Chapter 96 Chapter 96
The house didn’t feel the same anymore.
Cass noticed it in the smallest ways.
The way her mom avoided certain rooms.
The way Nolan’s voice dropped whenever conversations drifted too close to the past.
The way silence had started to mean something.
Not peace.
Secrets.
That night, Cass couldn’t sleep.
She lay there staring at the ceiling, her thoughts too loud, her chest too tight.
Her mother’s words kept replaying.
He made a mistake.
We walked away before it got worse.
But it hadn’t felt finished.
It had felt… interrupted.
Like a story cut off before the ending.
Cass sat up suddenly.
She couldn’t just sit in this.
She needed something real.
Something that wasn’t half-truths and careful answers.
The hallway was dark as she stepped out of her room.
Everyone else was asleep.
Or pretending to be.
She moved quietly down the stairs, her heart beating faster with every step—not from fear of getting caught, but from the feeling that she was about to cross a line she couldn’t uncross.
The study door was slightly open.
That was new.
Nolan was usually meticulous.
Always closing things. Locking things.
Cass hesitated only for a second before pushing the door open.
The room smelled faintly of paper and old wood.
Neat.
Organized.
Controlled.
Just like everything else in this house.
Cass moved toward the desk.
Drawers.
Files.
Nothing out of place.
Nothing obvious.
She almost gave up.
Until she noticed it—
A box.
Not on the desk.
Not in the drawers.
Tucked away on the lower shelf of the bookcase.
Hidden.
But not locked.
Her pulse quickened.
Cass crouched down slowly and pulled it out.
Dust clung to the edges.
This hadn’t been touched in a while.
Her fingers hesitated on the lid.
This was it.
The point where curiosity became something else.
Something heavier.
She opened it.
Photographs.
Old ones.
Edges worn slightly with time.
Cass picked one up.
And her breath caught.
Her father.
Younger.
Standing beside—
Jace’s father.
They weren’t just business partners.
They looked like… friends.
Relaxed. Smiling. Close.
That alone felt wrong.
Because nothing she’d been told matched this.
She flipped through more photos.
Dinners.
Meetings.
Events.
Their families in the same spaces.
Not distant.
Not complicated.
Connected.
Deeply.
Cass’s hands started to shake.
“This doesn’t make sense…”
Her voice was barely a whisper.
Then—
She found it.
A document.
Folded.
Older than the rest.
She opened it carefully.
Her eyes scanned the page.
Legal terms.
Names.
Signatures.
Her father’s.
Jace’s father’s.
And one line that made her stomach drop—
Joint ownership agreement.
Cass’s heart started pounding.
Ownership of what?
She flipped the page—
And there it was.
An address.
Her old house.
The one her father died in.
The one she thought was only theirs.
But it wasn’t.
It never had been.
“Cass?”
Her whole body froze.
She turned slowly.
Her mom stood in the doorway.
Not angry.
Not surprised.
Just… defeated.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” she said softly.
Cass stood up slowly, the paper still in her hand.
“You lied to me.”
Her mom’s eyes closed briefly.
“I didn’t lie—”
“You let me believe that house was ours,” Cass said, her voice shaking now. “You let me believe we had nothing to do with them.”
Her mom stepped forward.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Silence.
That same silence that had followed every real question.
Cass held up the document.
“This says he owned it too,” she said. “Jace’s father. That house wasn’t just ours.”
Her mom’s shoulders dropped.
“No,” she admitted quietly. “It wasn’t.”
Cass felt something crack inside her.
“Then why were we the only ones living there?”
Her mom didn’t answer immediately.
Because the truth—
Was worse.
“Because after everything fell apart,” she said slowly, “your father refused to let him take it.”
Cass frowned, confusion mixing with something darker.
“Take it?”
“There was a dispute,” her mom said. “Over ownership. Over control. Over who had the right to what they built together.”
Cass’s chest tightened.
“And?”
Her mom swallowed.
“And your father wouldn’t back down.”
The room felt colder.
“What happened the night he died?”
The question slipped out before she could stop it.
Her mom’s eyes filled with something unreadable.
Pain.
Fear.
Regret.
“Cass…”
“Tell me,” she whispered.
Her mom looked at her for a long moment.
Then said quietly—
“He wasn’t alone that night.”
Cass’s heart stopped.
“What?”
“There was a meeting,” her mom continued. “One last attempt to settle everything.”
Cass’s grip tightened on the paper.
“With who?”
Her mom didn’t want to say it.
That much was clear.
But the truth was already there.
Hanging between them.
“He met with him,” she said softly.
“Jace’s father.”
Silence crashed into the room.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
Cass felt like the ground had shifted beneath her.
“They were together… the night he died?”
Her mom nodded faintly.
“Yes.”
The air left Cass’s lungs.
Because suddenly—
This wasn’t just history.
This wasn’t just business.
This was something else.
Something bigger.
Something darker.
“Was it an accident?” Cass asked, her voice barely holding.
Her mom’s expression broke.
“I don’t know.”
That was worse than any answer.
Upstairs, Cass sat on her bed, staring at nothing.
The document lay beside her.
The photos spread out like pieces of a truth she wasn’t ready to fully see.
Her father.
Jace’s father.
The house.
The meeting.
The night.
Her chest tightened painfully.
Because now—
Everything felt connected.
Not by chance.
By something deliberate.
Her phone buzzed.
Jace.
She stared at his name.
And for the first time—
It didn’t feel simple anymore.
It felt dangerous.