Chapter 4 Bloodlines

Chapter 4 - Bloodlines

POV: Ares Valen

Damien's voice slices through the static of my thoughts as I pour whiskey into a crystal tumbler in the family study.

"That girl? She's hiding something."

I don't flinch, don't respond right away. Instead, I stare at the swirling amber liquid, letting his words hang in the thick air like gun smoke.

Damien stands by the fireplace, the flames casting shadows across his face, making him look more like the devil than a father. He's not wrong to be suspicious. He never is. But I hate how he always says it like he's enjoying the idea of someone betraying me.

"Ivy?" I finally say, taking a sip. "You're wrong."

He chuckles low. "Since when do you defend women you barely know?"

"She's not just anyone."

"Exactly." His eyes flick up to meet mine, sharp, calculated. "She's gotten under your skin too fast. She's either naive... or calculated. And we don't allow either into this house."

I hold his gaze. My jaw tightens. "This house?" I echo, with a smirk. "You mean your prison, old man?"

Damien doesn't react. He never does. He's used to my venom by now.

"You're not thinking clearly," he says coolly. "She's made you sloppy. Soft."

I take another slow sip and swallow my urge to lash out. Not here. Not yet.

"She's not the one you should be worried about," I say, setting the glass down on the bar cart. "Your enemies are circling."

"And I always smell them first," he says. "Which is why I'm telling you now-watch her. You don't know where she came from."

Neither do you, I think.

But I do.

I've already begun to dig.

One Day Earlier

Ivy curled against my side in my bed, her body still damp from the hours we spent tangled in each other. Her breathing was slow, steady, as if she trusted me. As if she was safe here.

She wasn't.

She would never be safe with me.

Her hand had found my chest in the dark, splayed over my heart like it belonged there.

I watched her while she slept, memorizing every curve of her lips, every flicker of vulnerability she tried so hard to hide. She was beautiful-deadly, even. And there was something about her I couldn't shake.

She knew how to manipulate. How to pretend.

That was what made her dangerous.

I didn't trust her. I couldn't. But I needed her.

Because I had my own plans. My own war to wage. And Ivy was the perfect pawn in a game I intended to win.

Present Day

I leave Damien in the study without another word and head down the east hallway, past the portraits of my ancestors-men with cold eyes and colder legacies. I don't stop until I'm in my private office. Soundproof. Secure.

I log into the encrypted terminal and pull up the report.

Ivy's background doesn't add up. Her official file looks too clean. No record before the age of nineteen. No family. No school. Just... a name. A shadow.

I open the folder labeled Contingency: Ivy, and a dozen surveillance images spill across the screen-her arriving at our estate, her meeting with our staff, even one of her speaking to a woman in a public restroom on a Tuesday afternoon.

I zoom in on her eyes in one of the photos.

Too sharp.

Too focused.

She's not some lost girl.

She's a weapon.

But who sent her?

And why did she choose me?

Flashback: Thirteen Years Ago

I was ten the night my mother died.

She was supposed to pick me up from piano lessons. I waited by the window for hours, clutching my sheet music, watching the shadows get longer.

When the car finally pulled into the driveway, it wasn't her behind the wheel. It was Damien.

His suit was soaked in rain. His eyes were cold. He didn't speak. Just opened the door, told me to get in.

I knew before I asked.

Something in his silence told me she was gone.

Later, I found out how. A car bomb-targeted for him, but she was the one who climbed in first. Her lungs burned alive while he sat in a meeting room, barking orders to men who would die for him.

I never cried.

Not once.

Instead, I swore I'd never let someone close enough to become a weakness.

Until Ivy.

That Night

Ivy walked into my office like she owned it, wearing one of my shirts and nothing else.

"You weren't in bed," she said softly.

I didn't look up from the screen. "Didn't feel like sleeping."

She walked around behind me and slid her hands onto my shoulders. "Everything okay?"

I closed the laptop.

"It will be," I said, turning to her.

Her eyes searched mine, and for a second-just one-I thought maybe she really cared.

Then I remembered Damien's voice: She's hiding something.

And mine replied: So am I.

Later That Week

My contact in Prague-an expert in forging and unmasking identities-sends me a secured message. It pings my burner phone as I'm dressing for a meeting with one of our shipping partners.

Encrypted document attached.

I freeze in the middle of buttoning my shirt.

I open the file.

Subject: Ivy Laurent - Real Identity: Classified. Confirmed alias. Birth records located. Real name: Isadora "Ivy" Sinclair Mother: Evelyn Sinclair Father: Deceased.

My blood runs cold.

Sinclair.

I knew that name.

I remember the case-years ago. A failed raid. A woman found dead in a bathtub. Family wiped out, or so they thought.

So.

She wasn't random.

She wasn't naive.

She was here for blood.

And she had chosen me as the blade.

The phone rings.

Unknown number. Scrambled signal.

I answer. My voice is ice.

"Talk."

A man on the other end speaks with calm precision. "We have her birth certificate."

Silence.

"She's not who she says she is, Mr. Valen."

I don't blink. I don't breathe.

"She's Sinclair 's daughter."

And just like that, every inch of my world fractures.

I hang up.

My fingers tighten into fists as I stare at the framed photo of me and Ivy from last weekend-a perfect lie caught in a snapshot.

I know what I have to do.

But the part of me that still feels her kiss on my skin?

That part hesitates.

And hesitation in this family?

It's lethal.