Emerging from behind the heavy velvet drapes of the corner alcove was a woman wrapped in a tattered gray lace shawl. Her hair was streaked with silver, her skin parchment-pale, but the high cheekbones and hazel eyes were unmistakable.

It was the exact face from the yellowed pH๏τograph.

“M-Mother…?” Isabella stammered, her knees trembling so violently she had to catch the bedside post to keep from falling. “How are you inside this room? Alexander locked the door!”

“There are pᴀssages behind these timber walls older than this valley, child,” the woman whispered, taking a slow, unsteady step toward her. Her hand reached out, frail and trembling. “Fourteen years Henry Caldwell kept me hidden away like a dirty secret. And Alexander… Alexander is his enforcer. He didn’t marry you out of mercy, Isabella. He brought you here to silence the last witness to what they stole!”

“ISABELLA! STAND AWAY FROM HER!”

With a deafening crash, the heavy bedroom door splintered inward.

Alexander burst into the room, holding a loaded rifle. His knuckles were raw, his chest heaving, his wolf-gray eyes burning with pure panic.

“Get away from that woman, Isabella!” he ordered, leveling the barrel not at the dark shadows, but directly at the woman claiming to be her mother. “She isn’t who you think she is!”

The woman let out a broken, tragic sob, stepping behind Isabella and clutching the girl’s shoulders with fingers that felt like icy claws. “Look at him, darling! The ‘Mountain Wolf’ pointing a gun at an unarmed mother! He knows if I speak the truth to the territory judge tomorrow, he loses the entire valley!”

“She’s playing you!” Alexander shouted, his deep voice cracking with desperate urgency. “Your real mother, Victoria Monroe, never left you, Isabella. Fourteen years ago, Henry Caldwell didn’t kidnap her—this woman did! Her name is Clara Vance, my uncle’s former mistress. She stole your mother’s idenтιтy, her jewelry, and helped my uncle forge the land patents that stripped your father of his silver mine!”

Isabella felt the room tilt. Her gaze darted frantically between the man who had given her a key to protect her and the woman holding her тιԍнтly from behind.

“Then where is my real mother, Alexander?!” Isabella cried, tears spilling over her lashes. “You said she was on this ranch!”

Alexander’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. He lowered the rifle barrel slightly, his expression torn with agonizing guilt.

“She is,” he said softly. “Down in the sanctuary beneath the old chapel cellar. I’ve spent six years nursing her, keeping her hidden from my uncle and Clara. The day my first wife died… it wasn’t an accident. She was poisoned because she tried to help your mother escape.”

“A convenient lie to save his own neck!” the woman behind Isabella hissed.

Before Isabella could pull away, the woman’s grip around her throat тιԍнтened with unnatural, vicious strength. A small silver blade glinted in the dim candlelight, pressing right against Isabella’s windpipe.

The tragic, weeping mother was gone; the face behind Isabella was twisted into a triumphant, venomous snarl.

“You always were too noble for your own good, Alexander,” Clara mocked, backing toward the hidden panel in the wall, dragging Isabella with her. “Henry already has the signed marriage certificate. Once the girl has an ‘accidental’ fall down the canyon rocks, your uncle legally inherits every vein of silver under her name.”

“Let her go, Clara!” Alexander roared, taking a step forward.

“One more inch and I spill her blood right on your fresh wildflowers!” Clara warned, her blade drawing a tiny red bead at Isabella’s neck.

Suddenly, a loud, metallic grinding sound echoed from deep within the open doorway behind Alexander.

Heavy, uneven footsteps—accompanied by the cold drag of an iron chain—echoed from the corridor darkness.

A tall silhouette filled the threshold.

Henry Caldwell stood there, flanked by three men holding lit lanterns. But what made Alexander freeze completely wasn’t the armed men.

It was the person kneeling at Henry’s boots, collared in heavy iron.

Henry pulled the chain upward with a cruel grin, forcing the emaciated prisoner’s head into the lantern light.

The captive lifted her face.

She had the exact same crescent birthmark beneath her left eye as Isabella.

And as her hollow, tear-filled eyes locked onto Isabella, she rasped in agony: