Chapter 2 - The Boy Behind the Locked Door
Dominic did not move.
The stranger did.
He stepped farther into the lamplight.
Genevieve had seen Elias six times.
She still found the resemblance disturbing.
Not identical.
Dominic was broader, harder, shaped by years of leadership and violence he rarely discussed. Elias was leaner and carried himself like someone accustomed to disappearing into crowds.
But the Ashford blood showed in the eyes.
The jaw.
The way both men tilted their heads when evaluating danger.
Dominic stared.
Elias stared back.
Seventeen years stood between them.
“You’re dead,” Dominic said.
Elias gave a bitter smile.
“So I was told.”
Dominic’s hands flexed.
Genevieve moved between them before either could do something irreversible.
“Elias, what happened?”
His attention went to the blood.
“Not mine.”
Dominic looked down.
“Whose?”
“One of Varrick’s men.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“Councilor Varrick?”
Elias glanced at Genevieve.
“You didn’t tell him?”
“I told him enough to get here.”
“Enough,” Dominic repeated coldly.
Genevieve ignored the warning in his voice.
“What happened?”
Elias put the signet ring on the table.
“They found me.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you followed?”
“No.”
Dominic cut in.
“Who is Varrick working for?”
Elias looked at him.
“That’s the question your father died trying to answer.”
Dominic went still.
“Start talking.”
Elias looked toward Genevieve.
She nodded.
For months he had refused to tell her the entire story.
He claimed knowing too much made her dangerous.
That excuse no longer mattered.
Elias leaned against the table.
“When I was six, I didn’t drown.”
Dominic said nothing.
“Our father sent me away.”
“Why?”
“He discovered someone inside the council was manipulating succession.”
Dominic frowned.
“I was heir.”
“Yes.”
“There was nothing to manipulate.”
“There was if they wanted a king they could control.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
Elias continued.
“You were sixteen when Father died. Old enough to inherit. Young enough to surround with advisers.”
Dominic’s voice dropped.
“You’re saying they killed him to control me.”
“I’m saying they planned for it.”
Genevieve watched Dominic absorb the words without reacting.
That was his most frightening state.
Absolute stillness.
“Who?”
Elias shook his head.
“I know Varrick was involved.”
“Malcolm Varrick has served my family thirty years.”
“Exactly.”
Dominic stepped toward him.
“Evidence.”
Elias pointed toward a floorboard.
Genevieve knelt and pried it up.
Beneath it sat a leather packet.
Inside were papers.
Dominic took the first.
His father’s handwriting.
He recognized it instantly.
Genevieve knew because his fingers tightened.
Edmund had written a letter to someone named Margaret Crane.
Dominic read silently.
Then again.
His eyes stopped on one sentence.
“What does it say?” Genevieve asked.
He handed it to her.
She read aloud.
“If my sons are ever placed against one another, know that the danger comes not from their blood but from those who fear what united Ashford heirs might uncover.”
Genevieve looked up.
Elias gave a humorless laugh.
“Father always did enjoy making everything sound dramatic.”
Dominic did not smile.
“Why were you hidden?”
Elias walked toward the window.
“Father believed someone planned to use me against you.”
“How?”
“Kill you. Crown me.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“You were six.”
“Which would have given them a regency.”
Genevieve understood.
“A child king.”
Elias nodded.
“A council ruling in his name.”
Dominic looked toward the papers.
“But Father sent you away.”
“Yes.”
“And they changed plans.”
“They killed him later. You survived. They decided a grieving sixteen-year-old was manageable.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“I was not crowned until nineteen.”
“They had three years to build walls around you.”
Genevieve watched Dominic flinch almost imperceptibly.
He knew.
Perhaps not the conspiracy.
But the control.
The advisers who decided which petitions reached him.
Which commanders were loyal.
Which families received land.
Which version of his father’s death entered the history books.
Malcolm Varrick had been there for all of it.
A mentor.
Almost an uncle.
Dominic turned to Elias.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
“Because the woman Father sent me with was murdered two weeks after his death.”
Genevieve’s breath caught.
Elias looked away.
“I was nine.”
Dominic frowned.
“You said you were six.”
“I was six when I disappeared. We moved constantly for three years.”
“Who raised you?”
“Margaret Crane.”
“The woman from the letter?”
“Yes.”
“Until she was killed?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“I ran.”
Silence.
“I learned quickly that anyone who discovered my name died.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
For the first time, anger gave way to something else.
Guilt.
“You were a child.”
“So were you.”
The words landed between them.
Neither brother looked away.
Genevieve realized they had both spent seventeen years believing the other was dead.
Dominic had been crowned inside a stone fortress.
Elias had grown up in hiding.
Different cages.
Same architects.
Elias gestured toward Genevieve.
“She found the first surviving treasury ledger.”
Dominic looked at her.
Genevieve explained.
“Payments were made the week after Edmund’s death.”
“To whom?”
“Six witnesses, two physicians, a mortuary keeper and three guards.”
Dominic stared.
“Names.”
She listed them.
Dominic recognized several.
All dead.
Except one.
“Varrick’s brother-in-law,” he said.
Genevieve nodded.
“Charles Wynn.”
Dominic looked at Elias.
“Where is Wynn?”
“Under royal protection.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“In my castle.”
“Yes.”
Genevieve watched the truth become personal.
The conspiracy was no longer a ghost from seventeen years ago.
A living witness slept beneath Dominic’s roof.
Elias opened another envelope.
“Father also discovered alterations to the royal blood registry.”
Dominic frowned.
“What alterations?”
“Names removed.”
“Whose?”
“Mine.”
“That makes sense if they wanted you dead.”
“Not only mine.”
Elias handed him a page.
Dominic read it.
His expression changed.
Genevieve leaned closer.
A woman’s name had been crossed out.
Seraphina Vale Ashford.
Dominic looked at Elias.
“Who is she?”
Elias hesitated.
“Our sister.”
Dominic laughed once.
This time there was no humor at all.
“I had one brother.”
“No.”
“My mother had two sons.”
“Yes.”
“Then who was Seraphina?”
Elias looked at Genevieve.
She had never heard this part.
“Our father had a daughter before he married your mother.”
Dominic’s face went blank.
“Impossible.”
“She was born to Evelyn Vale.”
Dominic took a step back.
Evelyn Vale had been Edmund’s chief diplomatic adviser.
History recorded that she died during an uprising twenty-nine years earlier.
Dominic knew the story.
Everyone did.
“You’re saying my father had an illegitimate daughter.”
“I’m saying he had a daughter whose existence threatened the people who later controlled succession.”
“She would be older than me.”
“Seven years.”
“And alive?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic stared at the crossed-out name.
Genevieve looked at Elias.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wasn’t sure.”
“What changed?”
“I found someone.”
Dominic’s gaze rose.
“Who?”
“A woman in Oregon.”
“Seraphina?”
“No.”
Elias walked toward the back wall.
“Her daughter.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Dominic said nothing for several seconds.
Then he asked, “Where is she?”
Elias hesitated.
“That’s where tonight becomes worse.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Where?”
“She disappeared yesterday.”
Genevieve felt cold despite the room.
“Who knew where she was?”
“Me.”
“Anyone else?”
“One person.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
Elias looked at him.
“Genevieve.”
Dominic turned.
Genevieve stared at Elias.
“What?”
“You had the address.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I gave it to you.”
“You gave me a sealed envelope.”
“Yes.”
“I never opened it.”
Elias frowned.
Genevieve’s heartbeat accelerated.
“The envelope is still hidden in my archive desk.”
Dominic’s stare sharpened.
“Which someone searched.”
Genevieve nodded slowly.
Elias cursed.
Dominic headed for the door.
Genevieve caught his arm.
“You can’t go back openly.”
“It’s my castle.”
“And someone inside it thinks you’re still blind.”
He looked at her.
“If you walk in furious, they’ll destroy whatever remains.”
Dominic’s jaw worked.
Elias nodded.
“She’s right.”
Dominic looked between them.
“I dislike how often you two agree.”
Despite everything, Genevieve almost smiled.
Then Elias suddenly turned toward the window.
“Quiet.”
Everyone froze.
A faint sound came through the storm.
Hooves.
Several horses.
Dominic extinguished the lamp.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Genevieve heard movement outside.
Men.
More than two.
Dominic pulled her behind him.
Elias drew a knife.
A voice called from beyond the door.
“By order of the Alpha King, open immediately.”
Dominic’s expression turned lethal.
Genevieve whispered, “You didn’t send anyone.”
“No.”
The voice came again.
“Genevieve Hayes is accused of treason against the Crown.”
Dominic slowly looked at her.
Outside, someone unrolled a document.
“The warrant bears King Dominic Ashford’s royal seal.”
Dominic moved toward the door.
Elias grabbed him.
“Don’t.”
Dominic’s eyes burned.
“They forged my seal.”
Elias shook his head.
“No.”
He pointed to the table.
The royal signet ring was gone.
Someone had taken it.
Then the back door creaked open.
May you like
A shadow stepped inside.
And Malcolm Varrick said, “Your Majesty, I was hoping you would come.”
