Lily pushed the front door open with her shoulder and locked it behind her twice. The therapy session had ended twenty minutes ago but the image of Drake falling with blood at his throat still sat behind her eyes. She dropped her bag on the floor and stood in the quiet hallway rubbing her arms. The house felt larger than it used to. Emptier too. She walked into the kitchen and filled a glass with water. Her hands shook enough that some spilled on the counter. She wiped it with her sleeve and sat down hard on a stool. "You are still my brother," she said out loud to the empty room. "You have to be. The same one who used to read me stories when the power went out. The same one who worked three jobs so I could stay in school." She drank half the glass and set it down. The memory of Marcel moving so fast and the knife sliding across Drake neck would not leave. She had seen the look on his face after. Not regret. Something colder. "What are you becoming?" she whispered. "Because I do

Marcel held the photograph so tightly the edges bent. He looked up at Aurora, doubting the system for the first time "Tell me the truth. All of it. No more careful answers, I want to know and I want to know now."Aurora stood near the window with her arms crossed. "Your father was not just a victim. He was investigating the System long before you ever received it. Viktor worked with him for a time."Marcel voice dropped. "You knew this. You knew and you said nothing, I thought he had been killed by his creditors or something.""I kept quiet because the people who killed him may still be watching you. Telling you earlier would have put a target on your back sooner and plus Cain does want you to know.""Cain.? what has this got to do with him anyway?""You are not just unlucky Marcel" Aurora looked away, she stared out the window for a while "The system created you""I don't understand ""Everything that has happened so far was orchestrated by Cain. To break you". She paused to looked

Marcel froze in the doorway of his father’s old study. The final words from the recording still hung in the air. “If Aurora is with you, do not trust her.” His eyes snapped toward Aurora. The suspicion hit him hard. Lily took one step away from her without thinking. Elias reached for the weapon tucked under his jacket and stared at her like she was a stranger. Marcel voice came out sharp. “You knew about this. You knew my father left that message.” Aurora shook her head fast. “I did not know anything about a recording. I swear on everything I have.” Lily voice stayed small but steady. “She has been here before. I can feel it.” Elias pointed at Aurora. “She was there the night your father disappeared. I saw her. She was ordered to watch the house. Tell me she is lying.” Aurora looked at Marcel. “I was not part of the attack. I was ordered to watch and report whether your father had found anything about the System.” Marcel voice rose. “You did not warn him. You let him die.” Aur

Marcel stared at the photograph on his phone until the edges of the image blurred.His father stood beside a younger Lucifer Cain. The same man whose voice lived inside the System. The same man who had spent years trying to take Marcel’s body. The picture made no sense. His father had died trying to expose the System. How could he have stood next to the man who controlled it?Aurora watched him from across the room. She tilted her head. “What is that? Your face just changed.”Marcel locked the phone and slipped it into his pocket. “Nothing. I need to leave. I have to meet someone.”Aurora stepped closer. “Do not go alone. Whatever that picture is, it has you rattled.”Marcel shook his head. “If Olivia has information about my father, I need to hear it from her. Not through you. Not through anyone else.”Aurora’s jaw tightened. “You still do not trust me.”“Would you?” Marcel asked. He did not wait for an answer. He walked out of the room.He stopped at Lily’s door and pushed it open q

Marcel stood in front of the sealed door beneath his father’s study and ran his fingers along the edge of the frame.It was not magical. It was reinforced steel, disguised behind the old shelving, with an electronic keypad and a security panel that looked decades old. Dust covered the buttons, but the mechanism still looked solid.Marcel turned to Elias. “You knew this was here.”Elias nodded once. “I knew the door existed. I never had the code.”Marcel’s eyes narrowed. “Why did you never mention it?”Elias shifted his weight. “Your father made me promise. He said never open it unless you discovered the room yourself. I kept that promise.”Aurora stepped closer. “Opening it could expose us to whoever has been watching this family. We should leave it alone.”Marcel shook his head. “I am done leaving secrets behind. Every time I walk away from one, it comes back harder.”He pulled out the old photograph and studied the numbers written in his father’s handwriting along the bottom edge. H