The Billionaire and his Blood-Bride

The envelope was thick, cream-colored, and unmarked—no stamp, no return address. It sat on her doormat like a warning, as if it had no business in a life like hers.

Lana bent down to pick it up, brushing her fingers over the expensive linen paper. Heavy. Sealed in wax. Her name was handwritten in dark ink across the front in precise, sloping calligraphy. It looked like it belonged to a royal court or an ancient will, not a walk-up apartment in a forgotten corner of Brooklyn, where the heat barely worked and the air smelled like damp plaster.

Her instincts whispered: Don’t open it.

Her curiosity overruled them.

Inside, the message was short and strange:

Miss Lana Rey,

You are cordially requested to attend a private engagement interview at the Thompson Estate on Friday, the 12th of September, at 7:00 p.m. Transportation will be provided. Further details to follow.

This summons is binding by agreement of guardianship.

Kindly dress accordingly.

– The Thompson Family.

Lana blinked. Read it again. Binding by guardianship? She aged out of the foster system at eighteen, and there hadn’t been a single person standing at the edge of that cliff with her. There were no guardians. No distant relatives. No inheritance. She’d scraped her way through a city that didn’t notice her.

This had to be a scam.

But it didn’t feel like one. No demands for money. No web addresses. No phone numbers. Just an invitation… and a name.

Thompson.

As in Thompson Enterprises—the billion-dollar empire, the legacy estate, the name whispered through boardrooms and scandals alike. The Thompsons didn’t send letters. They sent lawyers. And even then, they didn’t do it without reason.

She turned the paper over twice more, inspected the seal, even held it up to the window light. Nothing changed. The address was real. The name was spelled right. The signature… confident.

She folded the letter slowly and set it on the kitchen table. Her stomach twisted.

By nightfall, she had convinced herself not to go.

By morning, she wasn’t so sure.

⸻

“You sure you don’t want me to call someone?” Maria squinted over the bookstore counter as Lana rang up a customer’s paperback. “This sounds like one of those rich-people rituals. Or cults.”

Lana forced a dry laugh. “If they ask for a blood sacrifice, I’ll run.”

Maria didn’t laugh.

She hadn’t told her the full truth—about the seal, the handwriting, the feeling she got in her bones when she first touched the paper. Lana couldn’t explain it. It was like the letter had been meant for her. Not accidentally mailed, not randomly chosen. Meant.

“Just… share your location,” Maria muttered, pulling out her phone. “Or leave a shoe behind like Cinderella, I don’t know. Something traceable.”

“Thanks,” Lana said. “I’ll leave behind my left earring and a trail of bookstore receipts.”

It was easier to joke than to admit how much she’d already packed.

She left early, heart thudding like a drumbeat in her chest. Outside, the air smelled like warm rain and engine fumes. Her stomach clenched when a black sedan pulled up to the curb precisely at six-thirty. A man in a gray uniform stepped out, expression unreadable.

“Miss Rey?”

She nodded.

The interior of the car was too quiet. The windows were tinted, and no music played. The driver didn’t speak, and Lana didn’t ask questions. She just sat still, watching the city fall away in the rearview mirror.

As they drove north, the streetlamps faded. Rows of buildings gave way to forest-lined roads and stretches of nothing. Occasionally, a deer blinked into view before vanishing into the trees again. Her thoughts were a blur: What am I doing? Is this real? What if I never come back?

She was still asking herself those questions when the car turned onto a winding, cobblestone driveway.

Massive wrought-iron gates opened slowly, as if they hadn’t been used in years. Beyond them stood a house—or more accurately, a mansion—so imposing it looked like it belonged in a different century. Gothic arches. Towering stone columns. Ivy climbing up the walls like veins on ancient skin. Turrets pierced the skyline, and the windows glowed with low amber light.

The sedan rolled to a stop. The driver stepped out and opened the door for her. “Miss Rey. The household is expecting you.”

Lana swallowed. She stepped out onto the gravel, her breath caught between her ribs.

A butler—yes, an actual butler—waited at the front steps. Tall, pale, and perfectly still.

“Miss Rey,” he said with a bow. “Welcome to the Thompson Estate.”

She tried to respond, but no sound came. The wind brushed against her cheeks, cool and crisp. It smelled like pine trees and something older—stone and wood and secrets.

The butler guided her up the steps, past carved doors that looked centuries old. As they opened, warmth flooded over her from the chandeliers above. The foyer was vast, with a ceiling that arched like a cathedral. Oil paintings lined the walls. Some looked recent. Others looked haunted.

Lana stopped in her tracks.

One painting caught her eye—a portrait of twin children, no older than three. A boy and a girl, both with dark hair and solemn expressions. The girl had Lana’s eyes.

She took a step closer, her throat tightening.

The butler cleared his throat gently. “Your escort will arrive shortly. Please wait here.”

He vanished down a hall, his footsteps swallowed by silence.

Lana stood alone in the grand entryway, staring at a stranger’s face that somehow looked like her own. She leaned in, drawn to the delicate brass plaque beneath the painting.

Greyson & Alana Thompson – 1999

She stumbled back, heart pounding.

Alana.

Her full name.

But she had never heard it spoken aloud. Never seen it written. Never told anyone.

Behind her, a voice broke the silence.

Low. Male. Close.

“You came,” he said.

Lana spun toward the voice.

A man stepped from the shadows at the edge of the foyer. Tall, dressed in black. His face was sharply handsome, but his eyes—his eyes looked like the boy in the painting.

Older. Hardened. Cold.