Vincent's POV
"Move!" My father's voice cuts through my shock. "Those gunmen will be here in seconds. Questions later. Survival now."
He's right. I can hear the assassins crashing through the forest, getting closer. But every instinct screams not to trust him. He abandoned me. Let me think he was dead for five years.
Elena makes the decision for both of us. "Lead the way," she tells her mother, her voice shaking but determined.
We run.
Catherine Hart—Elena's supposedly dead mother—moves through the forest like she knows every tree, every path. My father stays behind us, watching our backs. Despite everything, I notice he moves like a soldier, checking sight lines, listening for pursuit.
"There," Catherine points to an old stone cottage barely visible through the trees. "Get inside. Quickly."
We burst through the door. My father slams it shut and locks three separate deadbolts. The cottage is small but fortified—metal shutters on windows, reinforced walls, supplies stacked in corners. This isn't a temporary hideout. Someone prepared this place for exactly this kind of emergency.
Elena collapses into a chair, breathing hard. Blood still drips from the cut on her forehead. Her mother rushes to her with a first aid kit.
"Don't touch me," Elena snaps, pulling away. "You don't get to play mother now. Not after twenty years."
Catherine's face crumples with pain, but she backs off. "You're right. I don't have that right anymore. But please, let me at least clean your wounds."
Elena stares at her for a long moment, then nods stiffly. As Catherine works, I turn to my father.
"Start talking," I demand. "Why did you fake your death? Why abandon me?"
"To protect you," my father says simply. He looks older than I remember, gray in his hair, lines around his eyes. "Vincent, your uncle Reginald didn't just want the Rothwell fortune. He wanted access to something much bigger. Something your mother and I had been protecting for years."
"The Moreau inheritance," I say, pieces clicking together. "That's what this is about. Elena's family wealth."
"Not just wealth." Catherine speaks up from where she's bandaging Elena's head. "The Moreau family controlled something far more dangerous than money. They held secrets. Information about every major power player in Europe for three centuries. Blackmail material on kings, presidents, business titans. Proof of crimes, affairs, corruption—everything."
Elena goes pale. "That's impossible."
"It's not," her mother continues. "The Moreau family were information brokers. They collected secrets and used them to control governments, start wars, end wars. They were the real power behind the throne for generations. And all of that information—documents, recordings, evidence—is stored in a vault beneath the Paris property."
My mind reels. "You're saying Elena's inheritance isn't just money. It's leverage over the most powerful people in the world."
"Exactly," my father confirms. "And those people will do anything—murder, terrorism, start wars—to prevent Elena from accessing that vault. That's why Catherine and I had to disappear. We learned about the vault, and suddenly everyone wanted us dead."
"Including your uncle," Catherine tells me. "Reginald discovered the secret. He killed Vincent's mother trying to force her to reveal the vault's location. But she never told him. She died protecting it."
The pain in my father's eyes is real. Raw. "I wanted revenge, but Catherine convinced me that disappearing was smarter. If Reginald thought we were dead, he'd stop looking for the vault's location. We could protect our children by staying away."
"Protect us?" Elena's voice rises with anger. "I thought my mother abandoned me! I spent twenty years thinking she died because I wasn't worth staying alive for!"
"Elena—" Catherine reaches for her daughter, but Elena jerks away.
"No! You don't get to touch me. You don't get to act like you care." Tears stream down Elena's face. "Do you know what it was like? Growing up with Margaret and Vivian? Being treated like garbage because I had no one to protect me? If you were alive, why didn't you stop them from selling me to Adrian like property?"
Catherine's face breaks. "I tried! I had people watching you, protecting you from a distance—"
"From a distance?" Elena laughs bitterly. "I needed you WITH me! I needed my mother! Instead, I got drugged, forced into marriage, had my inheritance stolen, my dreams crushed—where were your protectors then?"
"We didn't know about the drugging until recently," Catherine says, crying now. "Margaret was very careful. By the time we learned what she'd done, you were already married. And we couldn't reveal ourselves without putting you in more danger."
"So you just watched? Watched me suffer for three years?" Elena's voice cracks. "Some protection that was."
I understand Elena's anger, but there's something I need to know. "Why come back now? Why risk everything to reveal yourselves tonight?"
My father's expression turns grim. "Because three days from now, on Elena's twenty-eighth birthday, the vault automatically unlocks. It's been on a timer for twenty-eight years, since Catherine locked it to protect Elena. In three days, Elena gets access whether she wants it or not. And our enemies know it."
"The plane crash," I realize. "They're trying to kill her before she can reach the vault."
"They've been planning this for months," Catherine confirms. "They know they can't stop the timer. So they have to stop Elena. That's why we had to come back. To protect her through the next three days. To make sure she survives long enough to claim her inheritance."
"And then what?" Elena demands. "I claim this vault of secrets and suddenly every dangerous person in Europe wants me dead forever? That's my inheritance? A target on my back?"
"Or you use it," my father says quietly. "The information in that vault is power, Elena. The kind of power that makes you untouchable. People can't attack you if you hold their darkest secrets. That's how the Moreau family survived for centuries. They were too dangerous to kill."
"Until they weren't," Elena counters. "You just said people murdered for this vault. How is that being untouchable?"
Catherine exchanges a look with my father. There's something they're not saying.
"What?" I demand. "What aren't you telling us?"
My father takes a breath. "The vault is protected by a fail-safe. If Elena dies before accessing it, or if anyone other than a Moreau heir tries to enter, everything inside gets automatically released to the press. Every secret. Every piece of blackmail. Every bit of evidence goes public."
The implications sink in slowly. "You're saying if they kill Elena—"
"The world burns," Catherine finishes. "Presidents fall. Corporations collapse. Criminals get exposed. Wars start. It's mutually assured destruction. That's the only thing keeping Elena alive right now—the fear of what happens if she dies."
Elena's face is white. "So I'm either a weapon or a victim. Those are my choices?"
"No," I say firmly, grabbing her hand. "There's a third choice. You access the vault, take control of the information, and decide what to do with it yourself. You don't have to be your family's puppet or your enemies' target. You can be the one in control."
Elena looks at me with exhausted eyes. "And how do I do that when assassins are hunting us through the woods right now?"
As if summoned by her words, gunfire erupts outside. Windows shatter. Bullets tear through the reinforced walls.
"Get down!" My father tackles Elena and Catherine to the floor. I dive behind a heavy table as more gunfire rips through the cottage.
"They found us," Catherine gasps. "How? We were so careful—"
"Thermal imaging," I realize, looking at the walls. "They're using heat sensors to track us. The cottage doesn't block infrared."
More bullets. More destruction. We're sitting ducks.
My father pulls out a gun I didn't know he had. "There's a tunnel in the back room. It leads to a car parked half a mile away. You four take it. I'll hold them off."
"No!" I shout. "I'm not losing you again!"
"You won't," my father says, but his eyes say otherwise. "This is what fathers do, son. They protect their children. Even when it costs everything."
"There has to be another way—"
An explosion rocks the cottage. The front wall collapses, smoke pouring in. Through the gap, I see at least a dozen armed men surrounding us.
"NOW!" My father shoves me toward the back room. "Catherine, get them out! That's an order!"
Catherine grabs Elena, pulling her toward a trapdoor I hadn't noticed. "Come on! We have to go!"
Elena fights her. "We can't leave them! Vincent, your father—"
"Will die if you don't move," my father says harshly. He fires toward the approaching men, buying us seconds. "The tunnel. Now. Or we all die here."
I make a choice I hate. I grab Elena and practically carry her to the trapdoor. Catherine is already descending the ladder into darkness. I push Elena down after her and follow, my father's gunfire covering our escape.
Just before I drop into the tunnel, I look back. My father stands in the ruins of the cottage, facing impossible odds. He sees me watching and smiles—actually smiles.
"I'm proud of you, son," he says. "Now go. Live. And take care of that girl. She's special."
Then he charges the attackers, gun blazing, giving us time to escape.
The trapdoor slams shut above me. Catherine pulls me down the ladder as explosions rock the cottage. My father is up there. Dying. For me.
"Move!" Catherine urges. "The tunnel is rigged to collapse. We have thirty seconds before it comes down."
We run through the narrow tunnel, Elena sobbing, Catherine grim-faced, me trying not to think about what my father just sacrificed.
We burst out of an exit hidden in a hillside a quarter mile away. A car waits, keys in the ignition, just like my father promised.
Behind us, the cottage explodes into a fireball that lights up the night sky.
"No!" I scream, but Catherine is already pushing us into the car.
"He knew the price," she says, tears streaming down her face. "Your father and I planned this contingency. If they found us, one of us would buy time for the others to escape. We drew straws. He won."
Won. Like dying for us is winning.
Catherine drives like a demon, racing down country roads away from the burning cottage, away from my father's death, away from everything.
Elena clutches my hand in the back seat, both of us broken.
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "Vincent, I'm so sorry."
I can't speak. Can't process. My father came back after five years just to die for me.
Catherine's phone rings. She answers on speaker. "Yes?"
"Catherine." A man's voice, cold and familiar. "This is Reginald Rothwell. I'm afraid I have some bad news about your escape plan."
My uncle. The man who murdered my mother. Who just killed my father.
"What do you want?" Catherine asks through gritted teeth.
"The car you're driving? It has a tracker. And a bomb. I'm watching your location right now. You have sixty seconds before I detonate it. Unless you stop the car, put Elena on the phone, and let me make a very reasonable offer."
Catherine slams the brakes. We screech to a stop in the middle of an empty road.
"You're bluffing," she says, but her voice shakes.
"Am I?" Reginald laughs. "Fifty seconds, Catherine. Your daughter's life or a conversation. Choose quickly."
Elena grabs the phone from Catherine. "I'm here. I'm Elena. What do you want?"
Silence. Then: "Smart girl. Here's my offer. You come with me willingly to Paris. You open the vault. You give me access to the information inside. In exchange, I let your mother and Vincent live. You get to save them. All you have to do is surrender yourself."
"Elena, no—" I start, but she holds up a hand.
"And if I refuse?" Elena asks.
"Then I detonate the bomb, kill all three of you, and wait for the vault to open automatically. Yes, the secrets will leak. Yes, it will cause chaos. But I'm old, dying of cancer. I have nothing to lose. I'll burn the world down out of spite if I have to." Reginald's voice turns gentle, almost kind. "But you're young. You have everything to lose. So be smart. Save the people you love. Come with me. I give you my word—they'll live."
"The word of a murderer means nothing," Catherine spits.
"Perhaps," Reginald agrees. "But it's the only option you have. Thirty seconds, Elena. Save them or watch them die. Your choice."
Elena looks at me, then at her mother. Tears stream down her face.
"Don't," I beg. "Elena, don't do this. We'll find another way—"
"There is no other way," Elena says softly. She takes my face in her hands. "Vincent, you told me that you help me because someone once helped you. Let me return the favor. Let me save you."
"Elena—"
She kisses me. Quick and desperate and tasting of tears. Then she speaks into the phone.
"I'll come with you. But you have to promise—you have to swear—that Vincent and my mother stay safe."
"You have my word," Reginald says. "Stop the car's engine. Remove the keys. Walk two hundred yards north. My men will pick you up. Vincent and Catherine will be allowed to drive away. I'll disable the bomb remotely once you're in my custody."
"No!" I grab Elena's arm. "I won't let you—"
"It's not your choice," Elena says, and there's steel in her voice. Steel I've never heard before. "This is my inheritance. My family's curse. I won't let you die for it."
She opens the car door.
"Elena, please—" My voice breaks.
She looks back at me one last time. "Find a way to stop him, Vincent. Find a way to save me. But first, survive. Promise me you'll survive."
"I promise," I whisper, because what else can I say?
Elena walks away from the car, into the darkness, toward the armed men waiting to take her prisoner.
Catherine sobs beside me. I want to chase after Elena. Want to fight. Want to die rather than let her sacrifice herself.
But Elena trusted me with one job: survive long enough to save her.
So I sit in the car and watch the woman I'm falling in love with disappear into the night with a murderer.
And I swear on my father's grave that I will find a way to get her back.
Even if I have to burn down all of Europe to do it.