Chapter 25 - The Deception of Blood
The world seemed to stop spinning. The rain fell in slow motion, cold droplets bouncing off my eyelashes as Mia’s words hung like poison in the air between us.
"What did you just say?" I breathed, unable to step forward, unable to step back.
"Victoria had a daughter with our father twenty-six years ago," Mia sobbed, her hand shaking so badly the pistol rattled against her fingers. "Our mother didn't give birth to triplets, Lila! She gave birth to us—to twins! But Victoria’s child was born on the exact same night in the private ward across the hall. Nicholas Sterling tried to hide the affair by claiming the third baby as a premature triplet, but our mother found out. That’s what destroyed them! That’s why our mother drove her car off the ridge!"
"Then why the crescent mark?" Owen asked, his eyes narrowing. "Celeste carries the exact birthmark that Lila has."
"Because Victoria had it tattooed on her when she was six years old!" Mia shouted, stepping down the stone stairs, the white train of her bridal gown dragging through the blood of the fallen mercenary. "Victoria spent twenty years molding that girl into our duplicate! A living, breathing spare key! If anything happened to me, Celeste would take my place. If you died, Celeste would take yours. She doesn't want the ledger to free us—she wants the ledger because it contains the offshore trust that names *Celeste Vance* as the sole heir to the Sterling estate!"
A cold dread crept into the marrow of my bones.
*The incinerator room beneath the chapel. The papers inside the furnace wall.*
"Arthur," I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "Arthur is alone with her at the orchard wall."
"She’s not wounded as badly as she looks, Lila," Mia said, lowering her weapon completely, her voice breaking into a childlike whimper. "She’s a trained operative. Victoria didn't send hitmen to kill Celeste—those men were Celeste’s extraction team! They weren't hunting her, they were helping her stage an ambush!"
Before the words could fully settle, the sound of an engine revving violently ripped through the trees below the ridge. A heavy SUV broke through the wooden estate fence, tearing up the grass as it sped toward the chapel doors.
Its headlights bathed Mia, Owen, and me in blinding, halogen glare.
The driver’s side door opened, and a figure stepped out into the pouring rain. She was wrapped in Arthur’s tweed coat, but she was standing completely upright, moving with effortless, lethal grace. The wound on her side had been bandaged with professional precision, and in her right hand, she held a silenced pistol.
It was Celeste. And slung over the hood of the vehicle, bound and unconscious, was Arthur.
"You always were too smart for your own good, Mia," Celeste called out, her voice no longer the rasping whisper of a dying girl, but clear, resonant, and dripping with venomous amusement. "Mother always said you had the brains, even if you lacked the stomach for violence."
Owen raised his gun instantly, aiming straight at Celeste’s chest. "Let Arthur go, or this ends right now."
Celeste merely smiled, stepping behind the heavy steel frame of the SUV, resting the barrel of her gun against Arthur’s temple.
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"I wouldn't advise that, Owen," she purred. "Now, Lila... be a darling and bring me the brass key. Or I’ll paint this lovely chapel in the old man's blood."
***
