Chapter 13 - Bitter
1928 Words
Lucian deleted the message.
I stared at the blank screen. “That was addressed to me.”
“That was bait.”
“So was the photograph of your mother.”
“Yes.”
“And we are still going.”
His gaze lifted to mine.
There was something frighteningly calm in his face now. The rage had not disappeared. It had simply gone underground, where it could sharpen itself without interruption.
“We are not going,” he said. “I am.”
I reached into the duffel bag and removed a handgun.
Lucian’s expression changed.
“Put that down.”
“Teach me how to use it.”
“No.”
“Then I will improvise.”
“You will shoot your own foot.”
“Possibly. But I will do it beside you.”
He crossed the room and took the weapon from me. His fingers closed around mine, guiding them away from the trigger.
“You have no idea what waits inside that house.”
“Neither do you.”
“I know enough.”
“Then tell me.”
His jaw tightened.
The silence between us became another locked door.
I pulled my hand free.
“That is what I thought.”
I turned away, but Lucian caught my waist and drew me back against him.
His mouth was near my ear.
“You think I am keeping secrets because I do not trust you.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
His hand spread over my stomach, holding me so firmly that I felt each uneven breath he took behind me.
“I am keeping them because every truth I give you makes it harder for you to leave.”
I turned in his arms.
“Perhaps you should stop deciding that leaving is what I want.”
His eyes moved over my face as if searching for the lie.
“What do you want?”
“You.”
The word left me before caution could murder it.
Lucian went utterly still.
I placed my palm against his chest.
“I want the man who stands between me and bullets. I want the monster who checks every door. I want the liar who looks at me as though honesty might kill him.”
His heart pounded beneath my hand.
“And if I discover something terrible?” I whispered. “Then I will decide what to do with it.”
His fingers slid into my hair.
“You make it sound so simple.”
“No. I make it sound like my choice.”
He kissed me.
Not with the hunger of the bed or the table.
This kiss was quieter.
Worse.
It felt like goodbye spoken against my mouth.
I gripped his shirt and pulled him closer, refusing the farewell hidden in the tenderness.
His forehead rested against mine.
“If anything happens inside that house, you run.”
“No.”
“You run,” he repeated, his voice low and brutal. “Even if I call your name. Even if I beg you to come back.”
“You would never beg.”
“For you, I would crawl.”
The words opened something raw inside me.
Lucian pressed the gun into my hand.
Then he taught me where to aim.
---
The estate rose from the darkness like something the earth had tried to swallow and failed.
Its windows were black. Ivy strangled the stone walls. At the top of the hill, a broken angel leaned over the iron gates, its marble face weathered into something almost demonic.
“Charming childhood home,” I murmured.
Lucian parked beneath the trees.
“I did not grow up here.”
“You said it belonged to your father.”
“It belonged to his worst appetites.”
He checked the magazine in his weapon.
“What does that mean?”
“It means people entered this house and did not always leave it.”
Cold gathered beneath my skin.
Lucian reached across the car and touched my cheek.
“If I tell you to run…”
“I know.”
“Say it.”
“I run.”
He studied me.
“You are lying.”
“Yes.”
His thumb brushed my lower lip.
For one reckless second, I thought he might kiss me again.
Instead, he whispered, “God help whoever tries to take you from me.”
We moved through the trees.
Lucian found a rusted service door hidden beneath the eastern wall. The lock opened beneath his hands as if the house remembered him.
Inside, the corridor smelled of dust, damp stone, and old smoke.
He motioned for me to remain behind him.
This time, I obeyed.
Mostly.
We passed empty rooms covered in white sheets. Portraits watched us through layers of grime. Men with Lucian’s eyes and women with Lucian’s beautiful, merciless mouths stared down from gilded frames.
At the end of the corridor, music began to play.
A slow piano piece.
Soft.
Elegant.
Entirely wrong.
Lucian stopped.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“That song.”
“You know it?”
“My mother used to play it.”
A light appeared beneath the double doors ahead.
Lucian raised his gun.
We entered together.
The room beyond had once been a ballroom.
Hundreds of candles burned along the walls.
Masked men stood in a circle around the room, dressed in black, weapons lowered at their sides.
In the centre sat Lucian’s mother.
But she was no longer tied to the chair.
She was standing.
Unbruised.
Untouched.
Perfectly composed in a dark red gown.
The blood at the corner of her mouth had been wiped away.
No.
Not wiped away.
Painted on.
Lucian’s gun dropped slightly.
“Mother?”
She smiled.
Not warmly.
Proudly.
“You came.”
The masked men raised their weapons.
Lucian moved in front of me.
His mother laughed.
“You still do that.”
“Do what?”
“Confuse possession with protection.”
His body became rigid.
“You staged this.”
“Of course.”
“You let me believe they had hurt you.”
“I needed you frightened enough to stop thinking.”
Her gaze shifted to me.
“And I needed her to choose you.”
Lucian’s voice went deadly quiet.
“You sent the second message.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To see whether she would betray you.”
I stepped around Lucian.
“She did not,” he said.
His mother’s smile widened.
“No. She did something far more useful.”
“What?”
“She proved she is exactly who I hoped she was.”
The masked men began removing their masks.
I recognised none of them.
But they looked at me with something that made my stomach tighten.
Not hatred.
Recognition.
Lucian’s mother walked toward us.
“You have your father’s eyes,” she said to me.
“I do not know you.”
“No. But you knew this house.”
I almost laughed.
“I have never been here.”
“Then why did you know which corridor to take?”
I looked back.
Lucian had chosen the corridor.
Hadn’t he?
I tried to remember.
The service door.
The left turn.
The staircase I had avoided without knowing why.
A headache began behind my eyes.
Lucian noticed.
He reached for me.
His mother lifted one finger.
Every weapon in the room pointed at his chest.
“Do not touch her.”
Lucian did not stop.
He took my hand.
“Tell me what you did to her.”
“What your father began.”
Lucian’s face changed.
For the first time, fear entered it.
Real fear.
“No.”
His mother looked almost amused.
“You knew this day would come.”
I turned to him.
“Knew what?”
He said nothing.
“Lucian.”
His grip tightened around my hand.
His mother circled us slowly.
“Twenty-two years ago, your father ordered an entire family erased. Their money, their records, even their name.”
She stopped in front of me.
“One child survived.”
The room tilted.
I could hear the piano.
I could smell smoke.
Somewhere, far beneath memory, a little girl was screaming.
“No,” I whispered.
Lucian stepped closer. “Do not listen to her.”
His mother’s gaze remained fixed on mine.
“You were not rescued from that fire.”
A flash tore through my head.
A man carrying me down a corridor.
Blood on his collar.
A ring shaped like a serpent.
Lucian’s father wore that ring in every portrait.
“You were taken,” she continued. “Your memories were buried. Your identity was replaced.”
My knees weakened.
Lucian caught me.
The instant his arms closed around me, another memory surfaced.
A boy standing at the top of a staircase.
Dark hair.
Grey eyes.
Watching as I was carried away.
Lucian.
Younger.
But unmistakably him.
I shoved him back.
“You were there.”
His face broke.
“I was a child.”
“You knew me.”
“Not at first.”
The words hollowed me out.
Not at first.
Meaning later.
Meaning before tonight.
Meaning every time he had looked at me and said nothing.
His mother stepped between us.
“Your real name is Seraphina Vale.”
The name struck something buried inside me.
A door opened.
Fire rushed through it.
I saw my mother falling.
My father reaching for me.
Lucian’s father raising a gun.
I screamed and staggered backward.
Lucian caught my shoulders.
“Look at me.”
I tried to pull away.
“Look at me,” he said again.
His voice dragged me out of the flames.
I stared into the face of the man I had begun to love.
“How long have you known?”
His silence answered before he did.
“Lucian.”
“Since the night we met.”
The room stopped breathing.
Every kiss returned to me poisoned.
Every rescue.
Every secret glance.
Every promise.
“You recognised me?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
His mother laughed softly.
“No, darling. Tell her the rest.”
Lucian’s face turned toward her.
Murder lived in his eyes.
She ignored it.
“Tell Seraphina why you found her.”
I could barely force the words out.
“Why did you find me?”
Lucian looked at me.
The obsession was still there.
So was the fear.
But beneath both, I saw something worse.
Guilt.
His mother smiled.
“He was not sent to protect you.”
Lucian closed his eyes.
“He was sent to finish what his father started.”
My blood became ice.
His mother leaned close enough for me to smell her perfume.
“Lucian was sent to kill you.”
I looked at him.
He did not deny it.
Then a gunshot exploded through the ballroom.
Lucian’s mother jerked backward.
Blood blossomed across her red dress.
I spun toward Lucian.
Smoke curled from the weapon in his hand.
His mother collapsed.
Every gun in the room lifted.
Lucian pulled me against him and pressed the barrel beneath my chin.
His arm locked around my waist.
His mouth touched my ear.
“Forgive me,” he whispered.
Then he looked at the armed men surrounding us.
“If any of you move,” he said, “I kill the Vale heir myself.”
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD