Tangled Truths

Chapter 20 – Tangled Truths

Ava Carter's POV

Damon didn’t move. He just stood there, his jaw tightening, his eyes fixated on the woman beside Emilia.

Emilia had stopped sobbing the moment the woman spoke. She turned slowly, her lips trembling.

"Mom?"

The woman smiled, her hand resting gently on Emilia’s shoulder. "You’ve grown up so much."

I blinked, unsure if I was still caught in some lingering illusion. My pulse thundered in my ears. Damon didn’t speak. He stepped closer, his voice colder than I’d ever heard it.

"You’re supposed to be dead."

The woman—Delilah Thornhart—didn’t flinch. "I was. Until I wasn’t."

The silence between them turned suffocating.

"You let us believe you died in that fire," he snapped. "You let him raise us. You let him twist everything."

Delilah looked at him then, her eyes swimming with tears. "You don’t know the truth, Damon. You only know the version he wanted you to see."

I reached for Emilia, pulling her gently away. She came willingly, nestling against me as if her small body had finally run out of ways to process shock.

"Explain it then," Damon demanded.

Delilah exhaled slowly. "The Thornhart legacy isn't what you think. It was never about power or protection. It was about survival. Every generation, one child is chosen, not to inherit the estate, but to shield the rest of the bloodline from what was buried beneath this land."

"The Watcher," I murmured, my skin crawling at the memory.

She nodded. "It feeds on the chosen, binds itself to them. But I made a deal. I gave up my life—my presence—to spare Emilia. To break the cycle."

"Then why are you here now?" Damon asked. "Why reveal yourself?"

Delilah's eyes landed on me. "Because something shifted. You changed the rules when you shattered the mirror. And now... now there's a new threat."

My spine stiffened. "We said no more. No more darkness, no more secrets."

She gave a soft smile. "It's not supernatural anymore. This is very human."

Damon narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

Delilah turned away and walked to the window. The dawn was bleeding into the horizon, golden and soft. "There's a man watching this estate. A man who funded the rituals long ago. He believes the Thornhart family still owes him something. And now that the entity is gone, he’ll come for what he thinks he owns."

"Who?" I asked.

"Alec Vanmoor."

The name hit Damon like a punch to the gut.

"He was one of Father's business partners. I thought he was just a myth."

"He's very real," Delilah said. "And he's not alone."

The silence turned brittle.

Two days later, we left the estate.

It was Damon who insisted. He said we couldn’t fight a war from a haunted mansion. We needed allies. Information. Safety.

He took us to a coastal city three hours away. A place where the Thornhart name meant little.

The apartment he chose was minimal but clean. Emilia got the room with the sea view. Damon and I… we tried to pretend things were normal. That we hadn’t lived through hell.

But the cracks were there. In his silence. In my restless sleep.

And in the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t watching.

One night, I found him on the balcony. Shirtless, staring at the waves.

"You okay?" I asked.

"No," he said honestly.

I joined him, the ocean breeze wrapping around us.

"I still see it, you know? The mirror. The creature."

I reached for his hand. He let me take it.

"We’re free now," I said softly.

He looked at me then, and something in his gaze shifted. "Are we?"

I didn’t have an answer.

He moved closer, his hand brushing my cheek. I closed my eyes, leaning into the touch. And when he kissed me, it wasn't the desperate kind of before. It was slow. Searing. Full of grief and longing.

We didn’t go inside.

Not for hours.

The next morning, Delilah was gone.

A note lay on the kitchen counter.

I’ll buy us more time. But be ready. He’s coming.

There was no signature.

Just a strange mark. A circle with a line through it.

Damon stared at it like it was a curse.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Vanmoor’s mark. It means we’ve been found."

Before I could speak, the doorbell rang.

Damon pushed me back. "Take Emilia. Stay in the bathroom."

"No. Damon—"

"Please. Just this once."

I obeyed.

I didn’t like it, but I obeyed.

From behind the bathroom door, I heard everything. Footsteps. Voices.

Then a familiar sound.

Glass shattering.

Gunfire.

Emilia whimpered. I held her tight.

When I finally stepped out, Damon was on the floor, blood spreading beneath him. Three men were gone. One lay dead by the doorway.

Damon gasped. "He knows where we are."

"Who did this?" I cried.

His hand reached out. Grabbed mine. "Run. Get help. Find Jackson."

"Who’s Jackson?"

"My brother."

The words hung between us like a grenade.

I didn’t even know he had a brother.

"He’s the only one who can help us now."

I pressed my hands to his wound. "Don’t you dare die."

"Find him," he whispered. "And tell him the truth. Tell him... it wasn’t our fault."

Then his eyes rolled back.

And everything turned black.

To Be Continued...