The door clicked shut, leaving Silas and Ingrid in the quiet
aftermath of the storm. Silas turned, his gaze a piercing, unspoken question.
"It seems you and Arthur have been keeping quite a few
secrets from me," he stated, his voice low and layered with meaning.
Ingrid let out a weary sigh, the weight of decades pressing
down on her. "They were never our secrets to tell, Silas. They belonged to
your parents."
She saw the ghost of that history every time she looked at
the Old Lady—a tragedy born from a soul frozen in its own bitterness. The
matriarch had been forged in the fires of the family's most brutal wars, a time
when trust was a fatal flaw and control was the only law. To Ingrid, she was a
ruthless strategist who chose power over people. To Arthur, she was a
profoundly empty woman, whose love was not a gift but a chain, a desperate
attempt to fill a void that could never be filled.
This toxic hunger for control had led to the unthinkable: an
alliance with the Cohen family. In her panic that Alistair would escape her
with Eleanor and a young Silas, she saw the Cohens not as enemies, but as the
perfect, deniable tool. She commissioned them for a "lesson"—a
non-lethal accident to shatter their resolve and bring them back, broken, to
her fold.
But she had asked a butcher to perform surgery. The Cohens'
idea of sabotage was a wholesale severing of the brake lines, not a calibrated
malfunction. The car didn't just crash; it was obliterated, killing Alistair
and Eleanor instantly. Her intended act of control became the ultimate,
irreversible loss.
And in the suffocating silence that followed, her mind did
not break with guilt; it built a fortress of denial. She was the victim,
betrayed by treacherous allies and a disobedient son. To admit her fault was to
stare into the abyss of having murdered her own child, so she buried the truth
and became the martyred matriarch, haunted by a ghost she would never
acknowledge.
A look of pure scorn twisted Ingrid's features as she
finished the grim recollection.
After a heavy silence, Silas's voice cut through the air,
cold and certain. "The old lady and Julian share a blood relation."
Ingrid startled. "But the kinship test was conclusive.
It showed no relation."
"I had the results altered," Silas revealed
calmly, his dark eyes sharp with intelligence. "Did you see her reaction?
She was more shaken by the thought of no blood tie to Julian than by the proof
he wasn't my son. What does that tell you?"
Meeting his penetrating gaze, Ingrid's face darkened with
dawning horror. "Then who in God's name is Julian? And how is that
wretched Elora Cohen connected to the old lady?"
The possibilities were chilling—either the Cohen family had
a hidden history with the Thornes, or Julian's biological father was someone
from that tangled web.
"Elora's grandfather arrived as an illegal immigrant
decades ago," Silas mused, his mind already working through the puzzle.
"I need to uncover what connection he had to the old lady's
generation."
"I've already dispatched investigators," Silas
stated, his voice like ice. "And we have someone close to her. We'll wait
for her to make a mistake and reveal it herself."
Ingrid understood immediately. He was setting a trap, using
the old lady's own paranoia and possessiveness against her. The most chilling
question hung in the air: When had the old lady discovered the blood tie? And
who had told her?
The deeper they dug, the more monstrous the secrets became.
Downstairs, Julian pushed open the door to Vivian's room.
She was propped up in bed, her face pale and twisted with pain and self-pity.
The moment she saw him, she reached out a trembling hand.
"Julian, it hurts so much," she whimpered, tears
welling in her eyes. "Don't leave me. Please, stay."
The Julian who looked down at her now was a different man,
hollowed out and stripped of all pretence. There was no softness in his eyes.
"The nurses can care for you. Or call your
parents," he said, his tone flat and final. "Once you're discharged,
we'll return to Ashbourne and finalise the divorce."
The word sent a jolt through her. "Divorce?!" she
shrieked, her voice raw. "You're divorcing me now, after I just lost our
child? Are you even human? Did that old witch force you? I'll—"
"It was my decision," he interrupted, his voice
low and hoarse. "Steven Cohen, that madman, is my uncle. My own blood
killed our child. That is the legacy I carry."
He looked at her, his gaze empty. "Consider it my
fault. I will compensate you. I'll cover all your medical expenses. The divorce
settlement will be generous. Then we are done."
"I won't do it!" she snarled, hatred contorting
her features. "I will never give you a divorce! If I'm going to hell, I'm
taking you with me!"
A bitter, icy calm settled over him. "I have been cast
out of the Thorne family, Vivian. I am penniless. I don't even know who I am.
Is that really what you want to cling to?"
The fire in her eyes sputtered and died, replaced by a cold,
stark realisation. Even the matriarch's protection was gone.
"I've said all I need to say. This divorce is for your
own good. Don't be a fool."
He turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing in the
sterile room. She watched him go, her nails digging into her palms until they
drew blood, the physical pain a feeble distraction from the gaping emptiness in
her womb and her future.
At noon, Silas was sharing a quiet lunch with Elara in her
hospital room when his phone buzzed. It was Carpo John.
"Boss," Carpo's voice was grim. "The coastal
search has yielded nothing. No unusual salvage ops, and we've combed every
vessel in the area. At this point, he's either shark food or was picked up by a
passing ship days ago."
Elara paused, her fork halfway to her mouth, watching as
Silas's relaxed demeanour hardened into the face of a predator. Noticing her
curious stare, he gently ruffled her hair before standing and moving to the
private lounge.
So secretive, Elara thought with an inward roll of her eyes.
"If there's no trace in the next forty-eight hours,
stand down the search party," Silas ordered, gazing out the window.
"And starting immediately, I want full surveillance on
Julian. Every contact, every word. I want the logs from the tracking chip.
Report everything directly to me."
"Understood," Carpo John replied, a flicker of
satisfaction in his voice. The chip they'd implanted would now prove its worth.
"You believe Steven would reach out to him if he's
alive?"
"If he survived," Silas said, a cynical twist to
his lips, "he's more resilient than a cockroach. And just as hard to
exterminate."
After a beat, he changed the subject. "What about
Charles Hudson?"
"The electrical fault that took out his villa's
security system a week before the banquet was… convenient," Carpo
reported. "I inspected the third floor myself. No blood in the hall. That
mercenary you shot in both knees didn't crawl away on his own. Someone
extracted him."
"Julian, with two broken arms, wasn't the rescuer. The
question is, was he involved?"
Silas was silent, the image of Charles's startled,
calculating face flashing in his mind—the man emerging from a side room,
discreetly closing the door.
There was something in that room. And Silas was now certain
Charles Hudson was hiding a great deal more than a damaged security system.