Page 53

It’s just past midnight, and I’m barefoot in the east wing, my robe brushing the floor as I stand outside my father’s locked study.

The floor beneath me is marble and unforgiving, leeching the warmth right out of my bones.

But I let it. I welcome it. Let it chill me to my core, just to feel something other than what’s whispering beneath my skin.

Last night still lingers in my body like a slow burn.

I feel it every time I move, every stretch of a muscle, every clench of my thighs.

Silas’s name isn’t on my lips, but it’s carved somewhere deeper.

The memory of him, of the way he made me come undone with nothing but his voice and that damn remote, clings to my skin like perfume.

No hands. No kisses. Just command, control, and exquisite torture. He didn’t even touch me.

And somehow, I’ve never felt more claimed.

But this isn’t about him. Not tonight. This is about another man. One with a different kind of power, a different kind of hold over me.

My father.

He used to come here every weekend without fail.

Like clockwork. Always Friday nights, always in a tailored suit, and always with his phone glued to his hand like the world would fall apart if he didn’t keep it in his grip.

He’d stay through Sunday, hold court at the long dining table, remind the staff how precise he liked his espresso, and then disappear back to the city before the house could exhale.

But he hasn’t been back in weeks. The last time I saw him, he was on the phone in this very hallway, whispering something in a language I only half-recognized.

That was… what? A month ago? Longer? And since then, there’s been radio silence.

No calls, no texts, and no cryptic voice notes. Just voicemail and shadows.

It’s not like him.

Not even close.

And maybe that’s what scares me. Because if he’s not checking in, not controlling, and not planning, then something’s wrong. Or he’s hiding. And I need to know which.

I reach into the pocket of my robe and pull out the key.

It’s old, brass, and heavy—the kind of thing that looks like it belongs in a haunted novel.

The teeth of the key are sharp and uneven, like they were cut by hand.

Zara passed it to me with a look that said she didn’t want to be involved but couldn’t stop herself.

“Elijah gave it to me,” she said quietly, almost guiltily. “He found it in one of Isola’s old boxes. He said your dad never changed the locks on the study and said that’s what scared her the most.”

Isola. My mother. Dead and still managing to haunt the estate with her absence.

I tighten my fingers around the key. My heart’s racing, but my face stays calm. Years of practice.

My father built this house with secrets in the foundation and secrets woven into every inch of mahogany and marble.

This study, this locked door, was always off-limits.

Even as a kid, I was never allowed inside.

It was his sanctuary. His war room. His place to scheme and lie and make the world kneel.

Tonight, I’m done obeying rules made by men who vanished when shit got too real.

I slide the key into the lock. The metal clicks.

The sound is soft. Final.

Like something sacred just ended.

The door creaks open with a kind of slow resistance. The study breathes at me, stale cigar smoke, expensive ink, and dust thick with secrets. It smells like power and fear, legacy and loss. The kind of room men build to feel important.

The fireplace is long dead, and the ashtray beside it still holds a half-burned Cuban, like someone walked out mid-deal and never came back.

Books line the walls, with titles about war strategy, economic dominance, and hollow-ass philosophy written by men who never learned how to say sorry.

There are no fiction books. No joy. Just control.

The desk is spotless. Not clean… sterile. Wiped like someone was expecting an audit. A statement of guilt by omission.

I cross the room slowly, my bare feet whispering against the rug. My fingers brush the surface of the desk. It’s too polished, too empty. My stomach twists.

I start with the drawers. I find legal docs, financial reports, more bullshit about Vane Holdings, quarterly projections, and shareholder updates with blacked-out annotations. Clinical, soulless, and ruthless.

This isn’t what I’m looking for.

I move to the bookshelf behind the desk. Same drill—military biographies, leather covers, and gold-embossed egos. I press against the wood instinctively, like something might give.

And lo and behold, it does.

There’s a soft click, a whisper of resistance. One of the panels pops open, and behind it… a wall safe. Of course.

I kneel, my hands shaking as I touch the keypad. I stare at it for a second, then type in the first combination that hits my mind.

My birthday.

It beeps. Unlocks.

My laugh is dry, humorless. “He never forgets the dates that make him look good.”

Inside is a single item. One small leather-bound journal with no lock and the initials I.V. etched on the corner in delicate gold script.

Isola Vane.

My mother.

I sit on the floor. The carpet bites into my knees as I open the journal. I don’t know what I’d do if my mother hadn’t kept records. Maybe she knew I’d need it.

The entries are spaced out, almost hesitant. Her handwriting, elegant loops and curved flourishes, remains unchanged. But there’s something in the words. An apprehension. Like she’s writing in code, even though no one’s watching.

I think I’m in danger. I’ve changed drivers three times this week, but I’m skeptical of everyone and everything.

My breath catches. My pulse kicks.

Noah said he could make a connection. One more meeting, then I’ll go.

Lyra’s too smart. She’s asking questions. I’m afraid he’ll use her.

My hands are trembling now. My eyes scan too fast, devouring every word like I’ll lose them if I blink.

The doctor confirmed it. Six weeks along. I didn’t tell him. I couldn’t. He’d make it his weapon.

My heart flatlines.

He’s watching me again. I saw it in his eyes tonight. If anything happens, it wasn’t an accident.

The journal slips from my hands and thuds softly onto the carpet.

I can’t breathe.

Tears fill my eyes without permission, hot and heavy, blurring everything. I blink them back, but more come. My throat is raw, and my chest feels like it’s caving in. I clutch at the rug, grounding myself as it hits me.

She was pregnant. She was going to run. She didn’t trust him.

And now she’s gone.

And I’m all alone.

“I could have had a sibling,” I whisper, my voice cracking and breaking. “I might’ve been left with more than loneliness.”

My dad isn’t just a murderer of my mother, but also of my unborn sibling. The thought is too much and not enough. A ghost of someone who never existed but suddenly matters more than anyone.

I sit there with my arms wrapped around myself like I can hold the pieces in. But they keep slipping. Like her.

I rise on shaking legs. My entire body trembles with rage and grief and something sharp that I don’t have a name for yet.

The study looks different now. Smaller and suffocating. His trophies aren’t impressive; they’re pathetic. His degrees, his photos, his perfectly curated image, it’s all a fucking lie. A cover for a man who let everything rot behind the walls he built.

I pull out my phone, my hand still shaking as I hit call.

Voicemail. Again.

I stare at the screen.

Coward.

He left all of this in plain sight. The secrets and darkness. The damn journal with my mother’s last words. And he won’t even pick up the fucking phone.

I’m surrounded by everything he wanted me to believe. And none of it is real. I’ve been living with a murderer all these years, and I had no idea.

Now, I’m surrounded by the absence of my father, who was never the person I thought I knew.

My loneliness comes alive like it’s engineered into an oppressive and intentional being. I can feel it crawling up my spine, wrapping around my throat, and reminding me that this house was never meant to keep me safe. It was meant to keep me obedient.

My eyes drift to the fireplace, abandoned and unused. To the desk, still spotless. And then, unbidden, the memory crashes into me, sharp and unwelcome.

I was fifteen and dressed in black, my knees aching in heels I wasn’t tall enough for yet. My mother was in the ground, her casket still fresh in the dirt. The scent of lilies and rain still hung in the air like a bad omen.

And I had tried, God, I had tried, to cry in front of my father. Stupidly and desperately.

He stood exactly where I’m standing now, a glass of scotch in his hand, his posture as rigid as the headstone behind us. His suit was pressed, and his tie perfectly knotted, not a single thread out of place. His face? Carved out of marble. Cold and impossibly still.

Not once did he reach for me. Not a hand on my shoulder. Not a word of comfort. No “I’m sorry.” No “We’ll get through this.”

I stood there, broken open, waiting for something. Anything. A hug, a look, a hint of shared pain.

Instead, he took a sip of his drink and said flatly, “Your tears don’t change anything. Control them.”

He still wouldn’t look at me. Like if he did, he might see a reflection of everything he was guilty of.

Control them.

Like grief was a wild dog I should muzzle. Like losing her was an inconvenience. A crack in the flawless image he clung to like gospel.

I remember choking on a sob, my vision blurring as I scrubbed at my cheeks with the sleeve of my dress, not ashamed of the pain, but of the fact that he saw it, the silence that followed, and the way he turned his back and walked away like it was just another Wednesday.

Like she hadn't been the only person who ever loved us both without condition.

Maybe I never knew him. Maybe I only ever knew the version of him that he sold me, the polished man with the sharp smile and sharper lies.

The man who taught me not to feel too loud, not to trust too deeply.

The man who built an empire on secrets and called it power.

The man who taught me that strength was silence. And vulnerability? A sin.

I walk to the window, my fingers trailing along the edge of the bookshelf. The glass is cool beneath my palm. Outside, the estate gardens sprawl in curated symmetry. But tonight, they’re drenched in shadow. The moonlight doesn’t reach them.

It’s all dark. Every inch of it.

And I realize this unresponsiveness isn’t abandonment. It’s strategy and control.

“What are you planning, Dad?” I whisper into the empty space.

There’s no answer. Of course not. He’s always been better at absence.

I turn from the window, walk back across the study, and kneel to pick up the journal. My fingers trace my mother’s initials one more time. I.V. Her final legacy, hidden in a room I was never meant to enter.

She left me breadcrumbs. Now, it’s time I start following them.

I slip the journal into the inner pocket of my coat and close the safe, pressing the panel shut until it clicks. Then, I lock the study behind me and slip the antique key back into my pocket with steady hands.

The hallway feels much cooler now, but I’m not retreating. I’m moving forward.

Why didn’t my father just get rid of the journal? Why keep it at all? Even if it was hidden, it’s practically a signed confession, proof that he was behind my mother’s death. I keep turning it over in my head, trying to make sense of it, but nothing fits.

My father, the man who calculates every move, who leaves nothing to chance, kept the one thing that could unravel him.

Why?

Was it guilt? Some twisted relic he kept close to punish himself? Or was it worse?

Was it pride?

Did he read it sometimes and smirk at her pain? Did he laugh at how desperately she clung to hope while he slowly pulled the ground out from under her?

Did he keep it because it made him feel powerful, knowing she’d never escape him, not even in death?

I don’t know.

But whatever the reason, it makes my skin crawl.

Because if there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that my father doesn’t make mistakes. So, keeping that journal… it wasn’t one.

I pass the main staircase, turning toward my wing, but my steps slow as I near a door I haven’t opened in years.

Mom’s old art studio.

The doorknob is untouched, the paint around it just slightly cracked. I don’t open it. I can’t bear to look at it again. But I place my hand on the knob. And I swear the air stops like it’s holding its breath.

Not tonight. Tonight, I won’t cry.

I’m done crying and breaking. Right now, I’m about to burn everyone with my wrath.