Chapter 4 What Blood Knows

The morning sun felt too bright for the things she now knew.

Veronica sat on the edge of her bed, still clutching Elara's letter. She had read it six times. Memorized the curves of each letter, the desperation dripping from the ink. The truth it implied was enough to shatter her world - but it was only the beginning.

She wasn't Charlotte's daughter.

That single possibility shook her to her core.

Her body had once belonged to shadows, to pain, to the cruel silence Charlotte called parenting. But now she wondered if the woman who raised her hadn't just been emotionally absent - but entirely foreign.

A stranger.

A thief.

A killer?

The ruby pendant rested against her collarbone like a heartbeat she couldn't calm. Blood remembers. The phrase repeated itself in her mind like a cursed lullaby.

She needed answers.

And not from Aiden this time.

Veronica waited until Charlotte left for her afternoon charity luncheon - the same one she attended every Thursday like clockwork - then snuck into her mother's forbidden wing of the house. That's what she called it: The Forbidden Wing.Locked drawers. Keypad safes. A whole section of the mansion that Charlotte had declared off-limits for Veronica her entire life.

The door was always locked.

But not today.

Aiden had "borrowed" Charlotte's keys weeks ago and secretly made duplicates.

"I thought you might want to burn the place down someday," he had said, handing her the spare key like a weapon.

She never expected to use it this soon.

The study was immaculate - too clean, too controlled. Not a speck of dust on the polished mahogany furniture. Family portraits on the walls, except none included Veronica. No baby photos. No school certificates. Nothing that ever hinted she belonged.

Like she was never part of their story at all.

She started with the locked drawers. One by one, she opened them - finding old real estate deeds, business contracts, photographs of Charlotte at society galas, smiling beside powerful people. But no mention of Elara.

Until she found the leather box.

Tucked beneath a stack of tax records, the box was bound with a satin ribbon - pale gold, faded with time. Her hands trembled as she untied it.

Inside were photographs.

Old. Slightly curled at the edges.

The first was of Charlotte... and another woman.

Elara.

Veronica knew instantly. Same eyes. Same smile. Same bone structure she saw in the mirror every morning.

But what chilled her wasn't the resemblance - it was the way Charlotte held Elara in the picture. Close. Familiar. Intimate.

They weren't strangers.

They weren't rivals.

They were sisters.

Veronica's breath caught.

Sisters.

"Elara was Charlotte's sister," she whispered aloud, her voice shaking. "Not just Raymond's mistress."

Which meant... if Elara was her mother, and Charlotte her aunt...

She dropped the box. The photos scattered across the floor like ghosts escaping a coffin.

What the hell had she been raised in?

That evening, she told Aiden everything.

They sat beneath the old oak tree in the garden, hidden from view. He listened silently, hands folded, expression unreadable.

When she finished, she could barely breathe.

"She was her sister, Aiden. My mother. Elara. That's why Charlotte kept me. She didn't kill her out of jealousy... she did it because of shame. Or revenge. Or something else entirely."

Aiden was quiet for a long moment.

Then he said, "You know what this means, right?"

Veronica looked at him.

"You were never meant to exist. Your entire life was a secret. An embarrassment. Charlotte kept you hidden because you were proof of something she tried to erase."

Veronica's lips trembled. "She raised me like a prisoner."

"Because you reminded her of the one person she hated most."

Silence.

Aiden reached out, brushing a tear from her cheek with his thumb. "But I see you, Veronica. I always have."

And then he kissed her again.

But this time, it wasn't fire.

It was madness.

Raw. Unhinged. Desperate.

Their mouths crashed, not from lust - but from need. The need to survive. To feel something other than betrayal. To possess each other completely, even if it destroyed them.

His hands tangled in her hair. Hers fisted his shirt.

She should've stopped.

But she didn't.

She wanted to be ruined. By him. With him.

Later, they lay in the grass, tangled in silence.

"What if we're wrong?" she asked. "What if Elara didn't die? What if she's still out there?"

Aiden turned toward her, expression dark.

"Then we find her."

Veronica nodded slowly.

But a tiny voice whispered inside her: Or maybe she doesn't want to be found.

That night, while brushing her hair, Veronica noticed something tucked inside the lining of her vanity drawer. A small envelope. Unmarked.

Inside was a single newspaper clipping. Old. Yellowed.

The headline read:

"Unidentified Woman Found Dead in River - Suspected Suicide."

Veronica stared at the blurred photo.

The woman's face was water-damaged, but the pendant was visible.

The ruby.

Her ruby.

And scrawled on the back of the article in unfamiliar handwriting:

She didn't drown. She was silenced. And someone you trust helped do it.

The walls of her life cracked.

Suddenly, everyone was suspect.

Charlotte.

Raymond.

Even-

No.

Not Aiden.

She couldn't afford to doubt him.

But her heart was already trembling with the first pulse of uncertainty.