CONTRACT MARRIAGE

CHAPTER FOURTEEN — THE CRACKED MIRROR

The ride back from the medical wing was silent, but not the comfortable silence we had started to build. It was a suffocating, heavy thing. Every time Julian reached for my hand, I pulled away to "adjust" my coat, feeling the hard edge of the ledger pressing against my ribs like a jagged secret.

As soon as we reached the penthouse, Julian headed for his office to take a call with the London branch. I seized the moment. I retreated to the library—a room filled with first editions and Blackwood history—and opened the book.

The dates in my father’s ledger lined up perfectly with the Blackwood expansion of the early 2000s. But as I flipped toward the middle, I found a tucked-away photograph. It was yellowed at the edges, showing a younger Arthur Blackwood standing next to a woman with hauntingly familiar eyes.

Julian’s mother.

Below the photo was a note in my father’s hand: "Miriam tried to stop him. She saw what he was doing to the Vance holdings. She warned me. Two weeks later, she was gone."

My blood turned to ice. Julian had told me his mother died in a "tragic accident" when he was ten. The same year my father’s company began its death spiral.

"What are you reading?"

I jumped, nearly knocking over a crystal lamp. Julian was standing in the doorway, his tie loosened, his eyes narrowed as they landed on the old leather book in my lap.

"Just... some of my father’s old things," I said, my voice shaking.

Julian walked into the room, his presence filling the space. He reached out, and before I could hide it, he took the ledger from my hands. I watched his face as he read. The confusion turned to recognition, and then to a raw, bleeding horror.

"This is my mother’s handwriting in the margins," he whispered, his finger tracing a line of elegant script. 'Arthur is moving on the Connecticut properties tonight. Tell Thomas to sell now.'

Julian looked at me, his eyes fractured. "My father told me she died because she was a reckless driver. He said she lost control on a rain-slicked road." He looked back at the ledger. "She wasn't being reckless. She was coming to warn your father."

"Julian," I breathed, standing up and placing a hand on his arm.

He flinched as if I’d burned him. "He used me, Elena. He used both of us. He destroyed your family to lower the price of the land, and then he sent me to find you—knowing I’d be 'hero' enough to save you with a contract. He didn't just want a CEO; he wanted to complete the collection. He wanted the last Vance under his thumb."

"You didn't know," I said, desperate to believe it. "Tell me you didn't know."

Julian looked at the marriage certificate sitting on the desk—the paper that legally bound us to the man who had ruined our lives.

"I didn't know," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, vibrating low. "But I know now. And Arthur Blackwood is about to find out what happens when you train a wolf to protect your empire, only to give him a reason to tear it down."

He grabbed the ledger and his keys.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"To see the only person who hates my grandfather as much as I do right now," Julian said, his eyes turning to cold steel. "I’m going to see Marco Moretti. If we’re going to kill a king, Elena, we’re going to need more than just a contract. We’re going to need an army."