The archive was hidden beneath an empty cathedral after the wedding guests had gone, protected by a lock that required two blood samples and a spoken family name. Claire Bennett expected the door to reject her. It opened before Gabriel Bennett finished the warning.
Inside were recordings, legal files, and a wall of photographs tracking her life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every betrayal with patient precision. At the center of the wall, a red thread connected Claire Bennett to Gabriel Bennett, then continued toward a sealed photograph neither of them had seen.
He reached it first. The image showed their parents standing together years before either family claimed to have met. On the back, one sentence changed the meaning of every promise between them: the missing groom fled because he learned Claire—not either brother—was the true heir to Bennett Holdings.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Gabriel Bennett reached for his weapon, but Claire Bennett stopped him. Running had brought her here. This time she would make the person hunting them speak.
The archive door opened. The intruder removed a hood, and Claire Bennett's breath caught. The face belonged to someone whose funeral she had attended.
“You finally found the truth,” the stranger said. “Now choose which one of you gets to survive it.”