Chapter Nineteen Bloodline
The second test was positive. So was the third.
Aria sat on the edge of the closed toilet lid and stared at the three plastic sticks lined across the granite sink like evidence.
She had taken precautions. But nothing in medicine—or in life—was absolute. Neither was timing.
Bloodline was the Blackthorne religion. Names opened doors, buried scandals, and dictated who was considered worthy of an inheritance.
Aria had never cared about a surname. Watching Augustus speak about blood as destiny had made her realize how thoroughly the family had confused legacy with ownership.
She picked up the tests, wrapped them tightly in tissue, and slid them into the bottom zip of her handbag. Her child would never become another bargaining chip on a Blackthorne ledger.
When she checked her phone, two missed calls flashed on the screen—both from her mother’s private medical coordinator.
Fear instantly replaced shock.
Aria arrived at the clinic twenty minutes later. Dr. Patel met her outside Evelyn’s glass-fronted room in the intensive care unit.
“Your mother developed sudden, severe kidney and liver abnormalities overnight,” Dr. Patel said, her expression grave.
“Why?” Aria demanded, her heart hammering against her ribs. “She was stable yesterday.”
“We’re running panels for acute infection, adverse drug reaction, and toxic exposure.”
Aria looked through the double-paned glass. Evelyn was conscious but visibly failing, her skin pale and grey beneath the harsh fluorescent lights.
“Toxic exposure?” Aria repeated. “She’s in a restricted private ward.”
“It is one possibility we cannot rule out given the speed of the organ failure.”
Damien arrived six minutes later.
Aria hadn’t called him, but his network was absolute.
“Who informed you?” she asked as he strode down the hallway, flanked by two bodyguards.
“The hospital’s high-risk alert system,” Damien said. His dark gaze swept over her face, instantly assessing her pale complexion. “What else happened?”
Aria closed her arm tightly over her purse, feeling the hard shape of the plastic tests inside. “Nothing.”
His eyes dropped to her left wrist. He knew she was lying, but he refrained from pressing her in the open corridor.
At noon, while Damien met with the chief of staff, Aria slipped away to the hospital’s basement chapel.
Augustus Blackthorne was waiting in the second pew, his silver-topped cane resting between his knees.
“You met my mother four years ago,” Aria said, stopping in the center aisle away from the chapel’s security cameras.
Augustus did not turn around. “She contacted me.”
“Why?”
“She believed someone had discovered Elias made a second copy of the financial ledger.”
“Did she give it to you?”
“No. She asked whether Damien was safe.”
Aria let out a cold, bitter laugh. “Safe for whom?”
“For you.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“That my grandson protects things through possession,” Augustus said, his voice measured. “Your mother found that preferable to Victor’s methods.”
Aria stepped closer, her jaw set. “Did you order my father’s death?”
Augustus looked toward the stained-glass altar. “I authorized an asset retrieval. Victor chose the driver.”
“You murdered him.”
“I allowed ambition to make another man’s life seem smaller than my family’s legacy.”
“That sounds carefully rehearsed.”
“Guilt usually is.”
Aria wanted to scream for the guards, but she needed answers to questions that had haunted the archives. “Who poisoned Damien’s mother?”
The question had come from notes she had unearthed in Damien’s private surveillance system—references to unexpected liver failure, sealed toxicology reports, and a death quietly classified as suicide.
Augustus’s composure cracked. He turned to look at her. “Is that what is happening to Evelyn?”
“Answer me!”
“Damien’s mother discovered the offshore weapons network,” Augustus revealed, his throat working. “She was administered low doses of aconitine over several weeks until her heart gave out.”
“By Victor?”
“By someone acting on behalf of the family.”
“You?”
“No.”
“Why should I believe a single word you say?”
“Because if the same poison has reached Evelyn,” Augustus whispered, “then Damien’s empire is already compromised from within.”
Aria rushed back to the ICU floor.
Dr. Patel was waiting beside the nurse’s station with preliminary lab sheets. “We found aconitine metabolites in your mother’s blood panel.”
The exact same poison.
Damien heard the words as he stepped off the elevator behind them.
The ambient light in the corridor seemed to dim around him as his expression turned to ice.
“Seal the floor,” Damien commanded Lucien quietly. “No one enters or leaves this facility.”
Aria turned to face him, her chin held high despite the terror clawing at her throat. “The last time you gave that command, you locked me in a cage.”
Damien walked up to her, stopping inches away. He reached down and took her hand, his long fingers interlacing with hers—firm, unyielding, but careful.
“This time,” Damien said, his eyes burning with absolute focus, “you’re staying beside me while I tear them apart.”