Chapter 82: The Room Behind the Door

Chapter 82: Chapter 82: The Room Behind the Door

Their conversation had settled into something easier by the time Garrett brought it up, the earlier argument sitting further behind them now, though not entirely gone.

"I saw something earlier," he said. "Big door at the end of a corridor in another part of the house. Wood, heavy-looking, had some kind of crest on it. Tried to get closer and got stopped by one of your security guys."

Emiliana’s eyebrows lifted slightly. "Wait, what happened?"

"Guards told me it was restricted. Wasn’t rude about it though, one of them confirmed you’d told the house I was staying, but said the area was still off-limits regardless."

"Huh." She studied him for a second. "What made you so interested in it?"

Garrett considered the question honestly instead of brushing past it.

"Looked important. Sophisticated, in a way that felt different from the rest of the house. Like whatever was behind it had actual history attached to it, Years of it."

Emiliana was quiet for a moment, studying him.

"Do you want to see it?"

Garrett looked at her.

"Yeah."

She got up without much ceremony, and Garrett followed her out of the room, the walk through the mansion feeling noticeably different this time with her beside him.

Staff who passed them offered small nods of acknowledgment rather than the polite but distant courtesy they’d shown Garrett on his own. Security that had felt like a wall an hour ago barely seemed to matter with Emiliana beside him. Guards straightened slightly as she approached, stepping aside before she even had to ask.

They reached the same corridor Garrett had wandered into earlier, the same guard from before standing near the double doors. He glanced at Emiliana, then at Garrett, and said nothing at all, simply shifting his weight to clear the path.

The restriction, obviously, only applied to people who didn’t belong there.

They stopped in front of the same massive door, dark wood, the Vane crest carved deep enough into its surface that Garrett could make out the details properly this time. Emiliana pushed it open without hesitation.

Garrett stepped inside.

The room was enormous, closer in scale to an entire separate house than any single room had any right to be. A massive bed occupied one side, surrounded by furniture that looked expensive without trying particularly hard to prove it. Near a bank of tall windows, a private sitting area held a pair of leather chairs arranged around a low table, positioned to catch whatever light came through during the day.

Further along, a section was given over entirely to a large desk, shelves lined with books, framed documents, and objects Garrett didn’t recognize but could tell carried weight regardless.

It didn’t feel built to be shown off. Nothing about the arrangement suggested visitors or careful staging for effect, the way the rest of the mansion seemed to operate.

This felt built for one person who expected everything he needed to be within arm’s reach.

Garrett understood immediately that this wasn’t another wing of the house meant to be admired.

This was Alexander Vane’s actual space.

Emiliana moved through the room with the easy familiarity of someone who’d spent plenty of time here, pointing out things as she went.

"This one’s from before I was born," she said, lifting a framed photograph off a shelf. Alexander was younger in it, dark-haired, an arm around a woman Garrett recognized from the picture in Emiliana’s room. "And this one’s from a few years later."

The second showed Alexander and his wife a few years later, with a small child balanced on his hip. Emiliana.

"He looks different here," Garrett said, studying the younger version of the man Brian had spoken about with such weight in his voice.

"He was different then. Or so I’m told."

Emiliana set the photograph back down, moving on to the next section of the room without dwelling on it further.

More photographs lined the shelves further along, family gatherings, what looked like university events, business functions where Alexander stood shaking hands with men in equally expensive suits. Awards sat framed at careful intervals, recognitions Garrett didn’t fully understand the significance of, handwritten notes tucked between books that had clearly been read rather than displayed for effect.

Near the desk, a large framed plaque read ALEXANDER VANE in heavy engraved lettering, positioned exactly where anyone sitting at that desk would see it first thing.

"He’s had this room since before I can remember," Emiliana said, following Garrett’s gaze toward it. "Practically lives in it, honestly. More than he lives anywhere else in this house."

They drifted toward the office section eventually, a wall of neatly organized files and folders arranged with the same precision as everything else in the room.

"Want to look through some? Nothing exciting, mostly business stuff. But some of it’s actually kind of interesting, if you like that sort of thing." She pointed towards the files.

"Sure."

She pulled a few out, choosing ones she thought Garrett might actually find interesting. There were business records tracking some of the earlier expansions of the Vane family’s holdings, property documents cataloguing estates and assets on a scale Garrett wasn’t used to seeing in one place, and old correspondence between Alexander and various companies stretching back further than Garrett could easily estimate.

"This one’s kind of funny," Emiliana said, pulling out an old agreement and skimming it with visible amusement. "Apparently my father almost bought an entire vineyard on a whim once. Grandfather talked him out of it."

Garrett made an appropriate sound of interest, only half listening now, his attention drifting across the files still stacked in front of him.

Then he saw it.

RAFFERTY.

He stopped completely.

His surname, printed plainly across the tab of a folder near the middle of the stack, no different in appearance from anything else surrounding it.

Garrett kept his expression even, careful not to let anything show. Emiliana was still talking, still half-focused on the vineyard story, entirely unaware of what had just caught his attention a few inches away from her hand.

Carefully, without drawing notice, Garrett shifted the file slightly, angling it out of her direct line of sight.

He looked again, making sure he hadn’t misread it.

There was no mistake.

His surname, sitting in Alexander Vane’s private files, in a room built for one man’s entire life to pass through undisturbed.

Garrett’s mind moved fast, questions stacking up faster than he could properly sort through them.

’Why would his surname be here at all?

What connection could possibly exist between a man like Alexander Vane and Rafferty family.

How far back did whatever this was actually go?’

Emiliana moved further down the shelf, still distracted, reaching for something else entirely.

Garrett’s hand closed around the file.

He pulled it free.

For a moment, he simply held it, the weight settling into his palm heavier than the paper itself should have accounted for.

His thumb found the edge of the cover.

He was about to open it.