Dynasty (Boys of Winter 1)

Carver just rolls his eyes before stepping into the frame of the massive artwork and gently pressing his fingers to it. A soft beep echoes through the quiet hallway, and I watch in awe as the massive artwork sinks back into the wall before sliding out like a secret door.

“Whaaaaaat,” I drawl out, staring in wonder as Carver steps through to the secret room, looking back at me with a cocky smirk. “I didn’t think this shit actually happened in real life. Is this real?”

“As real as the one in my place.”

“Wait—what? You have a secret room?” I say, stopping halfway to gape at him. I haven’t seen anything in his place, but it’s not as though I’ve gone around touching all the walls and searching the bookshelves for a secret opening.

Carver just grins, more than proud of himself. “Just come in. I want to show you this stuff and explain what’s really going on.”

I nod and walk into the room, following Carver as he leads me over to a shelf. He looks through the books carefully before pulling out one with a leather binding. Silently he scans the cover, then hands it to me. “Here,” he says. “Most of the information you’re looking for is in this.”

My brows furrow and I back up a few steps before dropping into a small armchair and peeling open the book. There’s a soft creaking, telling me that this book hasn’t been opened in years, but when I look down at the very first page, a soft gasp comes sailing out of my mouth, and everything around me fades to black as I focus on the small family looking back at me.

A man stands proudly with his baby girl in his arms and his wife at his side, beaming up at him with pride. As my eyes travel over her face, I see my own reflection in her features.

No. It couldn’t be ...

My head snaps up to Carver and I meet his eyes, tears beginning to fill my own. “Is this my family? My parents?”

He nods. “Yes, they are.”

“I … how do you know this?”

He lets out a sigh and comes to sit on the armrest of the chair, looking over my shoulder at the happy family in the book. “Because your parents were one of the seventeen families that made Dynasty.”

My hands pause on the old photograph, my fingers gently brushing over my mother’s sweet face as I suck in a breath, fearing what I just heard and what it could possibly mean. “No, they couldn’t have been. I ... ”

Carver’s hand falls to my shoulder as his other reaches down to flip the page to where I find six loose pieces of paper—three birth certificates, a marriage certificate, and two death certificates. I instantly grab them, scanning over the papers. The first is the birth certificate of the man—Andrew Ravenwood.

I suck in a breath as I read over it. “Ravenwood?” I ask, briefly glancing up at Carver. “As in the town name? Ravenwood Heights?”

“The one and only,” he confirms with a small nod.

My gaze drops back and I find the marriage certificate, seeing both my parents’ names—Andrew Ravenwood and London Moustaff, who married in late September nearly thirty years ago. Andrew and London Ravenwood. My parents.

I can’t help but flip back to the first page, now looking at the people staring back at me with names to put to the faces, and as I look at them, a memory pulls at me, but I can’t quite figure it out until I look back at the marriage certificate and my gaze drops down, taking in the rest.

I see the names of Andrew’s parents—Gerald and Sylvia Ravenwood and then drop further to London’s—Janet and Joseph Moustaff.

I suck in a gasp. They were the couple I sat between during the cemetery party after raiding all the rich kids’ pockets. The wife had drowned and the husband died shortly after from a lonely heart. I guess twenty or so years later, their daughter and her husband joined them.

I flip to the next piece of paper and scan over it. It’s another birth certificate—Elodie Ravenwood, born the same year as me on February 25th.

Elodie.

I slam the papers down. “No,” I say, shaking my head as I fly up off the armchair and put the book down as far from me as possible. “No, that’s not me. I’m not this Elodie girl, I’m not some fancy rich kid with a mansion and a town named after her parents or grandparents or … I don’t know. This isn’t me.”

“It is, Winter,” Carver says. “You can see your family resemblance just as well as I can. Your parents didn’t die in a fire, and your birth certificate clearly didn’t get destroyed. They were murdered by members of Dynasty who wanted them out. Your mother, London, died with you cradled in her arms, and you were supposed to die right along with her, but somehow you fought through and survived the impossible.”