Chapter 6 - Blood Is Not Loyalty
The words hung inside Celeste Voss’s bedroom like smoke.
Samuel Cross murdered Adrian’s older brother.
Maya could hear her heartbeat.
Nothing else.
She looked at Adrian.
His face had gone unreadable.
Not because he felt nothing.
Because he felt too much.
“Older brother?” Maya whispered.
“Elijah,” Adrian said.
“You never told me you had one.”
“He died when I was seventeen.”
Maya looked at Elena.
Her sister had tears in her eyes.
“You knew?”
“Maya—”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt more than Maya expected.
She stepped backward.
“All these years?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Everybody keeps doing horrible things to me and calling it protection.”
Celeste gave a soft laugh.
Adrian’s gun snapped toward her.
“This is not amusing.”
“No,” Celeste replied. “It’s tragic. You’ve spent your life hunting the man responsible for Elijah’s death, and now his daughter falls directly into your arms.”
Maya looked at Adrian.
The memory hit brutally.
Wet floor.
His hand around her waist.
Her palms against his chest.
Eleven days ago, it had been ridiculous.
Now it felt like the first move in a game everyone understood except her.
“Did you know?” Maya asked.
“No.”
Adrian answered instantly.
“Did you know who my father was?”
“No.”
“Did Marco?”
“No.”
Marco shook his head.
Maya looked at Elena.
“Tell me.”
Her sister closed her eyes.
“Our mother met Samuel Cross before she met the man we called Dad.”
“Called?”
“Thomas Bennett adopted you when you were a baby. He loved you like you were his.”
Maya’s eyes burned.
“And Samuel?”
“Didn’t know you existed at first.”
“At first.”
Elena hesitated.
“He found out when you were twelve.”
Maya remembered being twelve.
Their mother crying behind a locked bedroom door.
Strange phone calls.
Moving apartments.
Thomas Bennett already dead by then.
“How?”
“He started contacting Mom. Wanted to see you.”
“And she said no?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Samuel was dangerous.”
Celeste laughed again.
“Dangerous is polite.”
Maya ignored her.
“What happened when I was sixteen?”
Elena looked down.
“Samuel died.”
“How?”
Adrian answered.
“Viktor Soren killed him.”
Maya stared.
“So Soren murdered my biological father?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Power.”
Adrian’s tone was cold.
“After Elijah died, Samuel tried to leave Soren’s organization. Soren believed he was going to defect.”
Maya looked from Adrian to Celeste.
“And Samuel killed Elijah?”
Adrian’s expression tightened.
“That’s what I was told.”
Celeste’s hand shifted almost imperceptibly around the pistol.
Maya noticed.
So did Adrian.
“Put the gun down.”
His mother smiled.
“You’re still missing the obvious question.”
“What?”
“If Samuel Cross murdered Elijah, why did your father secretly employ Samuel’s daughter?”
The room fell silent.
Maya looked at Elena.
Adrian’s eyes sharpened.
Elena stared at Celeste with hatred.
“No.”
Celeste tilted her head.
“Elena.”
“Don’t.”
“You’ve kept so many secrets. Surely one more won’t matter.”
Adrian turned toward Elena.
“What did my father know?”
Elena’s mouth trembled.
“Everything.”
“About Samuel?”
“Yes.”
“Why would he hire you?”
“Because…”
Elena looked at Maya.
Then at Adrian.
“Because Samuel Cross didn’t kill Elijah.”
Adrian did not move.
The entire room seemed to contract around them.
“What?”
Elena swallowed.
“Your father discovered the truth years later.”
Adrian’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“What truth?”
“Samuel was blamed.”
Celeste raised her weapon.
Everything happened at once.
Elena shouted.
Adrian moved.
Marco fired.
The gunshot deafened Maya.
Celeste’s pistol fell.
Blood appeared across her upper arm.
Adrian crossed the room and kicked the weapon away.
Marco restrained her.
Maya ran to Elena and began tearing at the ropes.
Her fingers shook.
“Elena.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not.”
“I will be.”
Maya freed one wrist.
Then the other.
Elena stood.
For one second, neither sister moved.
Three years stood between them.
Three years of anger.
Fear.
Abandonment.
Then Maya slapped her.
Everyone froze.
Elena touched her cheek.
Maya burst into tears and threw both arms around her.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I hate you so much.”
“I know.”
“You left me.”
Elena held her tighter.
“I know.”
“You absolute psychopath.”
“I’m sorry.”
Maya cried against her shoulder.
Then whispered:
“Never again.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Never again.”
Across the room, Adrian stood over his mother.
“Who killed Elijah?”
Celeste looked at him.
For the first time, fear appeared.
Not fear of prison.
Fear of losing him.
“Adrian—”
“Who?”
Elena released Maya.
“Dante.”
Adrian slowly turned.
Maya stared.
Elena continued.
“Dante was twenty-three. He worked for Viktor Soren then.”
Marco looked stunned.
“That doesn’t make sense. Dante has been with Adrian almost fifteen years.”
“He changed sides after Elijah died.”
Adrian’s face became pale.
“My father hired him.”
“Because Dante convinced him he wanted out,” Elena said. “But it was a lie. Soren planted him inside the Voss organization.”
Adrian looked at Celeste.
“And you knew.”
His mother said nothing.
“You knew.”
“I discovered it later.”
“When?”
She looked away.
“When your father began investigating.”
Adrian’s voice hardened.
“That’s why you killed him.”
Celeste’s silence became confession.
Maya suddenly understood.
“Your father discovered Dante killed Elijah. He discovered Celeste had been financing Soren. He was going to expose all of them.”
Elena nodded.
“And Celeste arranged his death first.”
Adrian looked as though the ground beneath his life had disappeared.
Father murdered by his mother.
Brother murdered by his most trusted adviser.
Fifteen years of loyalty built on a lie.
Maya walked toward him.
“Adrian.”
He stepped away.
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
His expression was terrible.
Not anger toward her.
Shame.
“I brought you into this.”
“You didn’t.”
“My family did this to yours.”
“And apparently mine did things to yours.”
“That changes nothing.”
“It changes everything.”
He looked at her.
Maya took one step closer.
“My biological father did terrible things. Maybe your brother believed terrible things. Your mother committed crimes. Elena lied to me.”
Elena started to protest.
Maya held up one hand.
“We’re doing that later.”
Then she looked at Adrian.
“Blood explains where we came from. It doesn’t decide who we are.”
Something broke behind his eyes.
Maya touched his hand.
This time, he let her.
Police could not simply be called.
Not yet.
There were too many people involved, too many compromised officials, too much evidence needing duplication.
Adrian ordered Marco to move Celeste to the estate’s secure holding room until federal contacts could be reached safely.
Elena was examined by Adrian’s private doctor.
Dehydrated.
Bruised.
Two cracked ribs.
But alive.
At 5:14 a.m., Maya found Adrian standing alone on the mansion’s rear terrace.
Lake Michigan was turning silver beneath the first light.
“You disappeared.”
“So did you.”
“I was with Elena.”
“How is she?”
“She insulted the doctor twice, so probably improving.”
Adrian looked toward the water.
Maya stood beside him.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then he said:
“I spent twenty-one years wanting revenge for Elijah.”
“Against Samuel?”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“The man I trusted enough to stand beside me at every important moment killed him.”
Maya leaned against the railing.
“That has to feel impossible.”
“I keep replaying things.”
“What things?”
“Every warning Dante gave me. Every enemy he identified. Every man he told me not to trust.”
Maya understood.
“How much of your life did he shape?”
“Too much.”
He looked at her.
“And when you walked into that meeting…”
“What?”
“Dante was the first person I planned to call.”
“You did call him.”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe that’s why Luca moved so quickly. Dante knew I recognized Elena.”
Adrian nodded.
“He’s been controlling both sides.”
“And Soren?”
“Useful. Dangerous. But perhaps not the architect.”
Maya turned toward him.
“What happens now?”
“I get you and Elena somewhere safe.”
“What happens to you?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Maya.”
“No.”
She stepped in front of him.
“You keep deciding you’re expendable because you have money and guns and unresolved trauma.”
One eyebrow moved.
“Is that your professional diagnosis?”
“I clean bathrooms professionally.”
“Reassuring.”
“But I am excellent at recognizing messes.”
He almost smiled.
Maya’s voice softened.
“You matter too.”
Something changed between them.
Adrian reached up.
His fingers touched the small cut beside her temple.
Maya stopped breathing.
“You make this difficult.”
“What?”
“Thinking clearly.”
“That seems inconvenient for a criminal mastermind.”
“Very.”
His thumb moved gently along her cheek.
Maya’s heart pounded.
“Adrian.”
He lowered his forehead to hers.
“Tell me to stop.”
She did not.
His mouth brushed hers.
Once.
Soft.
Careful.
The last thing Maya expected from Adrian Voss.
She grabbed his shirt and kissed him properly.
Adrian made a low sound in his throat.
His hand went around her waist.
The kiss deepened.
All the fear and anger and adrenaline of the last two days collapsed into one impossible moment.
Then the mansion exploded.
The blast threw them both to the terrace floor.
Glass erupted from the windows.
Alarms screamed.
Adrian covered Maya with his body.
Smoke poured from the east wing.
“Elena!”
Maya tried to get up.
Adrian held her down until debris stopped falling.
Then Marco’s voice came over the security radio.
“Attack! Multiple vehicles at the north entrance!”
Gunfire started outside.
Adrian pulled Maya to her feet.
“Go to the safe room.”
“Elena is upstairs.”
“I’ll get her.”
“No.”
“Maya!”
A black SUV smashed through the garden gate.
Men poured out.
Not Soren’s people.
Maya recognized one of them from the old Voss files.
Dante.
He walked calmly through the smoke.
A detonator in one hand.
A gun in the other.
And beside him, dragged by the arm, was Elena.
Maya stopped.
“No.”
Dante pressed the weapon to Elena’s back.
Adrian raised his pistol.
Dante smiled.
“Morning, boss.”
“Let her go.”
“I don’t think so.”
Maya saw another person being pulled from the vehicle.
Celeste.
Her injured arm bandaged.
Her face furious.
Dante had freed her.
Or taken her.
Maya could not tell which.
Then Dante looked directly at Adrian.
“You finally learned the truth.”
Adrian’s voice was lethal.
“You killed my brother.”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
No shame.
Adrian’s hand tightened around the gun.
“And my father?”
Dante smiled.
“Your mother handled that one.”
Celeste flinched.
Dante continued.
“But don’t worry. I’m here to finish the family properly.”
He raised the detonator.
Adrian froze.
“There are six charges under this house.”
May you like
Dante’s smile widened.
“And Maya is standing directly over the biggest one.”
