Chapter 3 - The Prescott Connection
-3-
The morning after the disastrous gala, the sky over Alderwyn Manor was a bruised, heavy grey. Rain lashed against the towering windows of the estate, mimicking the turbulent storm that raged within Julian Hawthorne’s mind. He had not slept. Instead, he had spent the night in his study, poring over old blueprints of the manor and financial records dating back two decades, cross-referencing everything with the Prescott family’s rise to power.
Nora had slept in one of the heavily guarded guest suites in the east wing, a luxury she found disorienting after months in the cramped servants’ quarters. When she finally emerged, dressed in clothes Julian had ordered his assistant to procure for her—a simple but elegant charcoal sweater and dark trousers—she found him in the vast, echoing library.
“You look better,” Julian noted, looking up from a sprawling schematic on the mahogany table. The bruising on her cheek was still vivid, but the terror that had consumed her the night before had been replaced by a quiet, steely determination.
“I feel like a ghost who finally woke up,” Nora replied, stepping closer to the table. She looked down at the blueprints. “What are these?”
“The original architectural plans for Alderwyn,” Julian explained, tracing a long, faded line across the parchment with a silver pen. “If my mother said the locket was a key, and that the truth was buried, she meant something physical. My grandfather built this house during the Prohibition era. He was a wealthy man, but he was also paranoid. Alderwyn is riddled with hidden passages, most of which were sealed off when I was a child. But if my mother found one...”
Before Nora could answer, the heavy double doors of the library swung open. Marcus, the head of security, stepped in. His massive frame was tense, his hand resting instinctively near the holster at his waist.
“Mr. Hawthorne,” Marcus said, his voice low. “We have a situation at the front gates. Arthur Prescott is here, along with Camille and half a dozen armed private contractors. They are demanding entry.”
Julian’s eyes darkened. “I told you to lock the gates, Marcus.”
“They are locked, sir. But Prescott has a local judge with him, waving a search warrant. They are claiming that Miss Bennett assaulted Camille, stole a priceless family heirloom, and that you are illegally harboring a fugitive.”
Nora’s breath hitched. “A search warrant? For me?”
“They are trying to control the narrative,” Julian said calmly, though a dangerous fire flickered in his gaze. “Arthur knows that if you talk to the right authorities, his entire life unravels. He’s using his political leverage to drag you out of here before you can do any damage.”
“What do we do?” Nora asked, her heart hammering against her ribs. She remembered the sheer ruthlessness of the men who had dragged Helena Hawthorne into the storm. Arthur Prescott was not a man who played by the rules of civilized society; he was a warlord in a tailored suit.
“We don’t let them in,” Julian said. He turned to Marcus. “Tell the gate guards to hold the line. Inform the judge that Alderwyn is a sovereign corporate property under Hawthorne Industries, and any attempt to breach the gates with armed contractors will be treated as an act of industrial espionage. If they try to force the gate, disable their vehicles.”
Marcus nodded with a grim smile. “Understood, sir.”
As Marcus left, Julian turned back to Nora. “We don’t have much time. Arthur is desperate, which means he’s scared. He knows my mother was hiding something in this house that could ruin him. You said my mother was holding a leather-bound journal that night in the winter garden?”
“Yes,” Nora confirmed. “A thick, black leather journal. She was clutching it like it was a shield.”
“My mother was an investigative journalist before she married my father,” Julian murmured, piecing the puzzle together. “She never stopped digging for the truth. She must have discovered whatever illicit operation the Prescotts were running—money laundering, human trafficking, maybe even state treason. She documented it in that journal. And she hid it somewhere in Alderwyn before they caught her.”
Julian reached out and gently touched the black-enamel locket resting against Nora’s chest. His fingers brushed her collarbone, sending a sudden, unexpected shiver through her body.
“This locket is the key to finding that journal,” Julian said, his eyes meeting hers. “Nora, think back. When you lived here as a child, where did my mother spend her time? Where would she hide something that she knew men like Arthur Prescott would tear the house apart to find?”
Nora closed her eyes, forcing her mind back through eighteen years of trauma and suppressed memories. She pictured Helena Hawthorne—elegant, sad, always wandering the grounds with a book in her hand. She pictured the winter garden, the library, the old wine cellar...
And then, a memory struck her like a bolt of lightning.
“The old chapel,” Nora gasped, opening her eyes. “There’s an abandoned chapel in the woods behind the west wing. It’s been locked up since the 1800s. My father told me never to go near it because the stonework was crumbling. But I saw her go in there once. A few days before she died.”
Julian’s eyes widened. “The Hawthorne family crypt is beneath that chapel. It’s restricted ground; not even the staff are allowed there.”
“Then that’s where we need to go,” Nora said, her voice steady.
May you like
Julian nodded. He reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a heavy, matte-black Glock 19, sliding a magazine into the grip with a chilling, metallic click.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Before Arthur Prescott decides to start a war on my front lawn.”
