The silence that settled after they uncovered the ledger was not peace.
It was pressure. Atmospheric. Suffocating.
A tension that filled the room like smoke after a detonation—thick, acrid, waiting for lungs to collapse.
Sloane sat slouched in the high-backed leather chair in his study, spine bowed like the weight of generations had finally caught up to him. The fire behind him cast restless shadows against the walls, its flickering light reflecting off the gold-tipped pages of the ledger on the desk. The book lay open like a mouth full of broken teeth—each entry another bite into the past, another secret rotting beneath the Delaney-Knight name.
It was no longer just ink and paper.
It was a chronicle of sins—an autopsy report for an empire built on silence, sacrifice, and someone else's blood.
Sloane's hand gripped the edge of the desk, knuckles white. Like he needed the grounding, or else he'd fall straight through the center of everything.
Through the lies.
