Chapter 101

Chapter 101

Shatter

Aurora’s POV

The word echoed.

"Sister."

It was a cruel mistake. A hallucination. A joke maybe. A twisted, tasteless one.

But the look on Adam’s face didn’t waver. There was no sly smirk, no lilt of sarcasm, no game. Just grim, hollow certainty.

My throat dried out. “What did you just call me?”

Adam’s eyes flicked to Dominique, who just showed up, then back to me. “You heard me.”

I've been expecting Dominique to show up, because I gave him the address, but I didn't know he would show up now.

“No,” I croaked, backing away, my heart slamming against my ribs. “No, you didn’t mean that.”

Dominique’s arm extended instinctively, like he could pull me out of the air. “Aurora”

“I’m not your sister,” I snapped at Adam. “That’s not funny. That’s not true…it can't.."

“I’m not trying to be funny,” Adam cut in, his voice low and firm . “I wish I was. I wish I never found out either.”

The ground beneath me began to tilt. “You’re lying. This is just another one of your jokes, just one of your sadistic words.”

“She’s your mother too,” Adam said. “Stella Thompson, or would I say Stella Valeryk”

“No,” I said again, voice sharp and thin. “No, Stella’s your mom. Mine, mine died, in my arms. On our kitchen floor, her warm blood painted the floors, so it can't be her .”

Adam’s expression flickered. “Exactly, but it's her. She gave birth to me for victor but gave birth to you for James. So we share the same mother but different father. .”

My breath caught, “why didn't my father tell me?Why did he hide this from me?”

He stepped forward. “Maybe he didn't know how to tell you this, maybe he didn't want you to see her as a demon. Or maybe I was a past she never wanted you to be part of.”

I stumbled back until my shoulder hit the hallway wall. The cold bit into my spine, grounding me. Dominique moved toward me, slowly, like I was made of shattered glass.

“I don’t believe you.” My voice trembled, weaker now. “You’re just angry. You’re making things up to get under my skin.”

Adam reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a worn, folded envelope and tossed it onto the nearby table. It slid across the polished surface, stopping just short of me. The paper looked fragile, like it had survived fire, war, and grief.

“It’s from Stella. I found it hidden in a safety deposit box. My father knew, but he kept it hidden away from me.”

I stared at it like it was a live grenade.

Dominique moved to my side. His presence always made me feel safe, until now. Now the ground between us was shaking.

“Rory…” he whispered. “We can read it together.”

I turned to him sharply. “You knew?”

He looked stunned. “No. I swear. I didn’t know, I never knew. Honestly, you have to trust me.”

But even hearing him say it, my heart couldn’t tell the difference anymore between a lie and the truth.

My fingers, numb and shaking, picked up the envelope. The paper was stained and smudged. The scent of stale perfume clung to it faintly. Stella.

I pulled out the letter.

\---

My darling daughter,

If you’re reading this, then somehow the truth has found its way back to you. You were my first daughter, a perfect replicate of me. I was young, scared, and alone. I was caught up in a cross fire of who to choose.

But I choose you and your father James, thereby leaving Addam into the hands of Victor Peterson.

I choose you instead of Adam because I knew I was saving you from a life of pain, a life away from the mafia world. I wanted you to have better life. But not a day passed that I didn’t regret not telling you about your half brother, Addam. Just know my actons was to save you, not separate you from your brother.

Forgive me.

Love,

Stella

\---

The words blurred. The ink swam. I could barely see the letters through the storm in my head.

My knees buckled, and before I could fall, Dominique caught me. He held me tightly, but I didn’t hug him back. I was limp. Hollow.

“You are my brother” I whispered. “We are Stella's children”.

Adam nodded solemnly. “That makes you my sister.”

I pulled away from Dominique, the letter falling from my hands to the floor like dead weight.

Everything came crashing down at once.

I thought I’d known who I was. The broken girl with the flames in her veins and nothing but revenge in her chest. I was the girl who wanted to bury her past, not discover it buried her first.

“I’m part of this family, The Valeryk” I said aloud, voice distant.

“No,” I shook my head. “No, this ruins everything. Everything.”

I turned to Dominique, panic rising like bile. “Do you get it now? We can’t be together. This changes everything.”

“You are not Adam’s full sister,” he said quickly. “You share a mother, not a father. That’s not a stumbling block to our relationship. ”

“But it’s wrong!” I shouted. “It feels wrong! I thought I was falling in love with you, Dom! You made me feel like I could finally belong somewhere! And now, now I'm forced into taking up a bloodline that I never knew anything about!!”.

I was shaking. Writhing inside my own skin.

Adam lowered his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I spat. “Be silent.”

Dominique tried again, softly. “Rory, I don’t care what blood says. I know you. You are not just this, this twist of fate. You are more than how you were born.”

“But I’m not who I thought I was,” I murmured. “I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

My heart splintered under the weight of everything. The love I’d felt. The rage I’d carried. The emptiness that never really left me, it all came roaring back like a flood.

I ran.

I didn’t know where.

I just knew I couldn’t be there another second.

\---

Later...

I sat at the edge of the old church steps, where the wind bit harder than it should. I didn’t feel the cold. I felt nothing. My eyes stared blankly at the sky, watching it darken, waiting for it to collapse like I had.

Footsteps behind me. I didn’t have to look to know it was him.

Dominique.

He sat beside me, leaving enough space between us for the truth.

“Rory,” he said, his voice thick, “I don’t care what she wrote in that letter. I don’t care what name is on your birth certificate. You are you. That’s all that’s ever mattered to me.”

I stared at my hands. “And if I can’t handle what that means? If I choose to walk away from all of it?”

His jaw clenched. “Then I’ll wait.”

The wind howled between us, but the silence afterward was louder.

“I need time,” I said.

“I’ll give you eternity if that’s what it takes.”

And for the first time in days, something inside me didn’t ache. It just breathed.