Chapter 862
“We have the Sterling Sapphire,” Skye said, touching her pocket. “And the Kensington Ruby.”
“That leaves two,” Julian mused. “The Four Families: Sterling, Kensington, Vance, and Thorne.”
“Vance is Wind,” Skye recalled — the old nursery rhyme her father used to hum. Emeralds for the wind that blows. “Julian?”
“I’m looking at it right now,” Julian said. “My grandmother’s brooch. The Emerald. I never understood why she forbade anyone from cleaning it. It has the marking.”
“That leaves one,” Alistair said, his voice dropping an octave. “Thorne.”
Skye looked at him. “The Yellow Diamond. The Sun’s Tear.”
𝘚𝘩a𝗋е у𝗼𝘂𝗋 𝖿𝖺v𝗼𝘳𝗂𝘵e𝘴 f𝘳𝗼𝗆 𝘨𝘢𝗅𝘯о𝘷𝖾𝗅𝘀.𝖼о𝘮
Alistair shook his head. “I’ve never seen it. My grandfather said it was stolen forty years ago. By a trusted business partner who turned rival.”
“Who?” Skye asked.
“Arthur Sterling,” Alistair said.
The name hung in the air like smoke.
Skye felt the blood drain from her face. “My uncle? He stole your family’s legacy?”
“It explains the feud,” Lucian noted dryly. “And why Arthur was always so paranoid about the Thorne family coming for his assets.”
“If Arthur stole it,” Skye reasoned, pacing the room, “he would have hidden it somewhere. He was a hoarder — he never threw anything away. But we’ve turned his estate upside down.”
“Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place,” Alistair suggested. “Arthur had shell companies. Off-book storage.”
Skye turned back to the window, her mind racing. She stared down at the street below, watching traffic crawl through the rain. Her eyes caught movement on a large digital billboard across the intersection. It was usually cycling through advertisements, but for a split second, the screen flickered in a way that wasn’t a glitch. It was a pattern.
“Lucian,” Skye snapped. “Hack the billboard on 5th and Main. Now.”
“On it,” Lucian tapped furiously. “What am I looking for?”
“Someone is trying to signal us,” Skye said.
The billboard flickered again, this time resolving into a grainy security feed from a street corner. A figure was stumbling down the sidewalk, soaking wet, wearing a tattered trench coat. He wasn’t holding a sign or begging — he was moving with a strange, lurching gait, bumping into lampposts.
Skye squinted. The man looked up at the camera, his eyes vacant, his face gaunt.
“That’s not a drunk,” Skye whispered. “That’s Parker.”
“Parker?” Alistair moved to the window. “Parker Hayes? He’s supposed to be in a cell in Nevada.”
“They let him go,” Skye said, grabbing her coat. “Or they dumped him here. He’s sending a distress signal through the traffic network. It’s his signature.”
“It’s a trap,” Alistair warned.
“We have to go.” Skye was already moving. “If that’s Parker, he knows where Victoria is.”
“Wait,” Lucian said sharply. “He’s not just walking. Look at where he’s heading.”
On the screen, Parker collapsed against a rusted chain-link fence. The sign above him read: Hayes Industrial Salvage — a defunct subsidiary of Sterling Enterprises.
“The Junkyard,” Skye realized. “Arthur’s old scrap yard. Parker isn’t just escaping. He’s leading us to the Diamond.”