Chapter 9 - Tess's Real Secret
“Anya Drevik.”
Nikolai's sister.
Dead at twenty-four.
Car accident.
Saoirse had attended the funeral.
“What about Anya?” Nikolai asked.
They were in Cesily's office again.
Saoirse repeated Kessler's words.
Nikolai became very still.
“She lived in the west wing.”
“Tess's room?”
“Yes.”
“Why does that matter?”
“I don't know.”
Maeve did.
Anya had contacted her nine years earlier.
She had discovered Elena's records.
Before she could expose them, her car went through a guardrail.
The death was ruled accidental.
It wasn't.
Nikolai sat in silence.
His aunt had raised him.
His aunt had likely helped kill his sister.
Saoirse knew better than to touch him without asking.
“Do you want me to stay?”
His eyes lifted.
“Yes.”
She stayed.
Not as his wife.
As someone who knew what betrayal by family felt like.
The search of Anya's old room revealed nothing.
Until Tess noticed a loose floorboard beneath the bed.
Underneath lay a memory card.
Anya had recorded Elena.
The video showed Elena speaking with a man whose face remained off-camera.
They discussed Maeve.
Pavel.
The Brennan trust.
And “the next Drevik child.”
The recording was nine years old.
Before Saoirse married Nikolai.
Their marriage had been anticipated.
Engineered.
The unidentified man said one sentence clearly.
“If Brennan marries Nikolai, we control both lines.”
Saoirse felt violated in a way she couldn't articulate.
Her love story had been somebody else's business plan.
Nikolai stopped the video.
“No.”
“Keep playing.”
“You don't have to watch this.”
“Yes, I do.”
He obeyed.
Anya's camera shifted.
A reflection appeared in a mirror.
The unidentified man.
Cesily enlarged the frame.
Everyone stared.
It wasn't Kessler.
It wasn't Viktor.
It wasn't Pavel's father.
It was Saoirse's father.
Patrick Brennan.
The man who had raised her.
The man she had mourned.
The man she trusted more than anyone.
Saoirse sat down.
Maeve began crying.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“Was anyone in my childhood who they claimed to be?”
“Saoirse—”
“Was my father part of this?”
Maeve's answer shattered the last safe piece of her past.
“Yes.”
Patrick had joined the conspiracy after Maeve disappeared.
At first to protect Saoirse.
Then for money.
Then power.
He steered Saoirse toward forensic accounting.
Toward Drevik companies.
Toward Nikolai.
“He wanted me to marry him?”
Maeve nodded.
Nikolai looked sick.
Saoirse stood.
She needed air.
Lucian followed only as far as the corridor.
“Want company?”
“No.”
He stopped.
That was why she trusted him.
Not because he was good.
Lucian Vale had done terrible things.
But when Saoirse said no, he stopped.
Outside, she breathed cold air.
Her baby moved.
She pressed both hands against her belly.
“You're yours,” she whispered.
Not Brennan.
Not Drevik.
Not an asset.
Not a bloodline.
A child.
Her child.
When she returned, Tess was waiting.
“I need to tell you something.”
Saoirse almost laughed.
“Of course you do.”
Tess winced.
“Fair.”
“What?”
“I knew about Anya.”
“How?”
“Pavel had the recording.”
“And you didn't tell us?”
“I didn't know your father was the man in the reflection. Pavel never showed me the entire video.”
“Why tell me now?”
“Because I'm done letting men decide which truths women can survive.”
Saoirse stared at her.
Then nodded.
Tess continued.
“There's another recording.”
“Where?”
“Pavel hid it.”
“Can you get it?”
“I think so.”
They went together.
No Nikolai.
No Lucian.
Two pregnant women with federal protection and very little patience left.
Pavel's apartment contained a safe.
Tess knew the combination.
Inside was Anya's second recording.
This one showed Patrick Brennan alone.
He spoke directly to the camera.
“If Saoirse ever sees this, then I failed.”
Saoirse's breath caught.
Patrick confessed.
He had helped engineer her meeting with Nikolai.
But something unexpected happened.
They genuinely fell in love.
Patrick began trying to dismantle the plan.
That was why he died.
His supposed heart attack had been induced.
Before dying, he gave Saoirse the brass key.
Not knowing whether she would ever understand it.
“I am sorry,” Patrick said on the recording. “I turned your future into a strategy because I convinced myself survival mattered more than freedom. I was wrong.”
Saoirse cried.
Quietly.
Tess sat beside her.
Neither woman spoke.
Then Patrick said something else.
“Elena isn't the architect.”
Saoirse wiped her eyes.
“The architect is someone Nikolai trusts more than family.”
The recording glitched.
Patrick leaned toward the camera.
“His name is—”
The video cut.
Tess swore.
Then footsteps sounded outside the apartment.
Federal agents should have been stationed there.
Saoirse stood.
“Tess?”
“I heard it.”
The door unlocked.
A man entered.
Nikolai.
Blood covered his shirt.
He looked at Saoirse.
“Don't come near me.”
Her heart stopped.
“Nikolai?”
He dropped a gun onto the floor.
Then said, “I know who killed your father.”
Behind him, another figure appeared.
May you like
Lucian.
And the gun in Lucian's hand was pointed directly at Nikolai.
