Page 46 of Knot Heirs: Serenity's Reign

"Cancer?" She'd been told it was an assassination, a bullet. "But?—"

"The cancer would have killed him eventually. Someone else simply... expedited matters." Lucian's clinical tone did nothing to soften the impact of his words. "He was making arrangements, preparing for an orderly transition. Someone didn't want that to happen."

Serenity's mind whirled with implications. If her father had been terminally ill, his meetings with these three Alphas had been calculated, desperate moves from a man racing againsttime. She leaned forward, her golden-red eyes fixed on Lucian's face, searching for deception.

"What did my father do for you?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper. "What debt could possibly be worth this level of commitment?"

Lucian's amber eyes darkened, something ancient and wounded flickering across his features before disappearing behind his carefully constructed mask.

"Your father saved my life when I was twenty-two," he said simply. "Not in the dramatic fashion of pulling me from a burning building, though that might have been kinder. He found me at my lowest point, when my family's financial empire was crumbling. The Blackthorn fortune, built over generations, had been gutted from within."

His fingers traced the rim of his whiskey glass. "Marcus provided evidence that exonerated me from accusations of embezzlement, identified the true culprits within The Society who had orchestrated my family's downfall, and then—" Lucian's mouth curved into a grim smile. "He taught me how to rebuild stronger, smarter, and far more ruthless than before."

"How magnanimous of him," Serenity said dryly.

"Oh, it wasn't charity. Your father never acted without purpose." Lucian's chuckle held no humor. "He recognized that my particular talents could be useful to him someday. That day came when he received his diagnosis."

Something in his tone caught her attention.

"This isn't just about paying a debt, is it?"

"No." His amber eyes locked with hers, intense and predatory. "The Society is rotting from within. The corruption that nearly destroyed me has only grown. Your father wanted it dismantled—not reformed, not cleaned up, but torn down to its foundations. His condition for our protection of you was our commitment to that goal."

The clarity of his purpose sent a chill through her. This wasn't the vague altruism she'd been expecting. This was personal, pointed, and deadly.

"And what do you get out of this arrangement, beyond the satisfaction of revenge?" she pressed.

Lucian's smile was slow, deliberate.

"Besides you, you mean?"

Heat flooded her cheeks, but she refused to look away.

"I'm not property to be acquired."

"No," he agreed. "You're far more valuable than property."

Before she could respond, Lucian reached inside his pristine white suit jacket and withdrew a slim leather folder. He set it on the table between them, his manicured fingers lingering on its surface before sliding it toward her.

"Everything you need to understand is in here."

Serenity hesitated, then reached for the folder. Her fingertips brushed against his, and the contact sent a jolt of awareness through her system. Even that brief touch triggered a lustful response to his Alpha presence—a reaction she'd spent years learning to suppress and yet that seems to go out the door with him, Ronan, and Darius, as usual.

She can only wonder if there’s an explanation for that, too.

"Financial records?" she asked, flipping through the first few pages. The documents were dense with numbers, accounts, and holdings—a complex network of transactions that seemed, at first glance, innocuous.

"Look closer," Lucian instructed. "Eight months ago, three days before your father's murder, forty million dollars was transferred from one of his secondary accounts through a series of shells. The money ultimately landed in an account registered to a shell corporation owned by Jonathan Ramirez."

"The Society's Treasurer," Serenity murmured, the implications clarifying. "My father was buying something. Or someone."

"Or he discovered something that required immediate damage control," Lucian countered. "The money vanished after his death. Ramirez had no explanation for the transfer when questioned by the board. He claimed a system error, a computer glitch. The matter was quietly dropped."

She turned another page, and her breath caught.

A photograph, slightly creased at the corners, showed four men standing in what appeared to be her father's study. Marcus Vale, distinguished in his sixties with silver-streaked dark hair and the same golden eyes she saw in her mirror each morning. Beside him stood Darius, imposing in his military bearing, Ronan, powerful frame dwarfing them all, and Lucian, elegant and watchful even then.

The date stamp in the corner placed the image at exactly thirteen months ago.

---