Chapter 6
Preston stopped pretending.
“I came here twice.”
Harper stared.
“You knew about the house?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you need the key?”
“The Quiet Room stayed locked.”
He only had access to the upper floors because Silas kept an old service key Gabriel once gave him.
They searched everything else.
Nothing.
Then Silas concluded the missing key had to be with Evelyn.
That was when Preston began checking her drawers.
Her handbag.
Her bedside table.
My sick wife noticed.
Of course she did.
“Did she confront you?”
Preston’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
He looked toward Evelyn’s letter.
“She asked if I was trying to become my father by betraying him.”
My throat tightened.
Evelyn could be cruel when truth required it.
Good.
“What did you say?”
“I told her you never trusted me anyway.”
There.
The wound again.
He had been carrying it long before Silas.
Silas merely gave it language.
Evelyn told Preston that if he wanted more responsibility, he should ask me.
Not another family.
He did not.
Pride prefers conspiracy to vulnerable conversation.
Then Lydia asked him about the urn.
Why?
Because Evelyn told Harper she wanted her remains sealed privately.
Silas guessed she might hide the key somewhere no one would dare disturb.
He underestimated my son.
That thought hurt.
Preston looked sick when he realized I was thinking it.
“I didn’t know Lydia would push Harper down.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“You only overturned your mother’s urn.”
He closed his eyes.
No rescue.
No shared blame.
Then Rafe opened the black signet case.
Inside was a Vale ring.
Gabriel had taken it from one of the Whitlock associates Silas paid nine years earlier.
The inscription inside read:
V.W.
Victor Whitlock.
My uncle.
Dead now.
The betrayal had reached our bloodline before Silas ever touched Preston.
Then Evelyn’s final note explained why that mattered.
Marcus, Silas doesn’t recruit people.
May you like
He recruits grievances.
That sentence described the entire room.
