Chapter 9
1350 Words
Chapter 9.
FEELING WATCHED.
——♣——
“Stronzo,” Millicent cussed underneath her breath, watching Angelo's figure fade into the distance.
“It's not surprising that he'd come and arrogantly drop some rules but he could at least pretend to be nice,” she rolled her eyes, rising from the chair. “It's not like I asked to be stuck with him.” she muttered as she left the terrace.
While moving, she threw a couple of cuss words upon remembering all he said. She had simply put on a meek face as a facade but if Angelo thought she would stay put and obey then he had much to learn.
“Now, where should I begin,” she smirked as she approached the east wing, gently moving with caution so as not to arouse any suspicion.
She was just settling in, that was all.
Just a new bride familiarizing herself with her new home.
She kept her steps unhurried and her hands clasped loosely in front of her as she drifted from one corridor to the next.
Pausing at an intersection of two long hallways, she glanced left, then right, committing the layout quietly to memory.
Left led toward what appeared to be a formal sitting room. Right curved toward a set of heavy double doors she hadn't seen before.
She turned right.
Millicent had made it approximately four steps before a member of the household staff appeared from nowhere, carrying a stack of folded linens and moving with the kind of busy efficiency that made his presence feel entirely natural.
"Signora De Angelis," he said with a polite nod. "Can I help you find something?"
She smiled warmly. "No, thank you. Just exploring."
He nodded again and continued on his way.
After watching him leave, she turned back to the double doors but then bumped into another staff member who had just emerged from behind them.
Millicent smiled again and turned around.
Fine.
She tried the corridor off the main entrance hall next. Got halfway down it before she realized two different people had moved through the same stretch of hallway in under two minutes. A guard making rounds, and a staff member polishing a side table.
Millicent slowed her steps.
It could be a coincidence. A busy household with a large staff. The morning routines of a fully operational estate.
It could be.
But something at the back of her neck prickled with a different feeling, one she couldn't prove or dismiss.
It was as though she was quietly being watched, but she filed the feeling away without reacting to it and turned back toward the main corridor.
If every practical route was going to present her with a smiling obstacle, she would need somewhere she could sit and think quietly.
And just at the far end of the east corridor, she found the perfect spot.
“A library,” she smiled and stepped inside, trailing her fingers along the nearest shelf containing all sorts of books.
English, Italian, French. Classics, philosophy, history, and a surprising number of architectural texts.
“Wow,” she muttered, slightly amazed.
Whoever had built the collection had actual taste, which she filed under things she would not be sharing with Angelo because the last thing his ego needed was a compliment.
She pulled a novel from the shelf, settled into one of the leather chairs, and opened it to a random page. Except that she wasn't reading.
She was thinking.
The west wing was off limits, Angelo had made that aggressively clear. Which meant that whatever she needed was almost certainly there. Documents, files, anything that could be used against her family.
But the west wing was guarded, staffed, and under the eye of her arrogant husband.
She couldn't just walk or sneak into it. She needed time, time to find a way in that didn't require forcing anything.
She needed him to stop watching her long enough to move.
Suddenly, a voice echoed into the library, pulling Millicent from her pool of thoughts. "Didn't take you for a reader."
She looked up, locking gaze with Ariel De Angelis. The only one who had been a bit friendly toward her.
"Well, I didn't take you for someone who knocks," she replied, looking back down at her book.
Ariel laughed. "Fair enough." He pushed off the doorframe and strolled inside, hands sliding into his pockets while glancing up at the shelves with mild appreciation as though it could be his first time seeing it. "Good room."
"It is," she agreed.
He dropped into the chair across from her, uninvited.
*Seems like it runs in the family*, Millicent thought.
"Settling in alright?" He asked.
"Yup,” she nodded.
Ariel smiled at that, like she'd said something faintly amusing. "Angelo can be a lot, first thing in the morning. Don't take it personally."
She glanced up at him, stifling a laugh. "Do people usually take it personally?"
"New people," he said, laughing slightly. “I'm already used to it though, and I'm sure with time, you will.”
leaning back in his chair with perfect ease, he asked. "What are you reading?"
She glanced at the cover. "Calvino."
"Good taste," Ariel said, and seemed to mean it.
Stretching with ease, he stood and moved back toward the door. "Well. If you need anything… a tour, a recommendation, someone to complain to who isn't my brother, you know where to find me."
"I don't, actually," she said. "Know where to find you."
He pointed upward with one finger, already leaving. "Follow the sound of Angelo being annoyed. I'm usually nearby."
Then he left, his footsteps fading down the corridor.
Millicent stared at the page in front of her without reading a single word. She didn't know if Ariel had truly been friendly, or he had a mission. But even if he did, she had given him nothing worth catching.
Slowly, she closed the book and set it on her knee, pressing two fingers gently to her right temple without thinking about it. As she did, the dull throb that had been building since mid-morning finally made itself known now that she was calm enough to notice.
Not severe, not yet. And she knew it wasn't the hangover.
No.
She knew exactly what it was.
Millicent reached into her pocket and pressed one of her tablets from the small strip she kept on her at all times, swallowing it dry without flinching.
Then she leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. “I'm tired.”
Immediately, Luca's face surfaced.
Small and pale behind the breathing mask. IV lines snaking into both arms. The heart monitor beeping in her memory like a countdown.
How long had he been in that cage now?
She counted backward.
“Troppo lungo.” she sighed.
His kidneys were already fragile before any of this. The prolonged heat, the stress on his small body, the drugs keeping him sedated, they'll only worsen it. Every day she spent mapping corridors, performing pleasantries and fending off charming brothers with sharp eyes was another day Luca spent in that glass cell.
And her?
She pressed her fingers harder against her temple.
She had weeks left. Not months. Weeks. And they were moving the way weeks always did when you were counting them. Too fast in the night, too slow in the daylight, and slipping through her fingers no matter how tightly she tried to hold them.
She needed the documents.
She needed the poison administered.
She needed to get out of this estate alive and get to Luca before—
She stopped the thought and opened her eyes. She didn't want to think of what would happen if she didn't finish in time.
All she had to do was focus on her plan and hope her family doesn't call her yet.
Quietly, she reached for the Calvino novel again, opened it, and this time actually read because she had learnt long ago that survival required patience above everything else.
She could be patient.
She had no other choice.
- Writer
