THE XANDERIA LAW FIRM: LOVE, LAW AND THORN.

CHAPTER 2 - JOSH

The house was almost alive when he had emerged from his room, but it wasn't from noise or chatter from the workers that stirred. It was awareness and fear and something else, was it want. However, Josh didn't care as usual, his quiet power and his aura giving pure dominance. His every step was precise as if premeditated as he thud down the obsidian stairs lined with tiles that seemed to gleam. The staff, well-trained and perfectly timed, began to scatter like petals at the foot of royalty. Like an order, heard but never announced, none of them could ignore the shift in the air the moment his feet touched the well polished black stairs. It wasn't just a man walking. It was the way he did it. His form tall, cut, controlled, and yet appealing to the eyes that behold them, a monarch in his castleHis manor was the non-living version of him, lifeless yet alive. The manor was huge and masculine, and every detail showing a side of him, it stretched in both directions. One wing leading into the rooms meant for use, the other for silence and secrets. The left hallway held the study with its bronze-rimmed table, jagged and masculine like his soul cracked into sharp lines. Opposite it, the lounge, dim and rigid, with leather too stiff for comfort. A little after there, the dining room, with a brightly lit chandelier that hung onto the ceiling with childlike designs of angels, like a story told about heaven's angels, but yet still was a space never filled with warmth, only the scent of imported and expensive wine and polished wood. Then kitchen, too cold and clinical for a home. Finally, at the farthest corner of the right wing, the door closed, as always.

It was the only part of the house that had been shut out from the world but seemed to have experienced life. No one dared to ask what was behind it, but voices didn't lie. A collection of memories and women, of sheets and screams of pleasure, and every other thing he didn't let to bleed into the rest of the manor. Some of his servants said it was where he went when the darkness in him grew and pushed against the restrains holding it. Some said it was where, with every thrust, a bit human, he became. It was a room that breathed secrets, built for no function, but for indulgence, and for sun. But to him, the room was a reminder of what he could never get back, her. He paused, just a second. He longed for her. With head tilted towards the door, as if scent had leaked from the cracks of the door, a perfume of the past, his past, a whisper too soft to forget. And then he muttered.

"Agatha," it was a breath. It was a tremble. It was a man breaking carefully. Not for the others he'd casually been with, never for them but for someone who truly had seen him for him. His head dipped, his hands curling into a fist at his side. The weight of her name crashed into thin air around him like thunder muffled by glass walls. If only he'd been more careful with her and her heart, had he known. He loved her still.

Agatha, she was the only one who saw the boy beneath the stacks and stacks of cash, the cracks beneath the charm. And now, she was the ghost he walked beside.

"Master Josh," a voice said. Josh turned to see who it was. It was Clifford. The butler of Josh's Manor. In the months after Agatha, Clifford had become more than a worker. He haf, in some odd way, become a placeholder, never touching Josh's pain only seeing, but was always rhere, a living reminder of order, routine, and all the things that didn't feel like love. Perharps, that was why Josh hadn't dismissed him. Because he didn't ask questions. Clifford stood two paces behind him, gloved hands folded, gaze fixed forward, not judgemental, not warm, neither cold, just there, as if to want to blend into the dark, to deny the little moment of Josh's capacity of being human.

With a low sigh, Josh straightened. The moment had passed. The door would remain shut. The ghost seemed to retreat to their quietness once more. He walked towards the exit. The female workers passed, and some watched him leave, some with legs brushing unconsciously, some with lips parting without intention. They would have offered themselves, but they weren't stupid, others already had. But Josh had no use for bodies without the soul he had already buried. As he headed towards the car, a sleek black Mac Lauren, with the chauffeur already in it, to drive to work, behind him, the manor stood still. broken. Just like him.