Chapter 10: A Fire in the Veins
She didn't sleep.
Didn't try.
She spent the hours before dawn staring out the second-floor window of the estate, the papers spread across her lap, lit only by the cold glow of her phone screen.
Celine had enrolled in something.
A drug trial? A chemical experiment? A legacy program wrapped in corporate secrecy? The documents didn't say exactly what the Blackthorns were developing.
But the outcome was clear.
When Celine tried to walk away, they didn't let her.
Elara had suspected it.
But now she knew.
And knowing didn't make her feel powerful.
It made her feel ill.
When the first cracks of sunlight bled through the clouds, she found Caelum in the conservatory.
He stood alone, shirt sleeves rolled, collar undone, staring into a row of dead orchids like they might tell him what he wanted to hear.
She stepped into the room.
He turned.
No words.
She held up the file.
His face didn't change.
"You knew," she said.
Caelum didn't speak.
"She didn't trip," Elara whispered. "She didn't lose control of her car. She didn't fall. You let it happen."
Still, silence.
"I found the archive," she said, voice rising. "I saw the records. You watched her sink into that legacy and you didn't stop it."
He finally moved—slowly, deliberately, as if trying to weigh how far she would go.
"You don't understand—"
"Then make me."
His jaw flexed. His voice, when it came, was quieter than she expected.
"She wasn't supposed to be on the protocol," he said. "It was experimental. Black-label. Reserved for internal candidates only. But she—Celine—"
He paused.
"Celine lied. She forged her qualifications. Got in through Alec."
Elara stared at him, stunned. "Why?"
"She wanted leverage. Proof of what we were doing. Something she could use. She said she wanted justice. But what she wanted was power."
"She wanted the truth," Elara shot back. "And it nearly killed her."
Caelum's gaze fell to the floor.
Then he said, so softly she almost didn't hear it—
"I told her to stop."
A long pause.
Then, even softer:
"She told me to burn it all down."
She didn't speak.
Not right away.
Caelum's words hung in the air like smoke that wouldn't clear—suffocating, stubborn, impossible to ignore.
"She told me to burn it all down."
Elara's hands tightened at her sides. The file felt heavier now. Like it had teeth.
"Why didn't you?" she asked, her voice brittle.
"Because I didn't know who deserved the fire," Caelum said quietly.
"You're lying."
He looked at her.
"No. I'm just not telling you what you want to hear."
He crossed the conservatory, stopping just short of her. Not too close. Not yet.
"She came to me with the results," he said. "Her own body was reacting faster than anyone else's. Higher cognitive thresholds. No side effects—at first. But the paranoia started creeping in. Insomnia. Auditory hallucinations. Emotional instability."
"She was scared," Elara said.
"No," Caelum said. "She was furious. Because she realized she'd given something up and couldn't get it back."
"What?"
Caelum hesitated.
"Agency. Autonomy. Identity. The protocol didn't erase who she was. It sharpened it. She didn't sleep. She didn't trust anyone. She couldn't stop testing boundaries—even mine."
"And you let her spiral?"
"I tried to pull her out."
"Bullshit," Elara snapped. "You stood by and watched."
His voice dropped to a near-whisper.
"I loved her."
The silence shattered between them.
Elara took a step back, like the words had struck her physically.
"You what?"
Caelum didn't repeat himself.
But he didn't need to.
Elara's heart slammed against her ribs.
"Is that why you're doing this to me?" she asked. "Is that what this marriage is? Some sick, broken replacement for—"
"No," Caelum said. "You're nothing like her."
"That's not comforting."
"It wasn't meant to be."
His eyes burned now—not with anger.
With memory.
"With Celine, I was trying to protect a secret," he said. "With you… I'm trying to stop a war."
Elara didn't move.
Didn't speak.
But something inside her shifted.
Because for the first time since they'd signed the contract, she didn't know who was holding the match—and who was already on fire.
The war wasn't a metaphor anymore.
It was real.
And it had a paper trail.
Elara waited until Caelum left the conservatory—silent, haunted, something unfinished burning behind his eyes. Then she returned to the file she'd taken from the basement.
She spread the documents across her bed, smoothing each one out until the pages formed a map of fragments. Names. Codes. Pseudonyms.
One name appeared over and over again—but never fully.
"M." "—el Moreau." "—. Moreau, Internal Liaison."
She froze.
She knew that name.
Alec's last name.
She flipped back to the trial report. The final approval signature had been redacted—blacked out, the ink scrubbed with digital software.
But someone had missed something.
In the corner, in microscopic print, a metadata line from the printer:
Auth. M. Moreau / Office 6C / Internal Dev. Archive
Her pulse leapt.
Alec hadn't just vouched for Celine.
He'd signed her in.
He was part of it. Not just a bystander. Not just a witness.
A gatekeeper.
Elara stood, heart racing.
This wasn't just about Caelum.
This was about what Celine was trying to expose—and who had helped her get close enough to be destroyed.
She pulled on a coat, stuffed the file into a satchel, and left the room.
It was time for Alec to answer some questions.
And this time, she wasn't asking nicely.
The halls were quiet when Elara made her way through the mansion, her steps deliberate and heavy with urgency. The weight of the file at her side felt like a stone in her gut, and every inch of the house seemed to stretch further as she moved toward Alec's office.
The house wasn't just an estate anymore. It was a labyrinth of secrets—and Alec had been the one who had shown her the first thread to pull. Now she had to follow it all the way through, no matter where it led.
She found him sitting at his desk, as usual, his back to the door, staring at his computer screen.
He didn't hear her approach.
But she didn't need him to.
Elara opened the door with a quiet force, slamming it shut behind her.
Alec spun in his chair, his eyes widening as he saw her standing there, breath sharp and angry. He knew, even before she said anything.
"Celine's files," she said, holding the satchel up. "Care to explain?"
Alec's gaze dropped to the bag, then slowly rose back to her face. He didn't look surprised, but the tension in his posture was unmistakable.
"What exactly did you think you were going to find in there?" His voice was calm, almost too calm.
"I think you're involved in something much worse than you've been letting on." Her tone was cold, steady. She wasn't afraid to ask the questions now. "You signed her in, Alec. You knew what she was walking into."
Alec stood slowly, his hands curling into fists at his sides. His jaw clenched as he met her gaze.
"You don't understand what you're talking about, Elara," he said, his voice tight. "Celine wasn't some innocent little lamb. She was a liability. And I—"
"You don't get to tell me she was a liability." Elara's voice rose, sharp as a knife. "She was my sister. And you betrayed her."
The air between them crackled with the weight of the accusation. Alec's face twisted, a mix of guilt and frustration flashing in his eyes. He stepped forward, but Elara didn't back down.
"I didn't betray her," Alec muttered. "I tried to protect her."
"From what? From herself?" She took a step closer, her fists clenched at her sides. "No. You protected yourself. You protected the Foundation. You protected Caelum."
"Caelum—" Alec shook his head, his voice hardening. "You think he was the one pulling the strings in all of this? You think he made her sign up for the trial? You have no idea what you're dealing with."
"I know exactly what I'm dealing with, Alec." Her voice trembled with the fury she was trying to suppress. "I know who you are. And I know who you were to her."
Alec's face twisted in a way Elara had never seen before—fury and regret mixed together, like two poisons in his veins.
"I loved her," he hissed. "I loved her more than you'll ever understand. But I couldn't stop what was happening. And I couldn't stop her. You think this is about power, Elara? It's about survival. It's about control. You think the Blackthorns are the ones with all the answers? They're the ones who started it all, but we are the ones who had to clean up the mess."
Elara's stomach lurched, her thoughts spinning. "Clean up the mess? By using her? By pushing her into something that destroyed her?"
Alec didn't respond immediately. His eyes darkened, his hands balling into fists.
"Celine was never meant to survive," he muttered, almost to himself. "None of us were."
Elara's breath caught in her throat.
"None of us?"
Alec didn't look at her as he spoke again, his voice low, like a confession.
"Celine was always the test subject. But the Foundation? They'd already moved on. They had a new project. And Caelum… he wasn't the one keeping the real secrets. I was."
Elara's mind raced, but the words didn't make sense. She shook her head, trying to piece them together.
"You... You were the one who authorized the final trials. You let her get too far into it. And now, Caelum…" She shook her head again. "What are you trying to tell me?"
Alec closed his eyes, a shadow crossing his face. When he spoke again, it was quieter, as though he had already given up on any hope of redemption.
"Caelum didn't want her in the trials. He fought for months to keep her out. But I…" He swallowed hard, "I had to protect her from everything else. Even if it meant letting her fall into their hands."
The silence stretched.
Elara's pulse thundered in her ears as Alec's words unraveled everything she thought she knew. The rage she'd carried—focused like a blade at Caelum—suddenly had no edge.
It had no target.
Because the real enemy hadn't been the man she married.
It was the one still standing behind the curtain.
"Who?" she asked. The word barely escaped her lips. "Who's running it now?"
Alec didn't look at her.
He walked to the bar in the corner, poured a measure of bourbon with hands that trembled, then downed it in one long swallow.
When he finally turned, his eyes were hollow.
"There's a division within the Foundation," he said. "Something even Caelum couldn't touch. It was started by Richard, but it's been reshaped—refined."
Elara's breath caught. "By who?"
"Genevieve Crane."
The name hit her like a slap.
The woman from the gala.
The one with too many teeth and no shadow behind her smile.
"She runs the silent board," Alec said. "The one Caelum thinks he dismantled. But he didn't. He was never their heir. He was their distraction."
Elara's fingers dug into her palm. "And Celine?"
"Celine found out. About the hidden trials. The off-book testing. She traced it to the estate. She got too close to the funding channel. And when she threatened to go public—"
He stopped.
"You let them silence her," she said.
Alec's silence was all the answer she needed.
She backed away.
Slowly. Carefully.
The fire in her chest wasn't fury anymore.
It was clarity.
"Caelum never wanted a wife," she whispered. "He wanted a weapon."
Alec nodded once.
"He just hoped you'd point yourself in the right direction."