Chapter 9 - The Bloodline Secret
"Arthur! Break the rear pantry door!" I yelled, coughing against the suffocating soot.
My father grabbed an iron Dutch oven from the stove and hurled it through the glass panes of the kitchen garden door. Glass shattered, and cool marsh air rushed in, momentarily parting the smoke.
I shoved my father through the opening first, tumbling out onto the dew-soaked grass just as a deafening explosion ripped through the living room behind us—the old cedar beams giving way under the intense heat.
We fell into the mud, gasping for air, our lungs burning.
Behind us, Thomas stepped out from the shadows of the tree line. In his right hand, he held a stainless-steel flare gun, the barrel still smoking.
"You always were remarkably stubborn, Claire," Thomas said, his voice smooth, unaffected by the carnage around him. "Lauren was right about one thing. You never knew when to just stay down."
"Thomas!" Arthur wheezed, struggling to stand on his unsteady knees, his face black with soot. "What have you done? You're killing your own sister! Your own father!"
Thomas chuckled, a sound devoid of humanity. "Father? You’re not my father, Arthur. Did Eleanor really keep that secret from you all these years?"
Arthur froze, paralyzed in the mud. "What are you talking about?"
"Robert Sterling is my father," Thomas said casually, tilting his head toward the burning cottage. "Grandmother found out right before she died. That's why she wrote that vicious little amendment into the family trust—stipulating that only her *biological* grandchildren would inherit the real estate. Claire is the only legitimate heir to the Vance bloodline. Lauren and I were just Eleanor’s bastards."
The revelation hit like a physical blow. The decades of Eleanor’s favoritism, her fanatical devotion to Lauren and Thomas, her venomous contempt for me—it had all been an elaborate defense mechanism to protect her infidelity and ensure her lover’s children stole the family wealth.
"Grandmother left the cottage to me because she knew," I whispered, rising to my feet despite the agonizing pull across my healing burns. "She knew what you were."
"And that's why this cottage has to burn to the ground, Claire," Thomas said, raising the flare gun directly at my chest. "Along with you, Arthur, and every legal document proving who I really am."
Before he could squeeze the trigger, the roar of an engine ripped through the dark.
High-beam headlights exploded through the trees, blinding Thomas. An unmarked SUV smashed through the wooden garden fence, kicking up clods of earth as it skidded to a halt between Thomas and us.
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Marcus Reed threw his door open, gun drawn. "Drop the weapon! Police! Drop it now!"
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