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The study door is locked.
Vivian's fingers shake on the handle. She twists it again. Nothing. The brass is cold enough to burn, and the hallway behind her stretches dark and empty like a throat.
She shouldn't be here. Lucas made that clear three hours ago when he dragged her back to the ballroom and told her to smile, to nod, to play the perfect bride while Cyrus watched from across the room with that new glass in his hand. Clean. Spotless. Like the other one never existed.
But she can't sit in that bedroom one more minute. Can't stare at the ceiling and pretend she doesn't know what Lucas is. What he's been from the start.
She pulls a hairpin from her braid. Her hands won't stop shaking, but she gets the pin into the lock and feels for the pins inside. One. Two. The third one sticks.
"Come on," she whispers. "Come on."
The lock clicks.
The door swings open, and the smell hits her first. Old paper. Leather. Something underneath that makes her skin crawl, metallic and faint. She steps inside and shuts the door behind her, then leans against it and tries to breathe.
The study is smaller than she expected. One wall is all books, floor to ceiling, spines cracked and faded. The desk sits in the center, heavy dark wood, papers spread across it in neat stacks. A lamp burns low in the corner. He left it on.
She crosses to the desk. Her boots are too loud on the floor, and she freezes halfway, listening. Nothing. The house is silent. Lucas is still downstairs with the other council members, finishing whatever the hell vampires do after they've spent four hours pretending to be civilized.
She reaches the desk and starts going through the papers. Contracts. Land deeds. Letters in a language she doesn't recognize. Her heart is pounding so hard she can hear it in her ears, and her fingers leave damp marks on the pages.
Then she sees it.
A deed. Ashcroft Manor. Signed over to Lucas Croft two years and eleven months ago. Three months after the massacre.
Her mother's signature is at the bottom.
Vivian's knees hit the floor. She doesn't remember falling, but suddenly she's down, and the deed is in her hands, and she can't breathe.
Her mother signed this. Her mother, who died with a vampire's teeth in her throat. Her mother, who they found in the east wing with her blood painting the walls.
She signed the house over to Lucas before she died.
Vivian's vision blurs. She blinks hard, and the signature comes back into focus. It's her mother's handwriting. Vivian would know it anywhere. The way the A curves. The way the tail on the t always droops a little to the left.
She sets the deed down carefully, like it might shatter, and keeps digging.
More deeds. The northern estates. The harbor properties. The textile factories her father used to brag about at dinner parties. All signed over to Lucas. All dated within six months of the massacre.
Her family didn't fall apart after her mother and brother died.
They were already gone.
Someone sold them piece by piece, and Lucas bought every scrap.
"You should've stayed in bed."
Vivian's head snaps up.
Lucas stands in the doorway. He's still in his jacket from the gala, but his tie is gone, and the top two buttons of his shirt are undone. His face is blank. Not angry. Not surprised. Just tired.
She gets to her feet. The deed is still in her hand, and she holds it up like a weapon.
"You bought us," she says. Her voice cracks. "You didn't just buy me. You bought all of it. The land. The businesses. Everything."
"Yes."
He doesn't move from the doorway. Doesn't step inside. Just stands there watching her like she's a problem he hasn't figured out how to solve yet.
"My mother signed this three months after she died," Vivian says. She's shaking now, full-body shaking, and she can't make it stop. "How the hell did she sign this after Cyrus killed her?"
Lucas's jaw tightens. That's the only sign she hit something.
"Your mother didn't sign that," he says quietly.
"Then who—"
"Your father."
The words punch the air out of her lungs.
"No," she says. "No. He wouldn't—"
"He sold everything six months before the massacre." Lucas steps into the room now, slow, like he's approaching a trapped animal. "The council wanted your family's assets. Your father gave them up without a fight. He kept just enough to maintain appearances, and he handed the rest over in exchange for protection."
"Protection from what?"
"From being next."
Vivian's legs won't hold her. She sits down hard in the desk chair, and the deed slips from her fingers and lands on the floor between them.
"He sold us out," she whispers. "He sold my mother. My brother. He sold me."
"Yes."
Lucas crouches down and picks up the deed. He sets it back on the desk, careful, like it matters.
"The council wanted a message sent," he says. "Pure-blood lines don't negotiate with humans. They don't share power. Your father tried to play both sides, and Cyrus made an example out of your family. But your father walked away. He kept his life, and he kept you."
Vivian laughs. It comes out sharp and broken, and Lucas flinches.
"He kept me so he could sell me again," she says. "To you."
"Yes."
She looks up at him. His face is still blank, but there's something else underneath now. Something that looks almost like guilt.
"Why?" she asks. "Why buy me? You already had everything."
Lucas doesn't answer. He straightens up and walks to the window, and for a long moment he just stares out at the dark garden below. When he finally speaks, his voice is so low she almost doesn't hear it.
"Because Cyrus wanted you dead."
The bond flares. It snaps tight between them, and suddenly Vivian can feel it—his grief, his rage, his exhaustion. It cuts through her like a blade, and she gasps and grabs the edge of the desk to stay upright.
"Stop," she chokes out. "Stop it—"
"I'm not doing anything." Lucas turns to face her, and his eyes are black. Completely black. "You're the one digging."
The bond loosens. Vivian drags in a breath and pushes herself to her feet.
"Get out of my head," she says.
"Then get out of my study."
They stare at each other. The lamp flickers in the corner, and somewhere in the house a door slams.
Vivian breaks first. She heads for the door, but Lucas moves faster. He catches her wrist, and the bond flares again, sharper this time.
"Don't come back here," he says. His grip is tight enough to bruise. "I mean it, Vivian. There are things in this house you don't want to find."
"Let go of me."
"Promise me."
"Why?" She jerks her arm, but he doesn't let go. "What else are you hiding? What else did you do to my family?"
Lucas's face twists. For a second she thinks he's going to answer. Then he drops her wrist and steps back, and the bond goes cold and silent between them.
"Go to bed," he says.
Vivian runs.
She doesn't stop until she's back in the bedroom with the door locked behind her. Her wrist throbs where he grabbed her, and the bond is still there, humming faint and angry under her skin.
She sits on the edge of the bed and tries to think. Her father sold them. Lucas bought them. Cyrus killed them.
And she's stuck in the middle of it, wearing her dead brother's ring and a blood-bond she can't break.
She's about to stand when she sees it.
An envelope on the pillow. White. Unmarked. She didn't put it there.
Her hands are shaking again when she picks it up. The paper is heavy, expensive. She tears it open and pulls out a single card.
The handwriting is elegant. Careful.
Hand over the bride, or the next body we send back will be hers.
No signature. No seal. Just that one line, and underneath it, a smear of blood in the shape of a crescent moon.
Cyrus's mark.
Vivian's fingers go numb. The card slips from her hand and lands face-up on the bed.
Someone wants her dead. Someone powerful enough to walk into Lucas's house and leave a threat on her pillow.
And Lucas knew. He's always known.
She stares at the card until the words blur together, and the bond hums cold and silent in her chest.