THE CRIMSON HEIRESS

Chapter 3. Empty Hands, Hollow Silence

Liana

"I'm sorry Liana. I'm sorry, really."

Mia's voice.

I didn't turn around.

Just sat there on the piano bench with my hands in my lap and the sound of her in the room like something I hadn't asked for.

She was sorry.

After everything. She walked in here and she was sorry.

A shaky breath slipped past my lips.

"You told me to be strong," I said. Barely above a whisper. "When we were nine and Dad looked through me at breakfast like I wasn't there. You held my hand under the table. You said don't lose yourself Liana. Remember who you are."

My fingers trembled in my lap.

"I was so desperate. So foolish. Chasing after love. After one person in this family who would just choose me." My voice cracked. "I couldn't see what was coming."

Silence.

Then her footsteps. Slow. Careful.

She was right to be careful.

"I had no idea it would go this far," she said. "I didn't know Dad would force you to sign. I didn't know about the blade. Liana I swear."

"But you knew about Logan."

She stopped walking.

"You knew and you stood three rows back in a new dress and you waited for it to be done."

Nothing.

"How long."

She didn't answer.

"Mia. How long."

A pause so long I almost turned around.

"Two months," she whispered.

Two months.

I closed my eyes.

Two months of dinner tables and questions. How is Logan. Are you happy. Do you think he's the one. Two months of me answering honestly because she was my sister and I still believed that meant something.

Two months of her already knowing.

Two months ago Logan cancelled on me twice in one week. I made excuses for him. Told myself Alpha responsibilities. Told myself he was under pressure.

Mia asked me about it at dinner.

She already knew why.

I had handed her the information and she had filed it away and smiled at me across the table and asked if I wanted more rice.

Two months of sitting across from me with that smooth face and those careful questions and filing away every answer I gave her like information she would need later.

Because she would need it later.

Because she was already planning later.

I opened my eyes.

"Get out," I said.

"Liana..."

"Get out of this room!"

Her breath caught.

Footsteps toward the door.

It opened. Paused.

"I really am sorry," she said. Quieter. Like she meant it this time.

I didn't answer.

Because sorry after two months of knowing isn't sorry.

The door closed.

I sat in the piano room with the dark outside the window and two months sitting in my stomach like something I would never digest.

She was sorry.

Logan was somewhere in this house smiling at a photographer with no remorse.

And I had signed my name beside a stranger's.

I pressed my hands flat on my knees and made myself breathe.

In. Out.

I looked at the lock on the door.

The one that only opened from the outside.

I had built three years of distance from this house and this family and this pack and still ended up here. In this room. With a contract barely dry and nowhere left to go.

I pressed my hands harder on my knees.

In. Out.

The door opened again without a knock.

I didn't move.

"Liana."

Logan.

I kept my eyes on the window.

"I came to explain."

"Don't."

He exhaled. Stepped closer.

"Just listen. Please."

I turned around. Slowly. Because I wanted him to see my face when I said what came next.

He opened his mouth.

I got there first.

"You didn't earn it," I whispered.

He stilled.

"You chose the other path."

Every cancelled plan. Every excuse I swallowed. Every time I told myself I was overthinking.

"You chose power over everything."

My chest tightened but I held it.

"You picked her over me."

Quieter now.

"Not for love."

Something moved across his face.

"Never for love, Logan."

My voice broke on his name. The tears came and I let them because I was done performing calm for someone who never deserved it.

"But for an alliance." Hollow. "To bind the West and South together. To secure your place as Alpha."

Silence.

Thick. Suffocating.

He didn't deny it.

Didn't reach for something easier.

Just stood there.

I looked at him.

Two years.

Two years of that face. Two years of those eyes that used to find mine across a room before I found his. Two years of him saying things that felt true and me believing them because I wanted to and because wanting to had always been enough of a reason before.

I remembered the night he sat on the bonfire steps and said Liana you're the only person I don't have to perform for. I believed that. I believed it completely because it felt too specific to be a lie.

Specific things feel true.

That's what makes them the most dangerous kind of lie.

It wasn't enough anymore.

I walked to the door. Held it open.

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he left without a word.

I stood in the empty piano room and understood that some people don't come back to apologize.

They come back to feel better about what they did.

Logan was one of those people.

I would not forget that.

I pressed my back against the closed door and looked at the dark room around me.

The piano. The window. The lock that only opened from the outside.

I thought about Mia's footsteps walking back toward the door. Logan walking out without a word. My father at the head table not moving once. Blake's arms around mine while his face twisted in pain.

Everyone had come into this room tonight.

Not one of them had come for me.

I was still thinking about that when something moved outside the window.

A shadow. Low. Fast.

Gone before I finished registering it.

I straightened.

Crossed to the window.

The grounds were dark. Still. Nothing moving.

But the feeling didn't leave.

The specific feeling of something that has been watching and just decided you noticed it.

I stepped back from the glass.

The lock on this door only opened from the outside.

And the night wasn't done with me yet.