Chapter 22: Midnight Confessions

 Wren

The blood on the balcony glass was still wet, running down the pane in long crimson streaks.

HE KNOWS WHO YOU REALLY ARE, THORNE.

Kaelen stood in front of me, his body tense and alert. The heat between us vanished, replaced by a cold fear that settled deep inside me.

He didn’t rush toward the window. He moved quietly, reaching into his jacket as his broad shoulders shielded me. Then he slid the heavy bolt into place.

“Stay behind me,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.

“Kaelen…” My voice was barely a whisper. I reached for his shirt, gripping the fabric near his waist. I could feel his heart pounding beneath my fingers.

“The warning isn’t for me,” I whispered. “It’s for you.”

He didn’t answer.

He pulled the heavy curtains shut, hiding the bloody message from view, then turned toward me. The silver in his eyes looked like cold steel, but beneath it, I saw something raw.

“Julian doesn’t have the brains for this,” he muttered. His thumb brushed a loose strand of hair from my cheek. “Someone else is behind this. They’re trying to frighten us into making a mistake.”

“Then we don’t give them one.”

I stepped away from him and took a slow breath.

My hands were still shaking, but the fear inside me was changing.

It was determination.

I had been waiting six months to finish this fight.

I walked to the small mahogany desk in the corner and picked up a silver key hidden inside the hollow base of an ivory chess piece. I unlocked the bottom drawer and reached past the dummy medical journals Kaelen had placed there.

Then I pulled out a thick, leather-bound ledger.

I placed it on the bed between us.

Kaelen stepped closer.

“What is this?”

“This is the night my life ended,” I said softly. My fingers traced the worn leather. “And the night I decided to burn this family to the ground.”

He sat beside me.

He didn’t rush me. He simply watched, his gray eyes following every change in my expression.

“Everyone thinks I snapped after the car accident in Mayfair,” I began. “The press said I was hysterical. Julian told the board I was having psychotic breaks and imagining threats.”

I opened the ledger.

“But the accident wasn’t what broke me, Kaelen.”

I swallowed.

“It was what I found three nights before it.”

Page after page contained my handwriting dates, account numbers, company registrations, and foreign transactions.

“I was working late at Ashford headquarters. I was searching for a missing acquisition file in the central vault when I found several old accounts registered under my father’s name.”

Kaelen leaned closer.

“Accounts that should have been closed five years ago.”

“Offshore holding firms in Panama and the Channel Islands,” he said, scanning the pages.

“Not just holding firms.”

I looked at him.

“They were being used to launder money. Millions were moving out of Ashford Enterprises into private accounts controlled by a criminal syndicate in Eastern Europe.”

I pointed to the first page.

“And every transfer required two signatures.”

My finger stopped over one name.

“Julian’s signature was on the secondary approval line.”

Kaelen’s jaw tightened.

“He wasn’t stealing only to cover gambling debts or buy mistresses,” I continued. “He was using my family’s company to move money for an organized crime syndicate.”

I took a slow breath.

“When I confronted him about a discrepancy in the accounts, I didn’t tell him I had the full records. He realized I was close to discovering everything.”

“That’s when the illness started,” Kaelen said.

“That’s when my tea started tasting like bitter almonds.”

His expression darkened.

“Two weeks later, I caught him putting liquid chloral hydrate and psychotropic drops into my morning water flask.”

Kaelen went still.

“I knew exactly what he was doing. If he killed me, my trustees would demand a forensic audit before releasing the estate funds. But if I was declared insane, unstable, or incapable of managing my affairs…”

“He gets power of attorney,” Kaelen finished. “And control of the trust.”

“Exactly.”

I looked directly into his eyes.

“So I gave him what he wanted.”

His expression changed.

“I stopped drinking the poisoned tea. I bought placebos through a smuggled contact and switched the bottles in his study.”

I closed my fingers around the edge of the ledger.

“Then I started playing the part. Every scream. Every breakdown. Every blank stare while Julian laughed with Lyra.”

I looked at him.

“It was all an act.”

Kaelen stared at me.

“I let him believe he was breaking me so he’d become careless. I wanted him to leave his computer unlocked, lose documents, and move faster. I wanted him to expose every person involved.”

Silence filled the room.

For several seconds, Kaelen didn’t speak.

Then something changed in his eyes.

A quiet awe.

“You terrifying, brilliant woman,” he murmured, taking my hand. “You didn’t need a savior, Emerence. You were building a cage for all of them.”

“I needed a key,” I whispered.

I leaned closer.

“And then Julian brought you into this house.”

Kaelen pulled me against him.

His arms tightened around my waist as I buried my face against his neck. He smelled of rain, cedar, and expensive cologne.

In this dark house, he was the only thing that felt real.

“I won’t let them take you to that island,” he growled. “I’ll burn Ashford Manor to the ground with Julian inside it before I let him touch you again.”

“He’s coming back in thirty minutes,” I whispered. “If he sees the blood on the balcony”

Thud.

A violent crash came from the corridor.

Then a muffled yell.

A body hit the floor.

We both froze.

Kaelen moved instantly, pushing me behind him as he grabbed a heavy brass letter opener from the desk.

Outside, the security guards weren’t coming toward us.

They were running away.

Then came the slow, measured sound of footsteps.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

High heels against marble.

A key slid into the deadbolt.

The lock turned.

The door opened.

A tall woman stood in the doorway, dressed in an immaculate dark navy suit. Her silver hair was pulled into a tight chignon, and her sharp green eyes moved across the room before settling on Kaelen.

Then me.

Duchess Beatrix Ashford.

She didn’t look surprised to see Kaelen standing beside my bed with a weapon in his hand.

She didn’t look angry either.

She simply raised an ivory-handled walking stick and pressed a small remote in her hand.

“Turn off the act, Emerence,” Beatrix said coldly.

“Julian is currently unconscious in the library, and your little psychiatric savior’s true identity has just been delivered to my phone.”

Her gaze shifted to Kaelen.

A cold smile touched her lips.

“Hello, young Mr. Thorne.”

Her voice was calm.

Deadly.

“I haven’t seen that face since the day I ruined your father.”