Chapter 6 - CELESTE’S BARGAINThe war room was not in my father’s estate.

I refused to go there.

It was not in a federal building either.

Agent Keene refused that.

So we built it in the top floor of a private medical recovery center owned by a shell foundation that, to my surprise and irritation, belonged to me.

“Another thing you forgot to mention?” I asked my father as two guards opened the elevator.

“You inherited it from your grandmother.”

“I inherited a hospital floor?”

“You inherited several.”

I stared at him.

He had the decency to look uncomfortable.

The room had been transformed overnight. Screens covered one wall. Legal files filled three tables. A secure medical bed stood in the center like a throne designed by a paranoid surgeon. My father’s analysts worked silently beside federal techs, each pretending not to distrust the other.

I sat down carefully.

Pain still owned my body, but rage had taken the steering wheel.

On the largest screen was the photograph of my daughter.

Unknown female. Approximately fifteen. Location unconfirmed.

I hated the word unknown.

“She has a name,” I said.

“We’re searching,” Keene replied.

“Search faster.”

One analyst cleared his throat. My father glared at him for breathing too loudly.

Then the doors opened.

Celeste Monroe entered wearing gray detention clothes, wrists cuffed in front of her.

Even without diamonds, she looked expensive.

She looked at the screens, then at me.

“So you know about the girl.”

My father stepped forward. “Her name.”

Celeste ignored him.

“She’ll speak to me,” I said.

My father reluctantly stepped back.

Celeste sat across from me. An agent remained behind her. Keene stood near the windows.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Protection.”

“From prison?”

“From Vivian.”

The room cooled.

“You worked for my mother.”

Celeste smiled faintly. “Everyone works for Vivian eventually. Some knowingly. Some because she arranges the walls until the only door leads to her.”

“You helped Nathan hurt me.”

“I helped Nathan believe hurting you was useful.”

“That distinction will not save you.”

“No,” she said. “But the truth might save your daughter.”

My hand tightened around the armrest.

Celeste saw it.

Good.

“What is her name?”

Celeste hesitated.

My father moved like he might cross the room and tear the answer out of her.

“Her name,” I repeated.

“Aurora,” Celeste said. “Aurora Vale Marchand.”

The name hit me like sunlight after years underground.

Aurora.

My daughter’s name was Aurora.

For one foolish, impossible second, I saw a baby wrapped in hospital white. A toddler reaching for me. A little girl asleep against my shoulder.

Then Celeste ruined the mercy of imagination.

“She doesn’t know you’re alive.”

The room went silent.

“She thinks I’m dead?”

“She was told you died in the crash. She was raised by Vivian under another identity.”

“What identity?”

“Rory Voss.”

Agent Keene wrote it down.

Celeste leaned forward. “Vivian keeps her close, but not as a granddaughter. As an heir.”

“To what?”

“To whatever your mother is building.”

My father’s voice was ice. “Where?”

Celeste looked at him.

“I give you Aurora’s location, Vivian kills me.”

“You think I won’t?”

“No,” Celeste said calmly. “I think you will. But you’ll do it quickly. Vivian won’t.”

I studied her.

For months, I had seen Celeste as Nathan’s mistress, his elegant cruelty with better posture. Now I saw something else beneath the polish.

Fear old enough to have roots.

“You’ll get protection after proof,” I said.

Celeste smiled. “You sound like your father.”

“No,” I said. “I sound like a mother.”

Her smile vanished.

Then she gave me three words.

“Lake Geneva Academy.”

My father went completely still.

Keene turned to the analysts. “Find it.”

One screen filled with records. Swiss private school. Restricted enrollment. Anonymous board. Heavy security. No public student photos after 2019.

Then an image loaded from an archived charity event.

A line of girls in formal uniforms.

At the end stood Aurora.

Older than the photograph.

Taller.

Seventeen now.

Alive.

My daughter was alive.

Before I could speak, every screen in the room went black.

A message appeared in white letters.

HELLO, LENA.

Then another.

COME ALONE.

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