Chapter 3
West House was not a building.
Not anymore.
It had been one.
A second Sterling estate forty years earlier.
My father used it for family members he did not trust at the main house.
Not prisoners.
Not guests.
People in between.
Relatives under watch.
Captains being evaluated.
Young heirs who had embarrassed the family.
I had never heard the name.
Claudia had.
Why?
Because my father took her there when she was sixteen.
My sister sat on the edge of the hidden room and told me.
She had run away for two days with a boy our father hated.
When she returned, he sent her to West House for three weeks.
No phone.
No family dinners.
No visitors.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
She laughed bitterly.
“You were nineteen and being prepared to lead.”
There it was.
Different childhoods under the same roof.
Mine visible.
Hers managed.
I sat opposite her.
“Did Dad hurt you?”
“No.”
Immediate.
Then:
“He made me believe being sent away meant I could lose Sterling.”
Not physically.
Identity.
Belonging.
Same weapon Duncan later used against Oscar.
History repeating through a different hand.
Claudia learned early that silence kept you inside.
So when Duncan discovered the hidden room years later, she said nothing.
“What did he want?”
“The red box.”
“Why?”
“Because he believed Dad wrote down who should lead if you failed.”
I almost laughed.
Succession.
Always.
Duncan came from Shaw.
A respected allied family.
Not Sterling.
But marrying Claudia put him near the center.
Apparently not near enough.
He spent years collecting old rumors that my father never fully trusted me.
The red box, according to rumor, contained an alternate succession plan.
Another name.
Another branch.
Maybe Claudia’s.
Maybe Duncan’s through her.
That was enough to turn curiosity into obsession.
I asked:
“Did you help him search?”
She looked ashamed.
“At first.”
Honest.
“Did you know Oscar saw?”
“No.”
I believed her.
Then:
“Did you know Duncan pushed him?”
Her face broke.
“No.”
That one I believed too.
Different guilt.
Different consequence.
Then Rafe opened the box marked SUCCESSION.
Inside was one old photograph.
My father.
Claudia.
Me.
And a fourth child I did not recognize.
A boy around eight.
On the back:
NATHAN STERLING — WEST HOUSE.
I looked at Claudia.
May you like
She started crying.
“We have another brother.”
