So that was what I did.
At sunrise, Nathaniel entered the nursery.
He stood beside Samuel’s crib.
“The stolen heir,” he murmured.
“No,” I said.
He looked at me.
I touched Samuel’s tiny foot.
“Just my son.”
Nathaniel smiled.
Then his face changed.
“What?” I asked.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out something small.
A silver key.
“Calloway kept this around my neck until I was fifteen,” he said. “He said it opened the last Ashford secret.”
My father stepped into the doorway.
His face drained of color.
Nathaniel looked between us.
“What does it open?”
My father whispered, “Your grandfather’s vault.”
PART 8 — THE VAULT THAT CHOSE EVELYN
The vault was beneath Ashford House.
I had lived above it my entire childhood and never known.
Behind the wine cellar, beyond a false stone wall, down a narrow staircase carved into the old foundation, stood a steel door older than most banks and cleaner than a surgical blade.
