BLOODLINE

Title: Bloodline (Book 1)

Genre: YA Psychological Thriller / Mystery (with a Romance Subplot)

The Summary:

Eleven years ago, Virelle Knox’s world literally exploded. After surviving a devastating house bombing, she met a mysterious, glass-scarred woman claiming to be her aunt—only for the woman to vanish into the night, leaving Virelle to find her mother dying beneath a lonely streetlight.

Now twenty-two, Virelle has spent years preparing for answers. Working side-by-side from the very start with Ziggy, her aunt's fierce daughter, the two cousins are on a relentless mission to find Ziggy's missing mother and finally resolve the dark mystery behind Virelle’s mother's death.

But their investigation triggers a trap. Virelle is ambushed and wakes up tied to a chair in a cold concrete room, targeted by the exact same shadowy organization that stole her childhood. Armed with sharp survival instincts, Virelle breaks her bonds and escapes the facility to reunite with Ziggy. Together, they must navigate a maze of family secrets, lethal conspiracies, and a high-security vault known only as the Black File Room.

Along the way, the mission gets complicated when their path crosses with Caelum. Brilliant, elusive, and hiding dangerous secrets of his own, Caelum is pulled into their orbit. As the danger escalates, an intense, slow-burn romance sparks between Virelle and Caelum. Forced to rely on each other in high-stakes situations, Virelle must decide if she can open her heart to someone new—or if Caelum is just another piece of the puzzle designed to destroy her. Because in a game where danger is written in their very DNA, the deadliest traps are the ones hidden inside your own bloodline.

CHAPTER 1:THE NIGHT I KNOW

The house exploded. The sound ripped through the quiet so violently that my eleven-year-old self jolted upright, clutching my teddy against my chest as the walls shook around me. For a few seconds, I couldn't move. My ears rang, dust drifted from the ceiling, and somewhere downstairs, something heavy crashed against the floor. Then I heard it—my mother's muffled scream. "Mom?" I whispered, staring at my bedroom door. Normally, I would've been out of bed before the echo of the explosion had even disappeared. Curiosity had always been a problem of mine; if I heard a strange noise, I needed to know what it was, if Mom closed a door, I wanted to know why, and if someone whispered in another room, somehow I considered it my personal responsibility to find out what they were saying. But this wasn't a strange noise. This was my mother screaming, and for the first time in my life, curiosity wasn't stronger than fear. I slowly slipped off the bed, still gripping my teddy in one hand, and took a few hesitant steps toward the door. I stopped when another muffled sound came from downstairs. My fingers hovered over the doorknob, but I couldn't turn it. I wanted to run downstairs. Every part of me wanted to. Instead, I stood there listening, frozen by a fear I didn't understand. Five minutes passed. Maybe six. At eleven, five minutes can feel like an entire lifetime when you're waiting for your mother to come through a door. I kept telling myself she would appear. She would call my name. She would tell me everything was fine. She didn't. Then my bedroom window shattered.

I screamed and stumbled backward as glass scattered across the floor. A woman climbed through the broken window, dressed entirely in black leather—a black jacket, black boots, dark clothes that made her look like she belonged to the shadows more than she belonged inside my bedroom. There were pieces of glass caught in her shoulder, and instead of panicking, she calmly reached up and scraped them away, one after another, like she'd done it a hundred times before. She looked at the blood on her fingers, shrugged, and then looked straight at me. I froze. My eyes darted around the room for something—anything—I could use. There was a lamp, but it was too heavy. A book was useless. My teddy was absolutely not an option. Then my eyes landed on the bedside table. A banana. Perfect. I grabbed it with my free hand and raised it toward her while keeping my teddy squeezed against my chest. "Don't come any closer." Her eyes dropped to the banana before slowly returning to my face. "Is that a banana?" "It's a weapon." She stared at it for a second. "Interesting choice." "I mean it." "I'm sure you do." She took one step toward me, and I took one backward. "Stay there." She stopped. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then she slowly lowered herself so she wasn't towering over me. "Hey," she said softly. "Look at me." I did. "I'm not going to hurt you." I didn't lower the banana. "Then why are you in my room?" "Because your window was easier than your front door." "You could've knocked." She glanced at the shattered window. "I could have." I narrowed my eyes. "You broke it." "Technically, someone else broke it. I just used the opportunity." Despite myself, I almost laughed. Almost. She noticed the tiny shift in my expression and gave me the faintest smile before glancing at the banana again. "You can lower that." "No." "Fine." Then she reached forward and took it straight out of my hand. I stared at her as she peeled it. "Hey!" She took a bite. "That's mine." She took another bite. "You were threatening me with it." "That doesn't mean you get to eat it." She swallowed. "I disagree." She finished the banana, tossed the peel onto my desk, and wiped her fingers against her jacket. I stared at her in complete disbelief. "That was my banana." "I'll buy you another one." "I don't want another one." "Then I owe you a banana." She said it so casually that, for a moment, I forgot there was glass all over my floor and my mother was somewhere downstairs.

Then her expression changed. She looked at me properly. "You're Virelle." My fingers tightened around my teddy. "How do you know my name?" "Because I know your mother." My stomach twisted. "Where is she?" The woman went quiet for a moment before answering, "She's in trouble." "What kind of trouble?" "The kind your mother spent years trying to stay away from." I frowned. "What does that mean?" She sighed. "Your mother used to work with some very dangerous people. She got out, and they wanted her back." "Why?" "Because she knew too much." I stared at her. "What did she do?" She held my gaze for a moment. "Things she was very good at." "What things?" "Things I'm not going to explain to an eleven-year-old in the middle of a shattered bedroom." I frowned harder. "I'm not a baby." A tiny smile appeared on her face. "I didn't say you were. I said you're eleven." "That's basically the same thing." She almost laughed, but her expression softened again. "Listen to me. Your mother refused to go back to them. Whatever they wanted from her, she said no. They didn't take that very well." My stomach sank. "Are they here?" She hesitated. "I don't know." "Are they going to hurt her?" Again, she hesitated. "I don't know." I hated that answer, but she wasn't lying to me, and somehow that made me trust her more. "Who are you?" I asked. She looked at me for a long moment before finally saying, "I'm your aunt." I blinked. "What?" "Your mother's sister." I stared at her. "I don't have an aunt." "You do." "Mom never told me." "I know." "Why?" "Your mother had her reasons." "What reasons?" "Complicated ones." "That's not an answer." She gave me a tired little smile. "No. It's the only answer you're getting tonight." I hugged my teddy tighter. "Then why are you here?" "Because your mother needs help." "Can I help?" "Maybe. But not tonight." She reached toward me and carefully brushed a tiny piece of glass from my sleeve. I flinched, but she immediately pulled her hand away. "It's okay," she said quietly. "I've got you." Something about those words made my breathing slow down. For the first time since the explosion, I felt like maybe I wasn't completely alone. She looked down at my teddy. "You really like that thing, huh?" I hugged him closer. "He's been with me forever." "Then keep him close."

A sharp beep suddenly sounded from the earpiece hidden beneath her hair. She froze, and I looked at her. "What was that?" Another beep sounded, louder this time. Her jaw tightened. "I have to go." "What? No." She stood. "I need to." "But you just got here." "I know." "You said you'd help my mom." "I will." "Then where are you going?" She looked at me, and for the first time I saw something serious in her eyes. "To find her." I stepped closer. "Promise?" She hesitated before crouching in front of me again. "Listen carefully, Virelle. Whatever happens tonight, stay inside. Lock the door. Don't open it for anyone unless you know it's me." I nodded slowly. "What if Mom comes back?" "Then you'll open the door." "What if you don't come back?" For a moment, she didn't answer. Then she reached over and gently straightened my pajama sleeve. "I'll come back." "Promise?" "Promise." She stood, glanced toward the shattered window, and gave me one last look. "You're going to be okay." "How do you know?" Her mouth curved into the smallest smile. "Because you're tougher than you think." Then she climbed through the broken window and disappeared into the night.

I stayed exactly where she had left me because, for once, I was trying to do what I'd been told. I locked the door and sat on the edge of my bed with my teddy in my lap, listening to the house settle around me. I kept expecting my mother to come upstairs. I kept expecting my aunt to return. Every few seconds, I looked toward the broken window, waiting for the black shape of her jacket to appear again. She had told me to stay inside, and I wanted to believe that meant everything would be okay. Then I heard another scream. My mother's scream. This time, fear didn't freeze me. It pushed me forward. I ran to the door, unlocked it, and rushed out of my room.

The house looked like a storm had torn through it. Papers were scattered everywhere, drawers had been pulled open, photographs lay broken across the floor, furniture had been knocked over, and the walls were damaged from the explosion. I stepped carefully through the mess, still gripping my teddy, and called, "Mom?" Nothing. I called again, louder. "Mom?" Still nothing. Near the hallway, I noticed a stack of papers beneath a broken piece of furniture. I crouched and pulled them free. There were names, numbers, and things I didn't understand—pieces of a life my mother had clearly tried to keep hidden. Before I could make sense of any of it, I heard another sound outside. A sharp, broken scream. I knew that voice. I dropped the papers and ran. I don't remember opening the front door. I don't remember feeling the cold ground beneath my bare feet. I only remember the dark road stretching ahead of me, the trees standing on one side, the moonlight barely reaching through their branches, and the pale circle of a streetlight further ahead.

Beneath it was a figure lying on the ground.

I slowed down. My heart seemed to stop.

"Mom?"

There was blood dripping from her forehead. I froze. I couldn't speak. I couldn't hear. I couldn't move. The world lost its edges, and a surge of acute panic sliced down my spine and… I ran toward her and dropped to my knees. It was her. My mother. My only parent. The woman who had been my entire world. I grabbed her, my teddy trapped between my arm and her body, and cried. I cried until my chest hurt. I called her name again and again, waiting for her to answer, waiting for her to move, waiting for someone to tell me this wasn't real.I was bawling, my hands slick with her blood, desperately calling for her to wake up and tell me this was just a horrible prank. But she didn't move.   I was eleven years old. I didn't know what my mother had been hiding. I didn't know about the people she'd worked for. I didn't know why they wanted her back. I didn't know who had done this to her. I didn't know why my aunt had appeared out of nowhere, promised she would come back, and then vanished into the darkness. I only knew that my mother was gone. I knelt there beneath the streetlight, gripping my teddy and crying my heart out while the trees moved quietly beside the road and the moon watched from above. Then everything went black.

Eleven years later, I opened my eyes. My head throbbed, and something sticky had dried against my temple. My first instinct was to move my arms, but they wouldn't move. I looked down and saw jute rope wrapped tightly around my wrists, pinning me to a chair. My fingers were numb, and my black leather jacket was pulled so tightly against me that the seams strained whenever I shifted. I lifted my head and looked around. Concrete walls. One weak light overhead. No windows. No obvious way out. Whoever had brought me here had gone through a lot of trouble to make sure I stayed exactly where they wanted me. I tested the rope once and felt it bite into my wrists. I stopped and looked down at the knots instead. They were tight, but not perfect. You don't survive eleven years alone in the shadow of a murder without learning a few ways to get out of a tight grip. My twenty-two-year-old self knew that being trapped didn't mean being helpless. Whoever had tied me up had made one assumption that could cost them. They thought I would panic before I looked closely. I flexed my fingers, shifted my wrists against the rope, and began searching for the weakness in the knot.