Chapter 31The dead woman on Ethan's doorstep had been dead for twenty years, which made her arrival all the more troubling.Ethan found her at dawn, sprawled across the welcome mat of their new safe house in the Pacific Northwest. She was dressed in clothes that belonged to another era—a floral dress, worn leather sandals, a silver locket around her neck. Her skin was pale, her eyes closed, her hands folded neatly across her chest as if she'd been laid out for viewing.But it was her face that made Ethan's blood run cold.He'd seen that face before—in old photographs, in faded memories, in the stories his mother had told him late at night when she thought he was asleep.It was his grandmother. Evelyn Carter. Dead for two decades."Liv," he called, his voice barely above a whisper. "Liv, get out here."Liv appeared in the doorway, still in her pajamas, her hair mussed from sleep. She took one look at the body and froze."Is that—""Yeah." Ethan knelt beside the body, his hands trembli

Chapter 33The mountain vault held more than just the weapon—it held the truth about everything Ethan thought he knew.They'd been in the vault for three days, cataloguing its contents, when Liv made the discovery that would change everything. She'd been working through a stack of old documents, her eyes heavy with exhaustion, when she suddenly went still."Ethan," she called, her voice strange. "You need to see this."Ethan crossed the room, his heart already pounding. Liv was holding a folder—thin, unremarkable, its edges worn with age. But the photograph clipped to the front made his blood run cold.It was a picture of his mother. Young, smiling, her arm around a man he didn't recognize. But it wasn't the man who caught his attention—it was the building behind them.The Reynolds Dynamics headquarters. But not the one he knew. This was an older version, smaller, more modest. And above the entrance, a sign read: "Reynolds Dynamics—Founders' Wing.""Founders," Ethan repeated. "There w