Chapter 923
Two days had passed since the extraction. Forty-eight hours of relentless rain that washed the soot from the burning Graves Manor into the churning ocean, yet failed to scrub the smell of smoke from Skye’s memory. The adrenaline of the escape had faded, replaced by a bruised, aching exhaustion that settled deep in her bones. She wanted to believe the worst was over. She wanted to believe that the hand that had held hers in the helicopter belonged to a man who had truly changed.
Skye stood outside the private medical suite at Oracle, taking a slow breath to steady herself. The corridor smelled of antiseptic and expensive lilies — a cloying, suffocating combination that stuck to the back of her throat. She adjusted her grip on the fruit basket she was holding. It was a ridiculous, ordinary gesture in a world that had gone insane, but she needed something to hold onto.
She pushed the door open with her hip.
Lucian Graves was sitting up in the hospital bed, his chest heavily bandaged. He didn’t look like a man who had just survived a war zone. He looked like a man who was about to start another one.
Skye set the basket on the side table. “I brought apples,” she said, her voice raspy. “They say an apple a day—”
“Save the pleasantries,” Lucian interrupted. His voice was gravel. He wasn’t looking at the fruit. He was looking at a manila folder resting on his lap. He picked it up and tossed it onto the end of the bed. It slid across the sterile white sheets and stopped inches from Skye’s hand. “Read it.”
Her heart did a slow, heavy thud against her ribs. “What is this?”
“Proof,” Lucian said, his eyes cold. “You think Liam Kensington is your savior? You think he crashed his car into that tanker just to get to you?” He let out a short, humorless laugh that ended in a wince of pain. “He’s not a savior, Skye. He’s a merchant. A transactionalist. And we are just inventory on his balance sheet.”
𝗥𝗼𝗺𝘢ոcе nо𝗏𝗲𝗹𝘴 𝗼n gа𝗹𝘯o𝗏𝗲𝗹s.𝖼𝗈m
Skye’s fingers trembled as she reached for the folder and opened it.
It was a printout of an encrypted internal memo from Kensington Global. The timestamp was from three days ago.
Subject: Threat Assessment — Thorne Estate Ambush. Status: Monitor Only. Action: Delay intervention until asset value is critical.
Skye read the words, but her brain refused to process them. The letters swam. “I don’t understand.”
“He intercepted the chatter,” Lucian said quietly. “Liam picked up signals that Silas was planning a strike on Grandpa Thorne’s birthday party. He may not have had the full picture, but he had enough to warn us. He didn’t. He waited. He calculated the risk and decided that letting Silas play his hand would destabilize the board enough for him to swoop in.”
“No,” Skye whispered. The paper crinkled under her grip. “If he knew, he would have stopped it. Grandpa Thorne… he died.”
“Collateral damage,” Lucian said. “Liam withheld the intel and let the pieces fall where they may while he waited. He knew that if he intervened too early, the Thorne family would remain independent. He needed you broken so he could be the only one to put you back together. He bought your gratitude with my grandfather’s blood.”
The door handle turned.