Chapter 10 - Blood and Steel
Silas waved them inside the stilt house, throwing heavy wooden shutters closed over the windows. The inside of the cabin was an armory—crates of ammunition, military radios, and survival gear lined the walls. Silas grabbed a wool blanket, wrapping it tightly around Lily, and handed Jax a bottle of moonshine and a clean rag to clean the gash on his forehead.
""Drink,"" Silas commanded. ""Then tell me where she got that locket.""
""It was hidden in her bear,"" Jax said, wincing as the alcohol sterilized the cut above his eye. ""Alongside Vance's encrypted ledger. Sarah told me to protect Lily from Gabriel Vance. Why did Vance's seal end up inside that bear, Silas? Tell me.""
Silas sat heavily in a creaking rocking chair, his steel prosthetic arm resting on the rough wooden table. He looked at Lily, who was sitting quietly in the corner, holding the silver locket up to the dim candlelight.
""Eight years ago, before Sarah ran to you, she was captive in Vance’s compound,"" Silas said quietly, each word falling like a lead weight. ""You raided the compound. You thought you saved her from an execution. But Sarah was Vance’s legal wife, Jax. She stole the ledger to ruin him, and she fled with you because you were the only man crazy enough to fight him.""
Jax stood up, knocking the wooden stool backward. The walls of his world seemed to buckle inward. ""What the hell are you saying?""
""Look at the back of that locket, Jax,"" Silas murmured.
Jax took two trembling steps toward Lily. Gently taking the silver locket from her hands, he turned it over. Scratched deeply into the back of the tarnished silver was an inscription:
To my beloved Sarah. May our daughter, Lilith, inherit the empire. — G.V.
Jax’s breath stopped in his throat. He looked from the locket to Lily's face—her hazel eyes, the curve of her jaw, the dark hair.
""She's... not mine?"" Jax whispered, the words tearing through his chest like jagged shrapnel.
May you like
Lily looked up at him, her eyes shining with quiet fear. ""Daddy? Are you mad at me?""
Before Jax could find words to answer, the high-frequency chirp of Silas’s early-warning perimeter sensor began to beep violently. On the monitor beneath the table, four thermal signatures were advancing along the swamp boardwalk, moving toward the cabin with military precision.
