Chapter 3
Silas came out furious.
Not frightened.
Furious.
The old man walked through the door holding one of my father’s fireplace pokers.
Elias almost reached for his weapon.
I shook my head.
Silas had earned one dramatic entrance.
He looked at Violetta.
“You spoiled little viper.”
She flinched.
Interesting.
Then Silas saw me.
His anger changed.
“Bram.”
“What happened?”
He looked toward the corridor.
“Not here.”
We moved into my father’s room.
First time I had entered in six years.
Dust lay across the desk.
My father’s reading glasses still sat beside a closed book.
His cologne remained faintly inside the wardrobe.
Grief is rude.
It waits in wood.
Violetta stayed outside under guard.
Not punishment.
Boundary.
Silas closed the door behind us.
“What was she looking for?”
He stared at me.
“The Harrow name.”
I knew it.
Everyone did.
Violetta’s father, Cassian Harrow.
My father’s former second captain.
Branded a traitor twenty-four years earlier.
Expelled from Ashcombe territory.
Dead five years later in Baltimore.
Violetta had been six when he disappeared from her life.
“Why here?”
Silas walked toward the fireplace.
“Because your father knew Cassian wasn’t the man who betrayed him.”
I stopped.
“What?”
Silas’s eyes hardened.
“Not at first.”
He explained.
Twenty-four years ago, an Ashcombe shipment disappeared from a private dock.
Three men knew the route.
My father.
Cassian Harrow.
Roland Morrow.
Roland was still alive.
Still powerful.
Still sitting at my right hand during most dinners.
My father blamed Cassian because evidence appeared in his locker.
A route token.
Money.
One of our sealed tags.
Too perfect.
Cassian swore innocence.
Father expelled him anyway.
Two years later, Silas found something inside this room.
Not documents.
Not money.
A piece of conversation.
Roland had come late at night believing Alistair asleep.
He spoke through the half-open door to another man.
Silas heard one sentence.
“Harrow took the fall. Keep it that way.”
I stared.
“Who was the other man?”
Silas looked toward the wall behind my father’s desk.
“That is what Violetta wanted me to show her.”
I followed his gaze.
A portrait of my grandfather hung there.
Nothing unusual.
May you like
Then Silas said:
“Your father made me hide the answer behind him.”
