Chapter 6
“Your sister’s.”
The words hit worse than the cold.
Marcus turned and walked inside, as though trusting she would follow.
Evelyn hated him for being right.
The entrance hall smelled of firewood and old stone. Servants appeared silently, taking wet coats, offering blankets. Evelyn refused everything until Lily began to shiver. Then she accepted one with stiff hands.
Marcus watched.
He did not approach the children.
Not yet.
That restraint unsettled her more than force would have.
Nico dismissed the guards with a glance. Only he remained near the door.
Marcus led them into a library where a fire burned low in the hearth. Evelyn remembered the old study, the green leather blotter, Chloe’s blond hair across it.
Her stomach turned.
Marcus saw.
His face darkened. “Sit.”
“No.”
“Evelyn.”
“Say one command to me again and I walk out with them.”
His eyes flashed.
Then, incredibly, he nodded once.
“Please sit.”
The word sounded unfamiliar from him.
Evelyn sat on the sofa because her knees were shaking, not because he had asked. Leo immediately climbed beside her. Lily stayed in her lap, small fingers gripping her sweater.
Marcus remained standing across from them, hands at his sides.
“I did not touch Chloe,” he said.
Evelyn laughed without humor. “I saw you.”
“You saw a staged scene.”
“You were on top of her.”
“She was drugged. So was I.”
The room went quiet.
Even the fire seemed to lower its voice.
Evelyn stared at him.
Marcus’s expression did not change, but something old and savage moved beneath it.
“That night, someone poured enough sedative into my whiskey to drop a horse. I remember Chloe coming into the study crying. She said you had sent her. She said you were in danger. After that, pieces. Heat. Noise. Her falling. Me trying to hold her up. My shirt open because I couldn’t breathe.”
Evelyn could still see it.
His hands on Chloe’s waist.
Her hair on the desk.
That breathless sound.
Marcus continued, each word controlled. “Whoever arranged it wanted you to leave the room before you looked closer.”
The envelope in her hand.
The bent ultrasound corner.
The way neither of them had heard the door.
Evelyn shook her head slowly. “No. Chloe wouldn’t do that.”
“She did more than that.”
“Stop.”
“She sold information to the Moretti family. Shipping routes. Names. Safe houses. Codes.”
“No.”
“She helped them stage your death.”
Evelyn stood so abruptly Lily whimpered.
“Stop!”
Marcus’s gaze flicked to the child, and his voice lowered. “I am telling you because they found you today. That means Chloe is alive, and she has decided the children matter.”
May you like
Evelyn’s blood went cold.
“Why would she care about them?”
