Chapter 33 – The Devil's Flashback Ends Here
(Serena's POV — Present Day, Coastal House)
The photograph trembled in my hands.
Lucian stood in the doorway of the study, his face a mask — not the cold marble I was used to, but something far more terrifying. Something raw. Cracked at the edges, like a painting left too long in the sun.
He had just confessed her name. Beverley Austin.
And now the silence between us was a living thing, breathing, pressing, begging to be broken.
"She died," he said finally, the words coming out low, stripped of everything. "Seven months pregnant. My child. Both of them."
The air left my lungs.
"She was murdered." His jaw tightened. "Disguised as a home invasion. I was at a board meeting my father had insisted I attend that night. They knew my schedule."
