At two in the morning, my husband opened the refrigerator and stared at the empty shelf where I had left his dinner for eight years / Chapter 48 / 60

Chapter 48 - Bloodline of Stone

The hospital room at St. Jude’s was quiet, save for the steady, reassuring beep of the heart monitor.

The doctors assured me that Arthur had suffered a mild angina attack brought on by immense stress and exhaustion, but his vitals were stabilizing. He was sleeping deeply under light sedation.

I sat in the plastic armchair by his bedside until dusk turned the sky a bruised purple. The victory in court felt hollow with my father lying in a hospital bed and the ghost of my mother’s death suddenly cast in a sinister new light.

My phone vibrated on the bedside table. It was an encrypted text from an unknown number:

*The city thinks you won. But a foundation built on secrets will always collapse. Meet me at your childhood home tonight, Ava. Or the truth about your mother stays buried forever.*

I stared at the screen, my heart pounding a steady, hard rhythm.

I knew who it had to be. There was only one member of Julian’s inner circle who had vanished the night Eleanor Thorne was arrested: Julian’s younger half-sister, Victoria Vance. Victoria had lived in Paris for a decade, ostensibly managing Julian’s European art foundations, but Julian’s ledgers had shown millions flowing directly to her accounts in the final months of his life.

I kissed my father’s forehead, stepped out into the hospital hallway, and instructed Julian’s private security detail to keep two armed guards stationed outside his door around the clock.

"Where are you going, Mrs. Vance?" the lead guard asked.