The Queen They Burned

Chapter Ten - Eve

I couldn't sleep.

The guest room Dani had shown me to was small but comfortable, with faded cream

walls, an old wooden dresser, and a quilt that looked like someone had sewn it by

hand years ago. A single lamp glowed softly beside the bed.

I sat on the edge of the mattress, fully dressed, staring at the silver pendant resting

in the palm of my hand.

Charlotte.

The name echoed through my head.

Charlotte's girl.

Silas had said it the second he saw me.

Then he had looked at the pendant like he'd seen a ghost.

I closed my fingers around the necklace.

"My mother," I whispered into the empty room.

The words didn't feel real.

For twenty years, she had been nothing more than a question. A blurry image my

imagination created whenever I wondered who I looked like or where I got my gray

eyes.

Now she had a name.

And somehow that made the emptiness even worse.

A soft knock sounded at the door.

I quickly slipped the pendant back beneath my sweater.

"Come in."

The door opened slowly, and Dani peeked inside.

"Sorry," she said. "I saw your light on."

"It's okay."

She stepped into the room carrying two steaming mugs.

"I figured neither of us was sleeping."

I smiled for what felt like the first time all day.

"You figured right."

She handed me one of the mugs and sat in the old rocking chair by the window.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

The rain had finally stopped. Moonlight filtered through the curtains, painting pale

silver lines across the floorboards.

Dani broke the silence first.

"My dad never cries."

I looked at her.

"What?"

"When he saw you today..." She looked down into her cup. "I've never seen him like

that before."

I didn't know what to say.

"He kept a picture in his office for years," she continued quietly. "An old photograph

of six people standing in front of motorcycles. One of them was a woman."

My heart skipped.

"My father had the same picture."

Dani's eyes widened.

"What?"

"I found it after he died."

I thought back to the lockbox hidden beneath the floorboards. The faded

photograph. The six smiling faces. I had assumed they were old friends.

Now I wasn't so sure.

"Was there a man standing beside her?" Dani asked.

I nodded.

"Tall. Dark hair."

"Yes."

She swallowed.

"That's my dad."

A strange feeling settled over me.

The same photograph.

The same people.

My father had hidden it.

Silas had kept it.

Somehow, our lives had been connected long before I ever drove through the Iron

Crown gates.

"Dani..."

She looked up.

"Did your father ever mention Thomas Cross?"

She shook her head.

"No. But there are a lot of names he doesn't talk about."

Before I could ask anything else, voices drifted up from downstairs.

At first, they were too quiet to make out.

Then one voice rose above the others.

Grim.

"He should've told us."

I stood slowly.

Dani looked towards the hallway.

"That's my brother."

I set the mug down.

"I know."

We both listened.

"He kept us in the dark for twenty years," Grim said, his frustration carrying through

the old walls. "Now armed men are sitting in the woods, and we're supposed to

pretend everything's fine?"

A second voice answered.

Cal.

"You think your father wanted this?"

"I think he should've trusted his own family."

The words hit me harder than they should have.

Family.

I wasn't sure I even knew what that word meant anymore.

Dani stood and walked to the bedroom door.

She opened it just enough for us to hear better.

"You don't understand," Cal said. "The fewer people who knew, the safer she was."

Grim let out a bitter laugh.

"Tell that to the men who shot at our clubhouse."

Silence.

Then another voice joined the conversation.

Silas.

Weak.

Tried.

But unmistakably determined.

"They didn't come because she came home."

A pause.

"They came because someone told them she was here."

The air seemed to leave the room.

I looked at Dani.

She looked just as shocked as I felt.

A traitor.

Not only had someone inside Iron Crown opened the service gate...

Someone had warned those strangers that I was coming.

I backed away from the door.

A thousand memories crashed through my mind.

The black SUV following me on the highway.

The strange feeling that someone was watching me.

The man at the gate was smiling like he'd finally found what he was looking for.

They hadn't stumbled across me.

They had been waiting.

A sudden wave of grief washed over me.

Dad knew.

He had known this could happen.

That's why he had looked so afraid in the hospital.

Don't trust the patch.

I had thought he meant the biker life.

Now I wondered if he had meant something else entirely.

A knock echoed from downstairs.

Not on the front door.

Three slow, deliberated knocks.

The voices below went silent.

I heard footsteps.

Then Grim.

"Nobody move."

Dani grabbed my hand.

Neither of us breathed.

A moment later, the old clubhouse intercom crackled to life.

One of the prospects had gone to check the gate.

His voice came through loud and shaky.

"Uh... Grim?"

"What is it?"

The kid hesitated.

"There's a woman out here."

No one answered.

The prospect continued.

"She says she's not armed. She says she came alone."

Grim's voice was sharp.

"Who is she?"

The reply sent a chill through my entire body.

"She says her name is Mara Vale..."

The intercom crackled again.

"...and she says she's been looking for Evelyn Cross for twenty years."

I felt Dani's fingers tightened around mine.

Downstairs, I heard a chair scrape violently across the floor.

Then Silas Mercer spoke three words that made my blood run cold.

"Don't let her leave."