The compound was still in chaos when we made it back to the main hall, guards tending to the wounded, Matthias directing the cleanup with a grim efficiency that told me this wasn't the first time he'd had to manage the aftermath of violence in this house. "Six intruders," he reported as we approached, wiping blood, thankfully not his own, from a shallow cut along his forearm. "Three dead, two captured, one escaped through the eastern wall before we could corner him." "The one who escaped spoke to me," I said. "Threw this at my feet before he ran." I held out the crumpled letter, and Matthias took it, his eyes scanning the hurried handwriting, his face going progressively paler with every line. "This is my uncle's hand," Ethan said quietly. "I'd know it anywhere. But the signature—" "D," Matthias murmured. "Darius." "They've been working together from the start," Ethan said. "The empty vault, the necklace, all of it, orchestrated to expose Selene and me both. My uncle isn't simpl
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