The late afternoon sun filtered through the lace curtains in the library, casting golden patterns on the dark wood floor. I sat at the desk, poring over the mountain of documents Damien and I had amassed, my fingers aching from hours of flipping through brittle pages and scribbling notes. Despite the progress we'd made, one crucial piece of the puzzle remained missing: the will. Without it, everything was conjecture, a house of cards waiting to collapse.
The Blackwood fortune was not just money. It was legacy, power, and control—a tangled web that had ensnared my mother before me. I couldn't let it slip away, not after everything we'd uncovered.
I leaned back in the chair, rubbing my temples. My mind was a whirlwind of timelines and accusations. Damien was in another part of the mansion, meeting with an investigator he trusted, leaving me to sort through what remained of his family's records.
