Page 50 of Scarred in Silence (The Twisted Trilogy #2)

Astra

The sound of champagne flutes clinking and low laughter filters through the garden like music. Twinkle lights drape from the trees, throwing halos around every head, as if trying to sanctify the sinners gathered here. It’s all too perfect. Too bright. Too clean.

Lucien’s hand is warm at the small of my back, anchoring me.

He’s wearing black, of course—tailored and deadly.

I’m in a champagne slip dress that hugs my body perfectly.

My hair is platinum, curled just enough to look soft, not strategic.

The ring on my finger catches the fading sun.

Just a raw, pure-cut oval. It’s stunning.

He said I deserved something that hadn’t been stained.

“You good?” he leans in, his breath grazing my temple.

“Yeah,” I lie, smiling.

The truth is, I’ve been watching the entrance like a hawk for the last hour. Harmony’s name sat on the invite list—sent, not responded to—but part of me knew she’d come. She always shows up eventuall y. Just not always in the ways you expect.

Evelyn floats over with two glasses of sparkling cider, Dante trailing her with a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries like some dark prince turned butler. I raise a brow at him.

“Didn’t peg you for catering staff,” I tease.

He smirks. “Lucien said if I didn’t help, he’d throw me in a cage.”

Lucien shrugs. “Still might.”

Evelyn passes me a glass and whispers, “You look beautiful. Like… scary beautiful. I think I want to marry you a little.”

“Tell Lucien,” I deadpan, “He’ll loan me out for the right price.”

We all laugh, and for a second it’s easy. Normal. If you don’t look too hard at the scars beneath the silk, you might even believe we’re just four people in love with life. But I know better. There’s always a countdown ticking somewhere.

Dante pulls Lucien aside to talk business, and Evelyn grabs my hand to pull me toward a group of her college friends. I play nice, answer questions about the proposal, and smile when I’m told I’m glowing. But something inside me is…off.

I keep thinking about Harmony. Where the Hell is she?

“She’ll come,” Evelyn whispers in my ear when she catches me scanning the lawn again. “You’re her favorite girl. Even if she can’t say it.”

“I don’t know who she is anymore,” I murmur.

Evelyn gives me that look—equal parts pity and warning.

As the sun dips low and the first stars shimmer above, the DJ shifts from lo-fi instrumentals to some mellow acoustic track.

Lucien returns to my side just in time for a round of speeches.

Dante roasts him for being “an emotionally unavailable asshole who somehow managed to trap the only person more emotio nally constipated than himself.”

I laugh until my chest aches. Lucien just wraps an arm around me and kisses my cheek like he’s sealing some invisible vow.

Then the servers bring out dessert, and the gifts start stacking. Boxes with silken bows. Gift bags with tissue paper the color of bone. Everyone is seated now. Watching. The air tightens, the way it always does before something goes terribly wrong.

And then—

“Harmony?” Evelyn’s voice cuts through the chatter.

I turn.

She’s standing at the edge of the crowd. No announcement. No RSVP. Just… there. Wearing a long black coat, oversized sunglasses, and a slit dress that doesn’t match the mood. Her hair’s longer than I remember. Her face is unreadable.

Lucien straightens beside me, subtly stepping forward.

She gives a small wave, and I see it—just for a second. Her hand trembles.

I open my mouth to say something, anything—

But she’s already sitting down and smiling like a doll with cracked porcelain underneath.

Lucien leans down, voice tight. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

* * *

The pile of gifts in front of me looks obscene. All that glossy wrapping. All that careful presentation. Like anyone here really believes I deserve any of it.

I peel open a card with some perfect cursive handwriting—“T o the most beautiful couple. May your love outshine even your past.” I don’t recognize the name, and I don’t care to. It goes in the discard pile.

Lucien’s leg brushes mine under the table as he opens a box for me. Crystal champagne flutes. More delicate than either of us will ever be.

“That’ll last about six hours,” I mutter.

“Generous,” Lucien murmurs.

People laugh. I’m still watching Harmony.

She hasn’t spoken more than two words since she arrived. She picked a seat at the far end of the gift table, crossing her legs, arms folded tight. She’s smiling, but it’s wrong. It’s frozen. Like she’s trying to remember what joy is supposed to feel like.

Evelyn leans toward me. “She’s off.”

“I know.”

I shift in my seat, tearing open a box wrapped in midnight black. There’s no tag.

Inside, a hand-bound leather journal with silver-edged pages. My initials are pressed into the cover.

I stare at it, something twisting deep in my gut.

“Who’s this from?” I ask, voice too loud, too sharp.

Lucien lifts the lid. Checks the box. “No card.”

I don’t like this.

Harmony stands suddenly. Her chair scrapes the floor, and every head turns. She brushes nonexistent lint off her dress.

“Sorry,” she says with that same too-sweet smile. “Didn’t mean to make a scene.”

“You’re fine,” I offer, though my voice is dry. “You just got here.”

She doesn’t answer me. Doesn’t sit. She just looks down at the gifts, then ba ck up at me, eyes glassy, hands twitching at her sides.

“I remembered something,” she says.

The words feel like stones in my mouth. “What?”

But she doesn’t reply. She turns, heels tapping out a goodbye message none of us were prepared for.

“Harmony?” Evelyn calls.

She keeps walking. Through the tables. Past the patio lights. Down the winding stone steps toward the gravel drive.

Lucien grabs my wrist before I can stand.

“Let her go,” he says low. “She’s spiraling.”

“That’s why I can’t.”

He releases me, but his jaw’s tight.

I walk fast. Shoes crunching against stone, cold air tightening my skin. My pulse is a snare drum in my chest.

Harmony doesn’t look back as she reaches a black SUV parked off to the side of the property. The headlights flash once.

She opens the door.

I freeze.

Something feels wrong—worse than wrong. Every cell in my body starts screaming at once.

A man’s in the driver’s seat. Just a silhouette in the dark. But I’d know that posture anywhere.

I step behind a tree, breath caught between my ribs. I reach for my phone with shaking fingers and snap a picture. I zoom in. License plate.

Five digits.

My stomach turns to ice.

I call Dante.

He answers on the second ring. “Yeah?”

“Run a plate ,” I whisper. “Now.”

A pause.

“You okay?”

“No. Just run it.”

I text him the photo. My hands won’t stop shaking.

Three minutes.

Then his voice comes back, gravel and fire.

“Damien.”

I stare at the screen.

Harmony got in the car.

The door slammed shut.

The SUV peeled down the gravel drive like a ghost being chased.

And I stand there. Frozen.

The party’s still going. Laughter still filters through the trees. Nobody knows. Nobody sees.

But I do.

And now—I have to decide what to do with it.

* * *

* * *

I walk back up the path like I’m stepping through molasses, slow and thick and drowning in it.

The laughter feels foreign now. Distant. Like I’ve stumbled into someone else’s celebration and put on their skin to blend in.

Lucien is standing at the top of the patio steps, eyes scanning for me. When he sp ots me, something shifts in his stance—shoulders squared, hands flexing at his sides like he’s ready for war.

“What happened?” he murmurs as I climb the last step.

I shake my head.

“She left.”

He blinks. “Why?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Did you follow her?”

My silence is louder than any answer. His gaze sharpens.

“Astra—”

“She got into a car,” I say, voice flat. “It wasn’t hers.”

Lucien’s nostrils flare. “Who was driving?”

I don’t want to say it out loud. I don’t want the word to taste like blood on my tongue. But I do it anyway.

“Damien.”

For a second, he just stares at me.

And then it hits him.

He turns, walks to the railing, grips it hard enough I hear the wood creak under his palm. “You’re sure?”

“I got the plate. Dante ran it.”

He nods once, jaw clenched. “Of course he fucking did.”

I lean against the brick wall beside him, my heartbeat climbing in my throat. “She didn’t even say goodbye.”

He doesn’t answer.

Down below, someone starts clinking their glass for another toast. More laughter. More champagne bubbles.

I want to scream.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper. “Why would she go with him? She warned me about him years ago.”

Lucien’s voice is cold. “Because he’s using her. The same way he used me. Th e same way he used everyone.”

I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the warm night air. “She didn’t even look scared.”

“She wouldn’t,” he says. “If Damien has her, he’s manipulating her into believing it’s her choice.”

I blink at him. “You mean like you did with me?”

His head jerks toward me. I didn’t mean to say it, not really—not tonight . But the words slipped out like a wound tearing open. And now they’re between us.

He swallows. “Do you really think I’m like him?”

“No,” I say too fast. “I don’t. But sometimes I… I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

He steps closer. “You’re real. We’re real. Everything else—”

“Is a lie,” I finish, nodding slowly. “Yeah. I know.”

The music picks up behind us. Evelyn’s laughing with Dante somewhere on the lawn. None of them knows what just happened. None of them know Harmony just slipped through our fingers like smoke.

I look back toward the tree line.

She got in that car willingly.

But the Harmony I knew wouldn’t have.

Which means she’s either changed… or she’s trapped.

I touch the phone in my pocket, tracing the edge of the screen.

“We have to find her.”

Lucien gives a tight nod. “We will.”

“And when we do… if Damien touches her—”

“I’ll kill him,” he says, voice like ice cracking over something much darker.

And I believe him.

Because if there’s one thing Lucien’s good at—it’s finishing what he starts .

* * *

The last of the guests are gone.

Evelyn kissed my cheek before she left and whispered, “You looked powerful tonight.”

I didn’t feel it.

Not when Harmony vanished.

Not when Dante’s text popped up confirming the license plate.

Not now, standing alone in Lucien’s office, staring down at the printout he laid on the desk.

Black ink. White paper. Nothing about it should feel dangerous.

But it’s his name. His fucking name. Damien Crowe. Registered owner. Clean title. No violations.

It’s like he never died. Like he never disappeared. Like the nightmare just got more clever, quieter.

Lucien stands behind me, silent.

I can feel his tension, like a flame between my shoulder blades. I don’t have to see him to know his jaw is clenched, hands probably in fists at his sides, heart a riot behind his ribs.

“We need to move,” I say quietly. “We can’t wait.”

“We won’t.”

“She’s alone.”

“She’s not stupid.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s safe.”

His hand brushes mine—just once. I let it happen.

But I don’t look at him.

Because I’m staring at Damien’s name as if I focus hard enough, the paper will catch fire.

“I thought he was dead.”

“He should be.”

I turn around. “Did you check?”

His eyes flick up, cold and unreadable. “They buried him.”

“Where?”

His silence tells me everything.

“You didn’t bury him?”

Lucien looks away. “I left him to bleed out.”

“And you just walked away?”

“I thought it was over.”

My mouth parts. My breath feels jagged.

“Do you regret it?”

He shakes his head. “No. But I regret not putting one in his skull.”

I press my palm to my stomach, grounding myself. Everything feels like it’s unraveling again. The peace I’ve been pretending to live inside—it was never real. Just a quiet before the next rupture.

A crash from the hallway startles us both.

Lucien’s gun is in his hand before I can speak.

We move fast. Through the door. Down the hall.

But it’s just a vase. Fallen off the ledge by the front window.

Shattered on the floor like some kind of omen.

I bend down to pick up a shard, the porcelain white and sharp in my hand. Lucien crouches beside me, gently pulling the piece from my fingers.

“We’ll find her,” he says again.

I nod.

But there’s something cold blooming in my chest.

Something I do n’t want to name yet.

What if Harmony doesn’t want to be found?

* * *

It’s nearly midnight when I go back into our bedroom.

Lucien’s still in his office.

The night is quiet. Too quiet.

I open the balcony door and step outside. The breeze is cool, sharp with the scent of pine and dust. I lean on the railing, staring into the black. There’s nothing but trees out here.

Trees and shadows.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

Unknown number.

I answer without thinking. “Hello?”

The line crackles.

Then—breath.

Then— laughter.

Low. Familiar.

Freezing.

“Well, well. The little lamb got her fangs after all.”

My entire body locks.

“Damien,” I whisper.

“Wrong. I’m not Damien anymore.”

Silence.

“Call me Midas, darling.”

I can’t breathe.

“I’ll give you a hint,” he continues. “She’s safe. For now. She wants you to know that.”

“Harmony?”

“She came to me. You just pushed her too far. She needed someone who didn’t try to change her.”

“She’s lying,” I hiss. “You took her.”

“I did a lot of things,” he says, voice soft and poisonous. “But the worst is still coming. You thought Miles was the monster?”

The call ends.

I drop the phone. It bounces once on the deck.

Behind me, Lucien’s voice is distant, muffled, like it is underwater.

“Astra?”

But I can’t turn around.

Because my hands are shaking.

Because Damien is alive.

Because Harmony is with him.

And because this time… we’re not going to survive him.

Harmony will never survive him…