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 5

The stone bench now stood in the conservatory. Priya crossed the library and entered the glass room, where rain shone above the old seat. She knelt and felt beneath the stone seat.

Her fingers found a keyhole. The brass key turned once. A panel opened in the base, revealing a red leather ledger, a sealed deed, and several reels of microfilm.

The cellar timer showed eleven minutes.

Wren rushed forward. “Do not take that outside.”

Weston stepped between her and Priya. “You do not get to give orders anymore.”

Priya opened the deed. Though the paper was yellow with age, the name remained clear. *DELPHINE ELEANOR OSEI.* Below it was the legal description of the coastal estate.

The red ledger documented far more than one house. It listed forged transfers, underpaid sales, bribes to city clerks, and payments to silence families across Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Beside several entries from the past two decades appeared Wren’s signature.

Priya looked at her. “You kept using the same shell companies.”

“To buy the properties back.”

“In the Castellan name.”

“Until they could be transferred without bankrupting the employees.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“No,” Wren said. “I expect you to see that fear can begin as an excuse and become a life.”

Weston inserted the cassette into an old player on the library shelf. Silas Sr.’s voice emerged through a veil of static.

“Weston, if you are hearing this, I failed. Part of the Castellan fortune was built by taking land from people whose names my father believed history would forget.”

Silas Sr. named Everett as the man who threatened Delphine after she found the deed. Delphine suffered a fatal stroke after Everett withheld her medication during the confrontation.

Then Silas Sr.’s voice softened. “Wren believes exposure will destroy innocent employees. She is not wrong about the danger, but she is wrong to think delay becomes justice simply because it is called protection. If I die before these records are released, Everett Vane is responsible. Trust evidence, not the family name.”

The tape clicked off.

Weston’s face had gone pale.

Wren reached for him. He stepped back. “You knew Everett killed Dad.”

“I suspected.”

“And you let me marry his daughter.”

“I believed Odalys was separate from him. By the time I learned otherwise, Everett had Marcus.”

Priya’s voice dropped. “Tell me everything.”