Silas didn't move. He didn't blink. For a heartbeat, Elena thought he had stopped breathing. The coffee cup in his other hand began to tremble, the ceramic clicking against the mahogany desk until he set it down with a forced, unnatural slowness.
"My father?" Silas's voice was a ghost of itself—hollow, stripped of its usual command. "He was the one who taught me about legacy. He was the one who said the Vance bloodline was sacred."
"According to these logs, Silas, he didn't see my children as a legacy," Elena said, her voice trembling as she scrolled through the encrypted files. "He saw them as a liability. Look at the timestamps. The payments to the 'retrieval team' were moved from his personal offshore account. He didn't want Beatrice to just handle it—he wanted to make sure there was no trace of me or the twins left."
Silas walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, his back to her. The city of London spread out below them, a kingdom he had inherited from a man he now realized was a monster.
"I spent a year mourning him," Silas whispered, his forehead pressing against the cold glass. "I sat by his bed while he was dying, and he told me he regretted not seeing the next generation. All the while, he had already signed the order to have that generation erased."
Elena stood up and walked over to him, but she didn't touch him. The air around him felt like a live wire. "Silas, the investigators found something else. The hunters weren't just told to find me. They were told to 'resolve the situation.' If I hadn't disappeared into the shadows of the East End, if I hadn't changed my name... Leo and Mia wouldn't be here."
Silas turned around, and the look in his eyes made Elena take a step back. The pain had been replaced by a cold, obsidian rage. It wasn't the explosive anger he had shown Arthur Sterling; this was deeper. This was the kind of rage that burned worlds.
"He didn't die of natural causes, Elena," Silas said suddenly, his eyes narrowing.
Elena froze. "What are you talking about? The doctors said it was a stroke."
"A stroke brought on by a man who realized his 'problem' hadn't been solved?" Silas walked back to the computer, staring at the dates. "The week he died... that was the same week the investigators told him they had lost your trail in the London docks. He didn't die of a broken heart. He died of fury because he couldn't control you."
He looked at Elena, his hands gripping the back of her chair so hard the leather groaned. "They are all part of it. My father, Beatrice, Arthur. They turned this family into a slaughterhouse. But they made one mistake."
"What's that?" Elena asked.
"They left the most dangerous Vance alive," Silas growled. "You."
He reached out, finally taking her hand, but his grip was different now—it was a pact. "The board meeting was just the beginning. I'm going to take every penny he intended for 'Vance purity' and put it into a trust for the two 'bastards' he tried to kill."
Before Elena could respond, her phone buzzed. It was a video call from the nanny. She swiped it open, and the screen filled with the bright, laughing faces of Leo and Mia. They were in the park, their faces smeared with chocolate ice cream.
"Mama! Look! I found a ladybug!" Leo shouted, holding a tiny red speck toward the camera.
Elena felt a lump in her throat. She looked from the innocent faces of her children to the cold, high-tech office of the man who was supposed to be their father. The contrast was a physical ache.
"That's wonderful, Leo," Elena managed to say, her voice thick. "Stay with Sarah. I'll be home soon."
As she hung up, she realized Silas was watching the screen, his expression softening for the first time. The rage was still there, but it was anchored now.
"They have his eyes," Silas said quietly. "But they have your soul. I won't let the Vance name poison them, Elena. I'll burn the name to the ground before I let it touch them."
"Then we don't just reconstruct the company, Silas," Elena said, shutting the laptop with a definitive click. "We bury the past. Starting with the clinic."
Silas nodded, his jaw set. "By tomorrow morning, I want them to realize that the 'Ghost' isn't just haunting the boardroom—she's coming for their lives."
The air in the office grew heavy, the scent of expensive cologne and ozone mingling as the city lights began to flicker on below. Silas wasn't just talking about a legal battle anymore; he was talking about an erasure.
"I'll handle the digital footprint," Elena said, her fingers dancing across the keys. "These men think they're protected by NDAs and offshore shells, but they forgot one thing: I built the encryption systems they're currently using to hide."
Silas walked behind her, his shadow looming over the screen. "How long?"
"To crack the clinic's internal server? Three hours. To ruin them? By sunrise," she replied. "But Silas, if we go down this path, there's no turning back. We aren't just whistleblowers. We're dismantling the legacy you've spent your whole life building."
Silas leaned down, his face inches from hers. "A legacy built on the blood of my children isn't a legacy, Elena. It's a crime scene. I don't want the Vance name to stand for 'power' anymore. I want it to stand for 'accountability.'"
He straightened up and pulled out his phone, dialing Marcus.
"Get the security team ready. We're moving tonight. No, not the boardroom. The St. Jude's Private Wing. I want every file, every hard drive, and every security tape from five years ago. Tell them they're dealing with the Chairman now."
He hung up and looked at Elena. "Pack your things. You're not going back to that apartment tonight."
Elena paused, her heart skipping. "Silas, I have to get to the twins. I can't leave them with just Sarah."
"They're already being moved," Silas interrupted, his voice softened but firm. "I sent a tactical escort to the park ten minutes ago. They're being taken to the Vance Estate in Surrey. It's a fortress, Elena. They'll be safer there than anywhere in this city."
Elena felt a surge of panic, then a wave of relief so strong it made her dizzy. For five years, she had been the only shield between her children and the world. Letting someone else hold the shield felt like a physical weight being lifted—and a terrifying loss of control.
"The Estate?" she whispered. "The place where your father..."
"The place where his secrets are buried," Silas finished. "Somewhere in that house is a ledger with the names of the people who hunted you. We're going to find it."
Elena stood up, her legs feeling like lead. She looked around the glass office—the symbols of the power that had almost destroyed her.
"Then let's go," she said, her voice steadying. "Let's go to the lion's den and see what else the King was hiding."
As they walked out of the boardroom, the cleaning staff scurried out of their way, sensing the kinetic energy radiating from the pair. Silas didn't take the executive elevator; he led her toward the private helipad on the roof.
The wind whipped Elena's hair as they stepped into the night air. The helicopter was already idling, its blades a rhythmic thrum that matched the pounding in her chest. Silas held her hand as they boarded, his grip firm and unwavering.
As the chopper rose, tilting over the London skyline, Elena looked down at the Vance International building. It looked like a pillar of light in a dark world.
"Five years ago, I ran away from this city with nothing but a backpack and a secret," she shouted over the roar of the engines.
Silas buckled her in, his eyes fixed on hers. "And tonight, you're coming back to claim the crown they tried to kill you for."
The "Ghost" was no longer running. She was flying. And beneath them, the world of the Vances was starting to burn.
The flight to Surrey was a blur of dark treetops and the steady, reassuring presence of Silas beside her. Elena looked at their intertwined hands. The man who had been her greatest heartbreak was now her only ally in a house filled with ghosts.
As the Estate came into view, illuminated by floodlights like a medieval castle, Elena felt a shiver. This was where it ended. This was where the Ghost became the Queen.