His fiancée ordered the bleeding maid to continue scrubbing—until the billionaire followed the trail of blood on the marble floor and uncovered the truth hidden beneath his family’s vast fortune.

PART 4

“Thank you for finding the compartment,” Everett said. “Your family has been searching for it for twenty years, Wren. All it took was a wounded housekeeper to show you where to look.”

Wren’s face changed at the mention of twenty years.

Priya saw it. “You know what he means.”

“There is no time.”

“Make time.”

The lights flickered. A second countdown appeared across the security monitors. *14:58.*

“The cellar,” Weston said. “Bram, evacuate every guest beyond the north gate. Shut off the gas main if you can reach it.”

Bram left at a run.

Everett opened the black ledger on-screen. “This records what Odalys and I moved during the past four years. It is embarrassing, but survivable. The red ledger will destroy every Castellan who ever put his name on a building.”

“You stole our art,” Weston said.

Everett smiled. “Your grandfather stole something larger.”

The screen went dark.

Priya turned to Wren. “What did he steal from my grandmother?”

For a moment, the older woman looked every one of her sixty-eight years.

“The land beneath this house,” she said.

Silence settled over the marble hall.

Wren walked to the library and rested one hand on the cedar box.

“Delphine’s parents owned thirty-two acres along this cliff,” she continued. “They were part of a community of dockworkers, craftsmen, cooks, and fishermen. In the 1940s, developers wanted the coast for hotels. Families were pressured into selling. Some signatures were genuine. Others were not.”

“The Osei deed was forged,” Priya said.

“Yes.”

“By the Castellans?”

“By the law office that represented them. Everett’s father was a clerk there. Everett later learned the scheme and used it to gain influence over my husband.”

Weston stared at his mother. “Father knew?”

“Silas discovered the original deeds twenty years ago. He planned to return the properties and compensate the families.”

“But he died,” Priya said.

Silas Castellan Sr.’s boat had exploded off Block Island that same year. Newspapers called it an equipment failure.

Wren lowered her eyes. “And you hid the truth,” Weston said.

“The company was already near bankruptcy. Twenty hotels secured loans against land we did not legally own. Your father’s plan would have collapsed everything overnight — pensions, health insurance, thousands of jobs. I told myself I needed time to repair it carefully.”

“How much time?” Priya asked. “Twenty years?”

Wren flinched. “Where is the red ledger?”

“I don’t know.”

“Marcus said you would lie.”

“I know what it contains, not where Silas put it.”

Priya looked at the cedar box. Its brass lid bore the intertwined initials S.C. and D.O.

Silas Castellan and Delphine Osei.

She opened it. Inside lay a photograph of a younger Delphine standing beside Silas in the mansion garden. Between them was a stone bench, and on it rested a covered basket of bread. Beneath the photograph sat an old brass key and a cassette tape labeled *FOR WESTON — WHEN COURAGE COSTS MORE THAN SILENCE.*

Weston picked up the tape.

“There’s a player in the radio room,” Wren said.

“No,” Priya replied. “We stay here.”