Chapter 14 · The Dead Family File

Mara shoves the blood registry into my hands before the last enforcer clears the doorway. The leather binding's still warm.

"Read it now," she says. "Before anyone decides that file doesn't exist."

I flip it open. The first page lists three Vane bloodline heirs. Two names are crossed out in red ink. The third is blank—just a registration number and a date twenty years ago. My birthdate.

Silas leans against the wall, one hand pressed to his chest where the blood bond's still burning through his shirt. His face is gray. "That registry was sealed after the massacre. How did you—"

"I didn't break into the vault," Mara cuts him off. "Your mother gave it to me the night she died. Told me to keep it until someone came asking the right questions."

Grayson's still standing by the window, turning that black ring over in his fingers. The one with my mother's blood seal inside. The one that connects to his family crest.

He hasn't looked at me since Silas mixed our blood.

"So Ivy's been a registered heir this whole time," I say, because someone needs to say it out loud. "And nobody told her. For twenty years.