The sun hadn't yet broken the sky when Elena left her room.
She moved through the hallways like smoke—quiet, unseen, driven by a tremor in her blood she could no longer ignore. Something had shifted inside her since the letter. Since the name Volkov reattached itself to her identity like a hidden scar finally surfaced.
She needed answers.
And Lucian was done giving them.
He thought he could control the narrative. Shield her by feeding half-truths and calculated confessions. But the truth didn't belong to him.
It belonged to her.
And it was time she started claiming it.
-
She found the library locked.
Figures.
Lucian had sealed off every room that might hold answers and scattered his trust like glass—only to the men who swore loyalty, and the woman who stitched his world together in silence.
But Rosa was nowhere in sight.
Instead, Sofia appeared near the end of the hall, emerging from a side corridor with a laundry basket pressed to her hip and a look in her eyes that said You shouldn't be out here.
Elena stepped into her path.
"You left the note."
Sofia froze.
"Elena—"
"I need to know what you know. Now. Before he finds out I'm not in my room."
Sofia glanced around, her fingers tightening on the basket.
"There's a passage," she whispered. "Behind the wine cellar. Old servant's access. He doesn't use it. But someone else did—two nights ago. That's how the note got into your room."
Elena's breath caught. "And Budapest?"
Sofia's face darkened. "There's more to it than he said. A woman died. Someone close to the man he was hunting. Some say she wasn't even part of it."
"Do you know her name?"
Sofia hesitated.
Then: "Anya Volkov."
The name landed like thunder.
"Volkov?"
Sofia nodded. "Lucian knew her. Before you."
Elena felt the world pitch sideways beneath her.
Her mother. Her past. And now a woman Lucian had history with who shared her bloodline?
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Elena asked.
Sofia's voice dropped to a hush. "Because I don't know who's listening anymore. And if what I heard is true… you were never meant to stay alive long enough to ask."
The hallway behind the cellar was colder than the rest of the estate.
Stone walls. Narrow passage. Dust-lined floors that hadn't felt the weight of footsteps in years—until recently.
Elena walked it slowly, using the flashlight on her phone to guide the way. Her hands shook, but she pressed on.
At the end of the corridor, a door.
Wooden. Reinforced. Slightly ajar.
She pushed it open.
Inside was a small room—bare but for a desk, a single hanging bulb, and papers scattered like someone had been interrupted mid-search.
She stepped forward and froze.
Pinned to the wall was a black-and-white photograph.
Young. Blurred. But unmistakable.
Her mother.
But not as Elena remembered her. This version wore leather gloves, her hair pulled tight, standing beside a man in military fatigues.
And beside him—
Lucian.
Her throat closed.
There was no denying it.
The man she was being forced to marry had known her mother.
Possibly before she was born.
"Elena."
She spun.
Lucian stood in the doorway, face blank, but his eyes—his eyes were wildfire.
"I told you to stay in your room."
"You lied to me."
He stepped inside. Closed the door behind him. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Looking for the truth. You should try it sometime."
"You went through my private files."
"No," she hissed. "I went through my mother's past. Which you've been keeping in the dark like something rotting."
Lucian didn't respond right away.
Instead, he looked at the photo. His jaw tensed.
"You knew her."
"Yes."
"Before she met my father?"
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"A few years."
"Were you in love with her?"
The silence told her everything.
Her chest constricted.
"So what am I?" she whispered. "A replacement? A second chance at whatever you lost?"
"No," Lucian said. "You're a warning."
Her blood ran cold.
"She left," he continued. "Disappeared into a quiet life. Married, had children. But her past never died. It just waited."
"And now I'm paying for her mistakes."
"She didn't make a mistake," he said tightly. "She made a choice. And now I'm paying for it."
Elena blinked.
"What?"
Lucian exhaled. "The night she died, I got a call. She was trying to reach me. She knew someone had found her."
"And you didn't go."
"I was too late."
His voice cracked just slightly. A fracture.
The first she'd heard.
"She was scared," he said. "Not for herself—for you."
Elena backed away. "You should've told me."
"I didn't know how."
She laughed bitterly. "That's the first time I've believed anything you've said."
They stood in silence, surrounded by shadows of a past neither of them had fully buried.
When Lucian finally moved toward her, his steps were slow.
Measured.
"I didn't bring you here to chain you, Elena. I brought you here because the second they realized who you were, I knew you wouldn't survive a day out there without me."
"So I'm supposed to thank you for the cage?"
"No," he said softly. "Just survive it."
For the first time, his words didn't land as control.
They landed as fear.
Real. Human. Vulnerable.
He wasn't protecting a contract.
He was protecting her.
Maybe always had been.
Later that night, after the truth had cracked open and the air between them had shifted, Elena sat alone in the garden. The ring on her finger felt heavier now. No longer just a symbol of control.
It was history.
A curse.
A chain forged long before her birth.
Lucian found her there.
He didn't speak. Just sat beside her, like they were old ghosts sharing a grave.
"I need to know everything," she said.
"I'll tell you."
"Even the parts that make you the villain?"
Lucian's voice was steady. "Especially those."
She looked at him then. And for the first time, the man beside her wasn't a stranger.
He was a storm she'd known her whole life. She just hadn't realized it until now.