Rain whispered across the glass ceiling like a secret too dangerous to speak aloud. The air inside was thick with the scent of crushed herbs and something darker—a bitter undertone of danger and decay.
Silas crushed the last nightshade berry between his fingers. The pulp burst in a slow, deliberate ooze, smearing crimson across his skin.
Like old blood.
"Veritas wasn't just a research project," he said, his voice low and measured, but weighted with memory. "It was a bioweapon."
Sienna froze. The half-burned will crinkled in her hand, the edges still singed, fragile as everything she thought she knew.
"My teacher would never—" she began, her voice tight with disbelief.
"He didn't know," Silas said, wiping his stained hands on a linen cloth, careful, as though even the remnants could poison. "He thought he was developing a cancer inhibitor. But the Lancasters... funded his lab through a shell foundation. They took everything. Twisted it. Repackaged his work for defense contracts."
Sienna's pulse roared in her ears.
A cure. Turned into a weapon.Truth, turned into silence.
"Why would your grandfather do that?" she whispered, almost to herself.
Silas gave a bitter smile, eyes cast downward. "Because power makes men gods. And gods don't ask for permission."
Thunder cracked overhead, so loud it rattled the glass.
Sienna moved closer, her breath fogging in the sudden drop of temperature. "Then this will—this piece of it—Veritas... It's not just about stock shares."
"It's leverage." Silas met her gaze. "Proof that someone in this family knew the truth and tried to bury it. If this document resurfaces, it implicates half the board."
"And if it disappears?"
He looked at the smoldering parchment. "Then so does the last chance to expose them."
Outside, a twig snapped.Sharp. Deliberate. Too close.
Silas stiffened instantly.
He reached over with one fluid motion and snuffed the lantern flame between his fingers.Darkness swallowed the room whole.
Sienna's breath caught.
Then—his hand found hers.
He leaned in, close enough that his breath warmed her cheek.
"They're watching us."His voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of a thousand locked doors.
Sienna turned her head slightly, their foreheads nearly touching now.
"Who?" she mouthed, barely audible.
Silas's lips brushed her ear as he answered, and the words made her stomach drop.
"Not just Joyce. Not just the board.Everyone."
They weren't just living in a house of secrets.
They were sleeping in it.Eating in it.Married into it.
And the walls had eyes.