Chapter 46 - Bloodlines and Betrayals
We reached the foothills of the Shenandoah Valley at dusk. Snow had begun to fall in heavy, silent flakes, coating the pine needles and the rusting husks of abandoned cars along Route 11.
Before we could begin the mountain ascent, Markus guided us off the secondary road toward an isolated farm estate hidden deep within a hollow. The estate had horses in the paddocks, wood smoke rising from a stone chimney, and warm candlelight flickering in the mullioned windows.
"We need fresh fuel and a route through the logging roads," Markus said. "The main pass to the facility will be guarded by Consortium contractors."
"Who lives here?" I asked, my hand instinctively resting on the pistol Graham had given me.
"Someone who knows your family better than you do," Markus replied cryptically.
The front door opened before we even reached the porch steps. A woman stood in the threshold, wrapped in a thick wool shawl, holding an old-fashioned double-barrel shotgun. When the lantern light fell across her face, my breath caught in my throat.
It was Lydia—my sister’s mother-in-law, the matriarch of the family whose lavish wedding Lily had shattered less than a month ago.
"Claire," Lydia said, her aristocratic voice stripped of all its high-society venom, leaving only exhaustion and bitter grief. "I wondered if you would make it past the sound."
"You?" I stepped forward, shielding Lily behind me. "Your family financed the yacht. Your son tried to marry my sister to bury Arthur’s evidence!"
"My son is a fool who thought he could play games with gods," Lydia snapped, lowering the gun slowly. "The Consortium murdered him twelve hours ago, Claire. They executed him in his penthouse the moment the servers went dark because he had failed to secure the flash drive."
May you like
Tears, real and burning, welled in her aged eyes. She turned and gestured toward the warm interior of the house.
"I didn't know they were going to burn the world down," she whispered, her voice breaking. "Arthur tried to warn me twenty years ago. I thought he was paranoid. Come inside before the cold kills the child."
