The Heir’s Disguise

Chapter 10 – Glass Shadows

Dawn burned pale across the Scottish hills, washing the world in a thin mist.

Leila followed Nico down a narrow lane that smelled of wet stone and heather, the crunch of their boots loud in the morning quiet.

Ahead, a row of stone cottages huddled like conspirators beneath the clouds.

“This is it,” Nico murmured. He stopped before the last cottage, its windows curtained and unlit. “My father trusted only one person here.”

Leila studied the weather-worn door. “And you trust them too?”

“I don’t have the luxury of doubt,” he said, rapping twice in a pattern that sounded like a code.

A moment later the door creaked open. A woman in her fifties filled the frame, silver hair braided tight, eyes as sharp as winter light.

“Dominic Devereaux,” she said, the name like a blade. “I told you never to set foot on this street again.”

Nico stiffened. “Good morning to you too, Aunt Moira.”

Leila blinked. Aunt?

Moira’s gaze flicked to Leila, measuring. “And the journalist?”

Leila started. “I’m not…”

“She’s with me,” Nico cut in, voice flat. “We need a safe place. And the files.”

Moira exhaled, the sound part warning, part resignation. “Inside. Quickly.”

The cottage smelled of peat smoke and tea leaves. Moira led them to a cramped sitting room where books lined the walls like soldiers.

Rain began again, soft against the slate roof.

“Why are you running?” Moira asked once the door was bolted.

“The board hired mercenaries,” Nico said. “They know I have the shipping manifests and the offshore accounts.”

Moira’s face tightened. “The same men who silenced your father?”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes for a beat, then moved to a hidden compartment beneath the hearth. From it she drew a slim drive sealed in plastic. “This is what you want?”

Nico reached for it, but she held it back. “Once you release this, Dominic, there’s no burying yourself again. You’ll be hunted. Both of you.”

Leila felt the weight of Moira’s stare settle on her like a second skin.

“Do you love him enough to vanish with him?” the woman asked.

The question sliced through the room. Leila’s breath caught. She hadn’t dared name what she felt, the storm-forged pull that tied her to Nico but she couldn’t look away from him now.

“I’m not leaving him,” she said simply.

Something unreadable flickered in Nico’s eyes: gratitude, surprise, maybe fear.

Moira studied them a moment longer, then placed the drive in Nico’s palm. “Then you’d better move fast.”

Hours later they sat in the cottage’s small loft, planning their next move over mugs of scalding tea. Outside, rain whispered against the skylight.

“We send the files to three outlets at once,” Nico said. “International papers, independent investigators people who can’t be bought.”

Leila nodded. “I know a secure network that can handle the uploads.”

Their fingers brushed as she took the drive. The touch was brief but electric, a silent reminder of every charged moment they’d shared.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said quietly.

“I chose this the night you grabbed my wrist,” she replied. “I’m not stopping now.”

He gave a soft, disbelieving laugh, then sobered. “When this goes public, they’ll come harder. We may have to disappear for good.”

Leila met his gaze. “Then we disappear together.”

The room seemed to narrow around them, the storm a distant hush.

For a heartbeat the world was only the warmth of his eyes, the promise of a life neither of them had planned but both somehow wanted.

Nico reached across the table, threading his fingers through hers. “Whatever happens next,” he said, voice low, “I’m done running alone.”

Leila squeezed his hand, the simple contact anchoring them against the roar of everything outside.

The first upload began as night settled again. Lines of encrypted code flashed across the laptop screen.

Leila felt the shift the moment the data left the drive: a door opening that could never be closed.

“Once it hits the networks,” Nico said, watching the progress bar climb, “the world will know who really owns Armand Global. And who killed my father.”

A sudden crack of gunfire shattered the quiet.

Leila jerked upright. “They found us..”

Nico was already moving, killing the lights, pulling her toward the back stairwell.

Moira appeared with a revolver in one hand and a phone in the other. “Two vans. Blacked-out windows,” she hissed. “Down the hillside, now!”

Rain lashed their faces as they spilled into the dark. The Scottish night was alive with shadows headlights cutting through mist, the echo of boots on stone.

Nico gripped Leila’s hand tighter. “Stay with me.”

She didn’t hesitate.

Together they vanished into the wet, endless hills, the secrets of a dynasty flashing across the world even as the hunters closed in.