Secrets of The Penthouse

Chapter 5

"I don’t know who it is!" I screamed back, my voice cracking under the weight of the terror. "I've told you a thousand times, Kieran! I don’t know any L!"

His eyes were black pits of pure fury. For a second, I thought he might actually snap my neck. His pulse thrummed against mine, a violent, erratic rhythm that made my skin crawl. Then, as quickly as he had pinned me, he let go. He shoved me away with a grunt of disgust, sending me sprawling back onto the silk duvet. I scrambled to the headboard, my breath coming in jagged, pathetic gasps.

"You're a liar," he hissed. He didn't look at me anymore. He looked at the room like it was a puzzle he had to solve by breaking every piece. "Everyone in this house is a liar. My brother. My staff. And especially the little mouse I pulled from the gutter."

Suddenly, he turned and grabbed the heavy crystal lamp from the nightstand. He ripped the cord from the wall and hurled it. It shattered against the far wall with a sound like a gunshot. Glass rained down on the mahogany floor.

"Kieran, stop!"

"Are you crazy?" he roared, spinning toward me. His white shirt was unbuttoned halfway down, his chest heaving with exertion.

"You think I'm going to sit here while you play games with a dead woman's name? While you receive messages from someone who wants to destroy me?"

He began to tear the room apart. He ripped the drawers out of the dresser, dumping my few belongings, the cheap cotton shirts and the worn jeans I'd brought from my old life, onto the floor. He tossed the pillows, looking for something. A wire. A second phone. A hidden camera. He was a man possessed, a storm contained within four expensive walls.

"There is nothing here!" I cried, clutching my stomach. The baby, his baby, gave a dull thrum of protest inside me. "For Christ's sake, Kieran, look at what you're doing!"

He didn't listen. He reached the bed and gripped the edge of the heavy mattress. With a roar of effort, he flipped it.

Something slid across the floor. Something flat and bound in worn, charcoal-stained leather.

My heart stopped.

"What's this?" Kieran's voice was suddenly and terrifyingly quiet.

"It's nothing. Give it to me!" I lunged for it, but he was faster. He stepped on the cover of the book, pinning it to the floor before picking it up with one hand.

It was my sketchbook. My secret. The only place where I was still Aria Vale, the artist, and not just the maid or the prisoner.

He flipped it open. His eyes moved rapidly across the pages. My hands shook as I watched him. These weren't just drawings. They were my observations of the man who held my life in his hands.

He stopped on a page near the middle. I knew exactly which one it was. It was a charcoal sketch from months ago. I had been cleaning his office while he was passed out on the leather sofa after a twenty-hour workday. I had stood there, broom in hand, mesmerized by the way the moonlight hit the sharp, cruel line of his jaw. I had drawn him as he slept; vulnerable, quiet, a version of him that didn't exist when he was awake.

Kieran's face went white. Then red.

"You've been watching me," he whispered. He turned the page. Another sketch. His hands. His back. The way he looked when he stood at the window, staring at the city like he wanted to burn it down. "You didn't just 'end up' at that gala, Aria. You've been studying me. Mapping me. This was a plan. You were hunting me long before that night."

"It wasn't like that!"

"Then what was it?" He held the book out, his thumb smearing the charcoal of his own sleeping face. "This is the work of an obsessed woman. A stalker. Did Liam help you with this? Did he tell you where I'd be sleeping so you could creep in and draw your little trophies?"

"I drew you because I hated you!" I snapped back, the words tearing out of me. I stepped into his space, my face inches from his chest, ignoring the danger. "I hated you for how you looked through me. I hated you for being so cold. But I couldn't stop looking! You were like a car crash, Kieran. I couldn't look away. That's not a crime! It's art!"

He stared at me, his chest heaving. For a second, the air between us felt like it was made of gasoline. One spark and the whole penthouse would go up.

"It's not art," he said, his voice trembling with a dark, unstable energy. "It's a confession."

He walked to the fireplace. He grabbed a gold lighter from the mantle.

"No! Kieran, don't!"

He ripped the page, the one of him sleeping, out of the book. He flicked the lighter. The flame was small and blue. He held the edge of the paper to it.

I watched, frozen, as the charcoal lines of my memory curled and blackened. The smell of burning paper filled the room. It was thick. Choking. He dropped the flaming scrap into the hearth and watched it turn to ash.

"I am not your muse, Aria," he said, turning back to me. "I am your husband, and I will not be a character in your little fantasy."

Suddenly, a sharp ping cut through the tension.

We both froze.

The sound came from the floor. My phone. The screen was shattered from when he threw it, the glass spider-webbed across the display, but the notification light was blinking a frantic, dying red. The display flickered to life for one last moment.

Kieran reached down and picked up the broken device. He swiped the screen, the glass cutting into his thumb. A bead of dark blood bloomed on his skin, but he didn't seem to notice.

He read the message.

His hand began to shake. The phone slipped from his fingers, hitting the rug with a soft thud. He looked like he'd been turned into a stone. The color didn't just leave his face; it left his lips.

"What is it?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "Kieran, what does it say?"

I crawled toward the phone. I picked it up. The screen was dying, the pixels bleeding into purple blotches, but I could still make out the words.

Check the nursery wing. She never left. -L

The nursery wing. It was a part of the penthouse that was always locked. Kieran had told me it was under renovation, but I'd never seen a single workman enter those doors. It was a dead zone. A place where the air felt ten degrees colder every time I passed the heavy double doors.

I looked at Kieran. He was staring at the wall, his eyes wide and vacant. He looked like a man who had just seen his own execution.

"Kieran?"

"The nursery," he whispered. His voice was like that of a ghost. "The rooms I built for...for the baby."

"Whose baby? Lila's?"

He didn't answer. He started to walk toward the door. He moved like a sleepwalker, his footsteps heavy and uneven. I followed him, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard it was painful. My stomach felt heavy, the morning sickness swirling with pure, unadulterated dread.

We walked down the long, silent corridor. The lights flickered overhead. The penthouse felt different now. It didn't feel like a luxury home. It felt like a tomb that had been disturbed.

We reached the heavy double doors at the end of the hall. They were made of dark mahogany, carved with detailed patterns. Kieran reached for the handles. His hands were shaking so hard he could barely grip the brass.

"Kieran, don't," I said, grabbing his arm. "Whoever is sending these...they want you to go in there. It's a trap."

"I have to know," he said.

He shoved the doors open.

The air that rushed out was stale. It smelled of dust, lavender, and something else; something sweet and cloying. Like old perfume.

The room was perfectly preserved. It was a nursery, decorated in soft creams and golds. There was a crib in the center, a rocking chair in the corner. It was beautiful. It was haunting.

But it wasn't empty.

On the rocking chair sat a shawl. A silk shawl, ivory with hand-embroidered roses.

I recognized it. It was in the portrait in the study. The one of the woman with the sad eyes that I'd stared at a hundred times while dusting the frames.

Lila's shawl.

And next to it, on the small side table, was a glass of water. A fresh glass of water. A single bead of condensation was rolling down the side, leaving a wet trail on the polished wood.

Someone had been here. Minutes ago.

Kieran walked into the room. He touched the shawl. He picked it up and held it to his face. He inhaled sharply, a broken, jagged sound leaving his throat.

"No," he whispered. He looked around the empty, silent room. The shadows seemed to stretch toward him, growing longer as the sun set behind the skyscrapers. "No. That's impossible."

He turned to me, his eyes full of a terror so deep it made me want to scream.

"I buried her myself," he whispered, his voice cracking like dry parchment. "I saw the casket go into the ground. I put the dirt on it with my own hands."

He looked back at the glass of water, his breath hitching.

"Lila is dead," he said, more to himself than to me. "She's dead. She has to be."

I looked at the shawl, then at the glass, and then at the dark corner of the room where the closet door stood slightly ajar. My skin prickled. We weren't alone. I could feel eyes on us. Cold, vengeful eyes.

"Kieran, we need to leave," I whispered, reaching for his hand.

But he didn't move. He just stood there in the center of the nursery he had built for a ghost, clutching the silk shawl to his chest.

"No," he repeated, his voice dropping to a terrifying, hollow register. "That's impossible. I buried her myself."