“But you are active-duty Navy,” Alaric noted, his finger tracing the lines on the page.

“Yes,” I said. “And because of my deployment status, the trust terms state that the active manager of the funds defaults to the civilian sibling. That is Rachel.”

“She didn’t want the money split,” Alexander whispered. “She wanted all of it.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It is worse than that. If my mother is alive, Rachel cannot touch a single dollar without her signature.”

“So she faked her death,” Alaric said. “She locked your mother away, declared her legally dead, and assumed control of the eighteen million.”

The pieces of the puzzle fell into place with a sickening ease.

Rachel’s sudden rise in social circles, her lavish wardrobe, her ability to charm her way into European nobility—it was all funded by a lie.

“She needed the royal wedding to cement her status,” I said. “Once she married into your family, no one would dare question her finances.”

“She used my name,” Alexander said, his fist slamming onto the wooden desk. “She used my family.”