Chapter 3 - THE BLOODLINE NO ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO KNOW
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The first bullet shattered the library window.
I shoved Elena and Chloe behind the stone fireplace.
My guards returned fire.
The storm outside exploded with muzzle flashes.
“Stay down!” I ordered.
Chloe was crying silently.
Elena wrapped both arms around her.
I moved toward the hallway.
Marcus intercepted me.
“Three shooters on the west side. Two on the roof.”
“Any identification?”
“No.”
“Then make it clear they're unwelcome.”
He nodded.
I heard another burst of gunfire.
Then silence.
Too sudden.
Too clean.
Marcus looked at me.
“They're gone.”
“They came for Chloe.”
“No,” Samuel said.
He was staring at a second flash drive.
“They came for you.”
He plugged it into the computer.
A video appeared.
My father.
Older.
Sitting in the same chair he used to beat discipline into me when I was a boy.
“Vincent.”
I froze.
“If you're watching this, Adrian has failed.”
My hands curled into fists.
My father continued.
“Your brother always believed he could escape the family business. He was wrong.”
Elena whispered:
“When was this recorded?”
Samuel answered.
“Seven months ago.”
My father continued speaking.
“The child belongs to the Thorne line.”
I looked at Chloe.
“But blood is not what makes an heir.”
A pause.
“Knowledge does.”
The screen changed.
A series of names appeared.
Judges.
Federal prosecutors.
Port inspectors.
Mayors.
Every institution that had ever tried to put my organization behind bars.
At the bottom was one final name.
My own.
VINCE THORNE — PRIMARY SUCCESSOR.
Then Adrian's.
ADRIAN THORNE — SECONDARY SUCCESSOR.
Then Chloe.
CLAIMANT.
I stared at the word.
Claimant.
Not heir.
Not daughter.
Claimant.
“What does that mean?”
Samuel looked away.
Elena finally answered.
“It means Adrian had proof you weren't supposed to inherit.”
I turned toward her.
“Proof of what?”
She hesitated.
“My father changed the order.”
The room fell silent.
“Your father believed Adrian was the smarter son,” she continued.
“He intended to give Adrian control.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if he knew you would destroy the empire.”
I stared at her.
“Why would he think that?”
“Because you loved your mother.”
I stopped.
Elena's eyes were wet.
“Your father hated that you cried at her funeral.”
“He said weakness was poison.”
“He lied.”
I stepped closer.
“What are you talking about?”
“He blamed you for her death.”
That sentence cut deeper than anything else.
“My mother died in a hit.”
Elena shook her head.
“She wasn't the target.”
My blood turned cold.
“She was protecting you.”
Samuel closed his eyes.
“Adrian discovered the truth four years ago.”
I whispered:
“What truth?”
Elena pulled a tiny silver key from her necklace.
“Your father ordered the hit.”
I stared at the key.
“He killed my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make you afraid of losing another person.”
I couldn't breathe.
My entire life had been constructed around one lie.
My father's lesson.
My mother's death.
My hatred of weakness.
My empire.
All of it had been shaped by the same man.
Then Elena placed the key in my palm.
“Adrian told me to give you this only if we were cornered.”
“What does it open?”
“The room beneath your father's old office.”
I knew the room.
Nobody had entered it in fourteen years.
My father had ordered me never to open the door.
Because he said it contained nothing.
May you like
But as I looked at Chloe, I realized something.
He had never locked a room containing nothing.
