The sunlight that filtered through the curtains of the Master Suite the next morning felt different. It didn't feel like a warm invitation; it felt like a spotlight on a crime scene.
Elena woke up slowly, her body heavy with a cocktail of exhaustion and a lingering, phantom heat. She didn't have to turn over to know the other side of the bed was empty. Damon Croft was a man of habit, and his habit involved conquering the world before 7:00 AM.
She sat up, clutching the charcoal-colored silk sheet to her chest. Her skin still felt sensitized, a reminder of the "challenge" she had issued the night before. Damon hadn't broken her—not yet—but he had certainly rewritten the boundaries of their existence. She was no longer a guest in this room. She was an inhabitant of his sanctuary.
Her eyes drifted to the mahogany desk across the room. It stood there, silent and imposing. The hidden drawer was closed, the folder tucked away, but the images were burned into her retina. The report. The stock manipulation. And the photograph of the two boys.
Who was the other boy?
Elena forced herself out of bed. If she was going to play this game, she needed to look the part. She walked into the walk-in closet—a space the size of a small apartment—and saw her clothes now mingled with his. Her soft floral dresses were sandwiched between his sharp, monochromatic suits. It was a visual representation of her life: being slowly crushed by his influence.
She chose a power suit of her own—a sharp, emerald-green blazer and matching trousers. It was her armor.
As she descended the grand staircase, the mansion felt eerily quiet. Maria was polishing the silver in the dining room, but Elena bypassed her, heading straight for the West Wing library. If there were more clues about Damon's origins, they wouldn't be in the bedroom. They would be in the history he tried to hide.
The library was a two-story labyrinth of leather-bound books and cold marble. Damon rarely used it; he preferred his digital screens. But Elena knew that old money—and old secrets—often left a paper trail.
She spent hours scouring the archives of Vance International. She looked for anything related to the year 1998, the date on the back of the photo. She searched for names associated with her father's early business dealings.
And then, she found it. A footnote in an old acquisition report.
"Project Castor: Liquidation of Miller Foundry. Lead Architect: Arthur Vance."
Her heart skipped a beat. Miller. The name felt familiar. She pulled up the digital archives on a library computer, her fingers flying over the keys.
Miller Foundry. A small, family-owned business that had been aggressively bought out and dismantled by her father twenty-five years ago. The owner, Thomas Miller, had committed suicide shortly after the bankruptcy. He left behind a wife and two sons.
Two sons.
Elena leaned back, the chill of the room finally seeping into her bones. The boy in the photo. The one laughing with his arm around a young, stern Damon. That was Damon's brother. Damon wasn't a "Croft" by birth. He had changed his name. He was a Miller.
Damon hadn't just married her to own a beautiful object. He had married her as the final act of a decades-long revenge plot against her father, the man who had destroyed his family.
"You have a habit of looking for things that don't want to be found, Elena."
The voice made her blood turn to ice. She didn't even hear him enter.
Damon was standing at the top of the library's spiral staircase, looking down at her like a god looking at a mortal who had stolen fire. He was wearing a casual black sweater, his hair slightly tousled, but his eyes were as sharp as shards of glass.
"Project Castor," Elena said, her voice steadier than she felt. She turned the monitor so he could see the screen. "My father didn't just 'beat' your family in business, did he? He erased them."
Damon descended the stairs slowly, his footsteps heavy and rhythmic. Thump. Thump. Thump. "He was efficient. I'll give him that. He took a thriving foundry and turned it into a parking lot in six months. My father couldn't handle the shame. My mother couldn't handle the poverty."
He stopped a few feet from her, the shadows of the library bookshelves dancing across his face. "And my brother? My brother couldn't handle the anger."
"Where is he, Damon?" Elena asked, her breath hitching. "The boy in the photo. Your brother. Where is he now?"
Damon's expression didn't change, but his jaw tightened. "He's a ghost, Elena. Just like the rest of that family. I'm the only one who climbed out of the grave your father dug for us."
He stepped closer, invading her space, his scent of sandalwood now thick and suffocating. "Does it change anything? Knowing the 'why' behind the 'what'?"
"It makes you a hypocrite," she spat. "You hate my father for destroying your family, so you decide to destroy me? How are you any different from him?"
Damon grabbed her waist, pulling her toward him with a sudden, violent grace. He pinned her against the edge of the heavy oak table. "I'm very different, Elena. Your father destroyed for profit. I destroy for justice. And I haven't destroyed you."
He leaned down, his lips brushing against her ear, his voice a dark, seductive rasp. "I've made you a queen. I've given you my name, my wealth, and my protection. All I ask in return is your loyalty. Your total surrender."
"Loyalty can't be bought with a bailout check, Damon," Elena whispered, her hand coming up to rest on his chest, feeling the steady, powerful thrum of his heart.
"Maybe not," he murmured, his hand sliding up to the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair. "But it can be bred in the dark. It can be forged in the heat of what we have. You can hate me for what I did to your father, but you can't deny that you belong here. With me."
He kissed her then—not with the hunger of the night before, but with a slow, possessive intensity that felt like a brand. It was a kiss that told her he knew she knew his secret, and he didn't care. It only made the game more interesting.
When he pulled away, he looked at the computer screen and then back at her. "Keep digging if you want, Elena. But be careful. Sometimes when you dig too deep into a ghost's life, the ghost starts digging back."
He turned and walked away, leaving her alone in the cold library.
Elena looked at the screen, at the name Miller Foundry. She felt a strange shiver. Damon had said his brother was a ghost. But as she looked at the recent logs of the mansion's security system—something she had learned to bypass during her years of boredom—she saw something strange.
A car had been idling at the edge of the estate for three nights in a row. A black sedan that didn't belong to the Croft security detail.
The ghost wasn't in the past. The ghost was at the gates.
The paranoia was a cold weight in Elena's chest, heavier than the silk sheets she had shared with Damon just hours prior. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it: that black sedan, parked like a predator at the edge of the Croft estate, its headlights off, its presence a silent scream.
Damon had gone into the city for a high-stakes merger, leaving Elena in the vast, echoing silence of the mansion. He thought she was safely tucked away, perhaps painting her frustrations onto a canvas. He didn't know that his "Ice Queen" had spent the morning studying the estate's security perimeter on her laptop.
"You're playing a dangerous game, Elena," she whispered to her reflection in the hallway mirror.
She didn't take the main car. Instead, she slipped out through the servant's entrance, wearing a dark trench coat and a baseball cap pulled low. She took one of the older SUVs kept for the gardening staff—something inconspicuous.
She drove toward the South Gate, the one used primarily for deliveries. As she approached the bend in the road where she had seen the car in the security logs, her heart hammered against her ribs.
The black sedan was there.
It was tucked under the sprawling branches of an ancient oak tree, nearly invisible against the gray afternoon sky. Elena didn't stop. She drove past it, her eyes darting to the rearview mirror.
The sedan's engine roared to life.
Panic surged through her. It's following me. She accelerated, the tires of the SUV spitting gravel as she rounded a sharp curve. The sedan stayed with her, a relentless shadow. Elena realized she couldn't outrun a professional driver in a gardening vehicle. She needed to know who it was.
She slammed on the brakes in the middle of a deserted stretch of road.
The sedan skidded to a halt inches from her bumper. For a long moment, neither driver moved. The air between the two vehicles was thick with tension. Elena reached into her glove box and grabbed a heavy heavy wrench—the only weapon she could find.
She stepped out of the car, her legs trembling but her gaze fierce. "Show yourself!" she shouted. "I know who you are! I know about Miller Foundry!"
The driver's side door of the sedan opened.
A man stepped out. He was taller than Damon, his frame leaner but equally powerful. While Damon was all sharp edges and expensive suits, this man looked like he had been forged in a darker fire. He wore a worn leather jacket, and his face... his face was a haunted mirror of her husband's.
It was the boy from the photo. Older, scarred, but unmistakably a Miller.
"You have your father's eyes," the man said. His voice was raspier than Damon's, like smoke and gravel. "But you have Damon's scent all over you. He's already marked you, hasn't he?"
"Who are you?" Elena demanded, holding the wrench like a shield.
"My name is Julian," he said, stepping into the light. A long, jagged scar ran from his temple to his jawline. "And I'm the part of the story Damon forgot to kill."
Elena felt the world tilt. "Damon said his brother was a ghost."
"To Damon, everyone is a ghost once they stop being useful," Julian spat. He took a step closer, but stopped when Elena raised the wrench. He held up his hands in a mocking gesture of peace. "Relax, Elena. I'm not here to hurt the prize. I'm here to warn you."
"Warn me about what? My husband?"
"Husband?" Julian laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. "Is that what you call a man who bought your family's ruin? Damon doesn't want a wife. He wants a trophy to display at the feet of the man who broke our father. He's using you to punish Arthur Vance. And once your father is dead or destroyed, do you think Damon will keep you around?"
Elena felt a cold shiver. It was exactly what she had feared. But seeing it reflected in Julian's eyes made it more real—and more terrifying.
"Why tell me this?" Elena asked. "If you hate him, why not just go to him? Why stalk me?"
Julian's eyes darkened. "Because Damon is too smart to be caught by a direct attack. He's built a fortress around himself—and you're the only crack in the wall. I want you to give me something. Something inside his private safe. A list of accounts he used to siphon the Vance funds."
"I won't betray him," Elena said, the words surprising even her. Despite the lies, despite the manipulation, a part of her was still tethered to the man who made her feel alive in the dark.
"Loyalty is a sweet addiction, isn't it?" Julian smirked, using the very words Damon had used. "But wait until the withdrawal hits. When Damon moves on to his next acquisition, you'll wish you had an ally."