Chapter Twenty-Three
The afternoon sun slanted lazily across the old Moore family home, casting long golden streaks across dust-laden furniture. The house smelled of aged wood and faint traces of lavender, the scent her mother had always used to calm children on stormy nights. Elena moved carefully through the rooms, steps soft on the worn hardwood, as though she feared disturbing something fragile—something delicate enough that a single misstep might shatter it.
She had returned to the house not out of nostalgia, but out of necessity. Her father's old study had always been off-limits—a room of secrets, closed doors, and papers meant only for him. But now, after discovering the hidden documents in Adrian's study and witnessing the tension rising at Blackwood Holdings, she felt compelled to enter. Fear, curiosity, and the faintest thread of hope pulled her forward.
