Chapter 1 - The Sinking Tomb
The icy water smelled of motor oil and decaying marsh grass, burning my lungs with every ragged breath I managed to drag in. Underneath the moss-slicked concrete pilings of Savannah Creek, the world was reduced to shivering darkness. Through the wooden slats above our heads, the faint red glow of tail lights slowly drifted away. Garrett and Penelope were leaving. They believed our bodies were settling into the river mud, trapped inside a four-ton metal coffin.
I pressed my back against the slimy stone pillar, my teeth chattering violently. Tobias stood in front of me, tall, broad-shouldered, and perfectly balanced on his own two feet. For fifteen agonizing years, I had cut his meat, pushed his customized wheelchair up steep ramps, and wiped away his tears whenever he stared out the window at the Baltimore shipyard we had inherited. I had built an entire life around being his protector, his guardian, his surviving sister.
"Explain," I choked out, water pouring from my soaked hair down my collar. "Tobias, look at me! You let me bathe you, you let me carry you into doctors' offices, you let me mourn the man you used to be! How could you do this to me?"
Tobias reached out, his calloused hands gripping my shoulders. His fingers were steady, warm, and entirely steady. "If they knew I could walk, Rosalind, they would have put a bullet in my head fifteen years ago in that ICU bed. The doctors were paid off by Arthur Vance—Garrett’s father. They told me my spine was severed. But three months after the crash, I felt my toes twitch. I kept my mouth shut because two days before our parents died, Dad whispered something to me in his study."
My breath hitched. "What did Dad say?"
"He told me Arthur Vance had forged a silent partnership contract to seize the dry docks," Tobias whispered, his voice low and raspy against the lapping waves. "Dad refused to sign. Forty-eight hours later, our brake lines were sliced clean through on Route 40. Dad died instantly. Mom bled out in the passenger seat. When I woke up in traction, Arthur Vance was standing over my bed, smiling like a benevolent uncle. He said, 'Don't worry, little boy, I'll take care of your sister.' That was when I realized the only way to keep you alive was to become completely harmless. A useless cripple in a wheelchair who posed zero threat to their empire."
A cold shudder ran through my core, deeper than the freezing river. "And Garrett? You let me marry Garrett!"
"I tried to warn you, Rosalind! Remember four years ago when I threw a glass across the dining room the night you brought him home? Remember how I refused to attend your engagement dinner?" Tobias’s eyes burned with fierce intensity. "You told me I was being bitter. You said I was jealous because you were moving on with your life. Garrett was smooth. He was charming. He played the patient, devoted brother-in-law to perfection. If I broke my cover back then without hard evidence, you would have had me institutionalized, and Garrett would have quietly arranged an overdose in my sleep."
"And Penelope?" I whispered, my voice breaking as the image of my pregnant half-sister holding Garrett’s hand flashed behind my eyelids. "She knew?"
"Penelope was Arthur Vance’s secret weapon from day one," Tobias said bitterly. "Our father’s biggest mistake was having that affair with her mother. Penelope always hated you for carrying the legitimate family name. She didn’t just know, Rose. She helped Garrett wire your seat belt to the chassis."
I leaned forward and vomited river water into the scum below. My marriage, my family, my loyalty—every single pillar of my existence was built on an altar of calculated slaughter.
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"So what do we do?" I whispered, wiping my mouth on my soaked sleeve. "They think we’re dead."
"Exactly," Tobias replied, pulling a waterproof satchel from beneath his heavy outer jacket. Inside was a burner phone and a set of dry clothes. "Let them think they won the war. A dead woman can move through the dark without leaving footprints. But before we strike back, Rosalind, you need to know why Garrett made you drink that glass of warm milk every single night."
