Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 51 - Chapitre 57

POV: ElenaI didn't take them home. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind.I drove past the apartment without slowing down, keeping my eyes on the road while Elena sat silently beside me and Aiden occupied the backseat with the folder resting on his lap.Nobody spoke for the first ten minutes.My hands were tight around the steering wheel, and every time I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw Aiden staring down at those papers like he regretted ever touching them.Good. He should have. "You want to tell me why you're in my car?" I finally asked. Elena turned toward me. "Jace." "No. I'm serious." Aiden lifted his eyes. "I told you why." "You told me Camille gave you a folder." "I told you I was investigating the foundation." "You told us just enough to get us into a parking lot with two men following us."Aiden's jaw tightened. "I didn't know they would come after us." "You didn't know?" My laugh was sharp. "That's your defense?""Pull over." Elena's voice cut through the car. I glan

Elena's POVThe apartment was dark when we stepped inside.Jace reached for the light switch, but nothing happened. He tried again before pulling out his phone and turning on the flashlight.The beam swept across the living room. Everything looked exactly as we had left it, yet something about the silence made my stomach tighten.“Aiden, stay here,” Jace said.Aiden ignored him. “If someone broke in, standing in the doorway isn't going to help.”Jace gave him a warning look, but neither of them argued further. We moved deeper into the apartment, checking each room. The kitchen was untouched. The living room was neat. Nothing appeared to have been stolen.Then we reached Noah’s room. The door was open.Jace pushed it wider and stopped. The room had been stripped. Noah’s clothes were gone from the closet. His shoes had disappeared from beside the bed, and even the small things scattered across his desk had been cleared away. Whoever had taken them had done it carefully enough to leave a

Elena's POVThe sound of the front door opening downstairs made my mother go completely still.For a moment, nobody moved.Jace was standing beside me, his attention fixed on Margot. Aiden had the letter in his hands, his eyes moving over the faded handwriting as though he could somehow find an answer between the lines.But my mother's reaction told me everything. She knew who had just come home.“Who is it?” Jace asked. Margot swallowed.“Richard.”The name seemed to change the temperature in the room.I looked toward the hallway. From downstairs came the familiar sounds of someone returning home: the closing of the heavy front door, footsteps crossing the marble foyer, and the quiet exchange between Richard and one of the house staff.My stepfather was home.This was the man whose name had appeared repeatedly in Daniel's records. The man my mother had spent years protecting me from. The man who apparently knew about me before I was even born.I tightened my grip around the letter.“