a word to anyone. The car took me to one of the penthouse I owned on the north side, it was always kept ready whether I used it or not. I walked in, poured myself a drink, and stood at the window watching the rain.

A woman arrived twenty minutes later.

She was beautiful in the practiced way certain women learn to be for men, long legs that seemed to go on forever, dark hair cascading down her back, full lips painted a deep red that promised everything without saying a word.

She smiled when she saw me, slow and inviting, already starting to unbutton her coat before she'd even crossed the room. I watched her without moving at first. She came closer, her hips swaying with every step, the silk of her dress clinging to the curves of her body in a way that left very little to the imagination. She stopped in front of me, her hands slid up my chest, fingers tracing the lines of my muscles through my shirt.

For a second, I let her. I let myself consider whether any part of this might actually quiet the noise still sitting behind my ribs from that warehouse. Her hands moved lower, sliding down my stomach, fingers hooking into my belt.

My hand came up to her waist, gripping her hip, pulling her closer for a moment. Her breath hitched. Her lips parted against my neck, a soft sound escaping her as she pressed harder against me. For one brief, dangerous second, I almost let it happen.

Then I put a hand on her shoulder and stepped back.

“Not tonight,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended.

She looked surprised, lips parted, chest rising and falling quickly. Her eyes searched mine for a moment, but she didn’t argue.

She gathered her coat and left without another word, and I heard the door click shut behind her.

Then I thought about Samantha.

The way she’d looked standing in the rain that first night, soaked through and still refusing to fully break. The way she’d fought me the moment I touched her, her body pressed against mine, her breath coming fast and angry. The way her eyes had flashed with defiance even when she was terrified.

The way she’d looked at Diego across that ballroom — not the way a stranger looks at someone she’s never met, no matter how carefully she’d tried to arrange her face to sell that lie.

She was hiding something. Something bigger than just her name.