10. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
Wrenley
The air inside the greenhouse is thick, humid, it’s pressing down on my lungs. The scent is all memory, warm earth, wild vines, blooming jasmine clinging to the walls like old secrets. Nothing has changed since I was six years old, and lost my necklace among the ivy laced paths.
I take the chair across from him, letting the silence stretch. I’m good at silence. I’ve weaponized it. Let him squirm.
Liam’s voice slips into my ear, low and razor-sharp. “Don’t move to your right. I’ve got the shot lined up.”
I reach up, fingers gliding down the length of my braid like it’s nothing. Silent acknowledgement. I don’t look toward the roof, I don’t need to. He’s up there. I can feel it.
The man across from me tilts his head, studying me like I’m a puzzle he already knows the pieces to. There’s something familiar in his eyes, something that makes my stomach twist, but I can’t place it.
He reaches out a hand. “Sebastian Montclair. Nice to finally see you.”
Hugo lets out a low growl, deep and primal, the kind that says one wrong move ends in blood. I don’t take Sebastian's hand. Instead, I reach down and pat Hugo’s head with calm, deliberate control.
“Braver Hund,” I murmur. Good boy.
“So why the hell am I here, Sebastian?" I reply flatly.
He pulls his hand away, eyeing Hugo like he might lunge. “I have a business opportunity. For you and your husband, Mr. Blackwood.”
I scoff, folding my arms over my chest. “Do you always send old personal photos to people you want to do business with?”
“I apologize for that,” he says, smiling like it means something. “I just needed to ensure I had your attention.”
“Oh, you’ve got it,” I say coolly. “And just so you know, my husbands are very curious about your intentions.”
He flinches. “Husbands? Plural?” his brow lifts. “Well, now, I never thought you—”
“Choose your next words carefully,” I cut him off, my voice all ice. I lean in slightly. “I have no problem pulling out a knife and pinning your tongue to this table.”
There’s a beat of stunned silence. Then Max crackles in over the comms, smug and proud. “That’s my girl.”
Sebastian doesn’t react, he reclines in his chair. Calm, polished, and poised. He doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t try to fill the silence. He sits like someone who’s used to being obeyed. It reminds me of the way my mother would sit when she wanted the room to belong to her.
“You’ve built something impressive,” he says, swirling the tequila in his glass without taking a sip.
“The club. The connections. The influence. The family facade,” His eyes flick towards Hugo, then back to me.
“But it could be more. You have the perfect setup for distribution, discretion, clientele, protection. All you’re missing is product. ”
I don’t respond. I just watch him. Like a match waiting to be struck. He smirks, like my silence amuses him. “I’m talking about drugs, yes. But people too. The demand is there. High-end clients want more than a buzz these days.”
My spine goes rigid. Hugo growls low, sensing the shift in me.
Sebastian's gaze sharpens. “So righteous. Just like your beloved uncle. Benjamin always thought he could save the world one secret at a time.”
My jaw tightens.
He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. “But you… maybe you could still be mommy and daddy's princess and uphold the legacy were trying to create.”
My stomach turns. My parents were building everything but a legacy. I feel the heat rise up the back of my neck, but I don’t flinch. I don’t blink.
“Little warrior,” Liam’s voice breaks through the comm, grounding me. Steady. Commanding. “Don’t take the bait. He wants the reaction.”
Everything in me wants to leap across the table and make him choke on that name… that fucking name. I lean forward matching him, slow and deliberate, letting my smile grow sharp. “Call me that again and I’ll make sure your last breath tastes like blood.”
Sebastian’s smile wavers for the first time. Good.
I rise from my chair with lethal grace, my fingers brushing Hugo’s head. He straightens beside me, ready.
I stare Sebastian down. “I’m not that little girl from those photos.”
His expression stills, just enough to tell me I’ve landed the blow.
“I’m here because I chose to be,” I go on, voice razor-sharp. “Now I’m choosing to leave. We don’t traffic in narcotics, and we definitely don’t traffic in people.”
He smiles again, but it's thinner now. Tighter. “You’ll change your mind.”
I whistle once. Hugo moves immediately.
“Not a fucking chance. Let me be very clear, Sebastian. You run your world. I run mine. I think that’s best for both of us.”
He watches me, still smiling, but there’s something flickering in his eyes now.
Something wary. Good. Let him sit with that.
Let him feel the chill of someone who’s not afraid of him.
Because I’m not afraid. I’m ready. I walk out without looking back.
My heels are soft on the stone. My heartbeat isn’t.
“Wren,” Elias cuts in through the comms, calm and clipped. “Exterior’s clear. Bring her home, boys.”
The war room is buzzing, low voices, the scratch of pens, the faint hum of electronics. Max is by the whiteboard with Torque, discussing fallback positions. Elias is working on tracing the courier. I’m still half-steeped in the greenhouse, in Sebastian’s smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
The door opens. Margot strides in with her laptop tucked under one arm, her phone to her ear.
“Okay, Mom, love you too—talk next week.” She says, and hangs up.
She doesn’t even look up as she drops the laptop onto the table in front of Elias.
“Julie says hi,” she adds casually, still pulling something up on the screen. “But there’s more.”
Elias’s brow furrows. “More of what?”
“The first photo,” Margot says, looking at me. “The one with the necklace. It’s different from the others.”
My fingers tighten on the edge of the table. “What do you mean?”
“It’s smaller,” she says. “Like it was cut. Like something was cropped out of it. I remembered my mom was there that day—she was Wren’s nanny. I asked her if she had photos of that day.” She taps the trackpad. “She sent me this.”
The image loads slowly, then sharpens.
It’s the same photo. I’m little, wearing that pale blue dress and the tiny spinning compass necklace. There’s a faint smile on my face. Margot’s right beside me, barefoot in the grass. But now… there’s someone else. A boy around ten or eleven years old.
Elias leans forward, Wrecker peering over his shoulder. “Who the hell is that?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
Margot turns to me, biting her lip. “Babe…”
My chest tightens.
“That boy,” she says carefully, “Is your brother.”
The room goes dead silent. Like the air’s been sucked out of it. I stare at her like she’s sprouted horns, wings, a second head.
Liam moves fast, crossing to me like he already knows I’m going to fall, but I don’t want to. I won’t.
“I don’t have a brother,” I say, voice flat.
Margot shakes her head, her voice gentling.
“There are more. My mom told me things. She worked for your parents for years, Wren. She saw the bruises. She was there the night you almost drowned when you were one. When your arm was broken at three. She said they called it ‘falling down the stairs,’ but she didn’t believe it. ”
I can’t breathe.
“There were other incidents,” she continues.
“And, a week after this photo, something happened. Something big. My mom wouldn’t give details.
Just that you had a traumatic brain injury and she thought you were going to die.
After that… she never saw him again. Vivian and Charles never mentioned him. It was like he vanished.”
I turn away, not trusting my voice, not trusting the way the floor seems to be tilting.
Max takes a step toward me. I raise a hand.
“I need a minute,” I say. I walk out. Out of the war room, out into the garden.
The evening air hits my skin like water over an open flame.
I walk toward the big oak tree and stop, pressing my hands to my thighs like I might break in half.
I hear footsteps behind me. Liam. But he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t try to touch me. He’s just there. Waiting. In case I fall. And I love him for that. But I won’t fall. Not yet. Not for this. I don’t realize I started trembling until I look down and see my hands shaking.
“This is insane,” I whisper, turning toward Liam. My voice wavers, but I don’t back down from his gaze. “I remember my arm being in a cast… I don’t remember the stairs. But in the hospital, when I was six, I remember that.”
My voice drops, cracking open.
“They never told me why. Just that I was sick. But she didn’t tell me. Of course she wouldn’t”
Liam’s face is carved from stone, but his eyes, they’re soft, stormy.
“She hid it,” I say, “Because she always did. Vivian Ashford would rather erase a child than admit something was wrong in her perfect fucking house.”
Liam steps closer, his voice a low rumble. “That’s not on you. None of it. Whatever happened, you were a child.”
“I know,” I breathe, but it still feels like a bruise forming in my ribs.
The garden is too quiet. The sun is sinking behind the trees like judgment. My throat tightens.
“It was him,” I say suddenly. “Sebastian. It had to be. He hurt me. And back then…”
My lips press into a thin line before I force the words out.
“Back then, my father still liked me. He and Benjamin—they would’ve made her—get rid of him?”
Liam’s expression doesn’t change, but something in him sharpens, like he’s cataloging every detail, every bruise I never knew I had. His jaw ticks, and I can feel the shift in him, the weight of the man who never lets anything hurt what’s his.
He doesn’t say I’m sorry. He doesn’t say it’s over. And that… that’s enough. For now.