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"You're illegally detaining me and violating me, Lucian Blackthorne!" Evelyn thrashed against her restraints, spit flying. "I'll drag you through every court."
Lucian didn't bother glancing up from the hematology reports. "Status?"
Nathaniel adjusted his microscope. "Twenty more minutes for full cellular analysis."
"Do you hear me?" Evelyn's voice cracked. "I'll make Interpol hunt your aristocratic ass! I'll..."
The rancid taste of chemical-soaked gauze silenced her. Lucian towered over the examination table, surgical gloves gleaming. "Continue that rant," he purred, scalpel flashing near her throat, "and I'll have your tongue removed for biopsy."
Nathaniel winced at the muffled screams. "Miss Voss," he whispered while checking her IV drip, "even Scotland Yard wouldn't touch a Duke's pet project. His family has several Supreme Court justices."
The truth hit like electroshock therapy. Lucian Blackthorne wasn't just wealthy, he was the untouchable elite reshaping pharmaceutical empires and parliamentary policies. What chance did a scholarship student have?
"Done!" Nathaniel's triumphant tone cut through the tension until his face drained of color.
Lucian seemed to embody quiet peace. "Speak."
"The scans..." The scientist swallowed hard. "No anomalies were detected. She's... ordinary."
The heart monitor flatlined for one terrifying second before Lucian's fury flared with volcanic intensity. "Wrong woman?"
Nathaniel scrambled backward. "Perhaps she's repressed the memory! Let's verify."
"Verify. Now."
Evelyn coughed as the gag fell away. "What's this interrogation about?"
"Where were you during September's blood moon?" Nathaniel's pen hovered over his clipboard.
"On a date." She glared defiantly. "My stepmother stood me up. Never stepped foot in your creepy castle."
Lucian's crushing grip tilted her face upward. "Lies come easily to pathological liars."
Evelyn's brow furrowed as the man's relentless insults ignited her fury. "If you don't trust me," she sneered, "why waste time interrogating me?"
To her surprise, Lucian chuckled darkly. "That sharp tongue needs tempering." His hand ripped through the medical sensors adhered to her skin.
The adhesive tore like flesh being flayed.
"Ahhh!" She arched against the burning pain as he yanked her upright by the collar, lifting her clean off the examination chair.
Nathaniel stepped forward hastily. "Sir, she's just frightened—"
"Defending her?" Lucian's glare could shatter the diamond.
Before the physician could respond, Evelyn found herself dragged through stainless steel doors and hurled onto cold marble.
"Benedict!" Lucian's command echoed through the vaulted corridor.
The elderly steward materialized with military precision. "Your orders, my lord?"
"Lock this liar in the ice vault. No food until she confesses." Lucian crouched, his grip bruising her jaw. "Every scream here is music to me."
"I've got nothing to confess!" Evelyn spat blood on his polished shoes. "I'd rather freeze than fabricate stories!"
"Perfect." Lucian's lips curled in a glacial smile. With a dismissive flick of his wrist like shooing a stray dog, he ordered, "Seal it."
"At once." Benedict dipped his head, though not before casting Evelyn a fleeting pitying glance.
The walk to the vault felt endless. When armored guards hauled her past cryogenic storage units humming with liquid nitrogen, Evelyn rasped, "What if I die here? Wouldn't that make your lord a murderer?"
Benedict paused beneath frost-encrusted archways. "Laws don't chain Blackthornes," he said gently. "That name is bulletproof armor forged from centuries of power."
The ice vault's chill seeped into Evelyn's bones as Benedict's words echoed:
"Psychopath!" She huddled in the frost-crusted corner, nails biting her arms. "Delusional jerk-face!"
Tears brimmed but refused to fall. Her porcelain face hardened with defiance even as her breath crystallized. Three hours of hypothermia couldn't break her truth - she'd never entered this damned castle.
Never carried Blackthorne's child.
Before the wall of surveillance monitors, Nathaniel adjusted his glasses. "Sir, she's telling the truth."
Lucian swirled burgundy in his crystal glass. "Maximum freeze." His thumb stroked the tumbler's rim where Evelyn's lipstick stain remained. "Let's see how long that pretty mouth stays stubborn."
Benedict's gaze flickered to the screen showing Evelyn's frost-whitened lashes. "The girl's core temperature—"
"Needs motivation." Lucian's smile mirrored the ice fractals crawling up the vault walls.
"But sir," Benedict ventured, "Miss Voss's constitution."
"Consequences?" Lucian's gaze never left the monitor, showing Evelyn's shivering form. "Truth thrives in extremes."
The crystal goblet shattered against the wall. Nathaniel bowed deeply. "My apologies, Lord Blackthorne."
"Out."
Alone in the obsidian-walled chamber, Lucian's focus narrowed on the surveillance feed.
The infrared imaging revealed every tremor in Evelyn's frostbitten limbs, every labored breath fogging the lens.
"Remarkable," he murmured as blood trickled from her split lip—her teeth's futile defense against hypothermia.
"Benedict!"
The steward materialized instantly. "My lord?"
"Crank the vault to arctic mode."
"But her vital signs..."
Lucian's boot was connected with a jade coffee table. "Execute. Now."
Five hours later, Evelyn's breath came in ghostly puffs. Her eyelids fluttered like moths trapped in amber.
The memory surfaced like shards of broken glass.
Six-year-old Evelyn hooked her pinky with her father's calloused finger. "Pinky promise you'll come next time, Daddy! Break it and you'll turn into Schnozzilla!"
Gregory chuckled, smoothing her braids. "My little negotiator." His lips brushed her mother's cheek as he helped them into the limo. "Keep my girls safe, Jade."
The vanilla-scented breeze turned to a gasoline stench in her nostrils.
Screeching tires. Crumpled metal.
"Someone call 911!"
"Christ, the mom's not moving..."
Evelyn's patent leather shoes slipped in blood-warm pavement. "Mommy, wake up! You promised!" Her screams harmonized with dying car alarms.
In the ice vault, adult Evelyn's whisper frosted the air: "You left me first, Mama."
Dining Hall.
Lucian swept an arm across the mahogany table, sending china crashing to the floor. "Inedible slop!"
Benedict gestured for servants to scramble. "We'll prepare another course immediately, sir."
"Useless." Lucian's polished oxfords crushed a porcelain shard. "Fire the lot."
The surveillance feed on the parlor screen halted him mid-storm. Evelyn lay motionless, her face dusted with frost like a fallen angel preserved in liquid nitrogen.
His knuckle whitened against the doorframe when a tear slid down her cheek, a single drop defying subzero temperatures.
"Benedict."
"Sir?"
"Duration?"
"Seven hours exposed, my lord."
The steward hesitated. "Forgive my impertinence, but corpses make poor witnesses. If you still seek the truth about her intrusion."
"Release her." Lucian's snarl echoed through the vaulted corridor. "That breathing enigma dies on anyone's watch but mine."
Haa-choo! Haa-choo!
The violent sneezes finally brought blood flow back to Evelyn's frozen limbs. Her lashes fluttered like trapped butterflies before revealing the blinding chandelier above.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Miss Voss."
Nathaniel's lab coat rustled as he checked her pulse. Beside him, Benedict maintained his signature butler posture, back straight, gloves pristine.
"Why..." Her chapped lips cracked. "Why am I your prisoner?"
"His Lordship seeks answers, not captives." Benedict's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Cooperate, and this unpleasantness..."
"Answers to what?" She batted away the stethoscope. "I don't know your precious lord! You want truth? Here's the truth—I'd rather freeze to death than play your games!"
The men exchanged glances heavy with unspoken protocols.
Evelyn threw off the fur blankets. "I'm leaving."
Benedict's arm blocked the doorway. "You've survived. I'd hate to see you perish from... impulsiveness."
"That monster!" Her scream rattled medicine vials. "What does he want? My soul on a silver platter?"
BANG!
The door slammed open. A shadow moved faster than human reflexes. Before Evelyn could blink, she dangled in midair like a ragdoll.
"Filthy liar!" Lucian's gloved hand crushed her windpipe. "Dare slander me in my own house?"
"Bastard!" She clawed at his wrist. "Put me down!"
His laugh chilled the four-poster canopy. "Five hours in cryo taught you nothing."
The mattress swallowed her impact as cold steel kissed her temple. "Shall we test that survival instinct?"
Nathaniel stepped between the gun barrel and girl. "Stand down, my lord. The lady's trauma..."
"Brain freeze!" Benedict interjected. "Prolonged hypothermia causes cognitive impairment."
Lucian's thumb caressed the trigger. "Impaired?" The hammer c****d. "Let's see how her neurons fire under pressure."
- Writer
