Chapter 13
Darkness lasted six seconds.
Long enough.
When emergency lights came on, the founder’s ring was gone.
Eleanor gasped.
Michael swore.
Dominic looked physically sick.
I did not move.
The door to the gallery stood open.
Someone had been inside the circle.
Someone we trusted enough not to notice.
Samuel Crest was missing.
The oldest capo.
The first man to place his family pin on the table.
The man Eleanor claimed she had warned about the challenge.
I almost laughed at the elegance of it.
Public loyalty.
Private preservation.
Michael looked toward the hallway.
“He took the ring.”
“No.”
Dominic pointed at the empty place on the table.
“The seal too.”
I checked my own signet.
Still there.
Interesting.
Samuel did not need my authority.
He needed the founder’s pieces.
Eleanor stared at the doorway.
“You idiot.”
I looked at her.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You knew he believed in the reserve.”
“Yes.”
That was different.
“How much?”
She answered reluctantly.
“More than I do.”
That changed everything.
Eleanor had used the old system as leverage.
Samuel worshipped it.
A true believer is always more dangerous than a hypocrite.
Michael started toward the door.
I stopped him.
“Where would he go?”
Dominic answered.
“Founder’s chapel.”
Of course.
Old families love rooms that make power feel sacred.
We moved fast.
At the chapel entrance, Caleb Voss stood with two reserve guards.
There it was.
Faction two.
No Vivian-style promises.
No ambition.
Doctrine.
Caleb looked at me almost sadly.
“You’re making a mistake.”
I stepped forward.
“Move.”
“The reserve exists because leaders become emotional.”
I looked at the gold cord tied around his wrist.
Same cord from Lily’s door.
“You threatened a child to prove emotion is dangerous.”
His face tightened.
“She is an heir.”
“She is three.”
“Which is why the structure must survive until she is properly shaped.”
Properly shaped.
I heard Eleanor in those words.
Generations of the same poison.
Michael looked at Caleb.
“You sound like my father.”
Caleb nodded.
“Your father understood continuity.”
Michael almost smiled.
“He tried to erase me.”
“Because you endangered the line.”
There it was.
Not loyalty to people.
Loyalty to a system.
I looked toward the chapel doors.
“Samuel is inside?”
Caleb said nothing.
I stepped closer.
“You have one chance to move before I stop asking.”
He looked at the men behind me.
Then at Michael.
Then at Dominic.
He stepped aside.
May you like
Not because he changed his mind.
Because he realized the old structure no longer had enough men willing to bleed for it.
