Shadow Of The Past
1497 Words
❤️ Episode 4: Shadows of the Past
The ride back from the abandoned mill was silent, save for the soft moans of pain coming from Celeste Easton in the backseat.
Liana gripped her mother’s hand like she might lose her again if she let go. Her mind was spinning. After all these years, her mother was alive.
Alive—but barely. Starved. Shackled. Scarred.
Damian drove like a man possessed, knuckles white on the wheel. His jaw was tight, and his eyes never left the road. The name still echoed in his mind.
Vanessa.
His sister. His blood. A Voss.
Liana finally broke the silence.
“You knew it was someone in your family, didn’t you?”
Damian didn’t answer immediately.
“I suspected,” he said coldly. “But not her. Never her.”
“Why would Vanessa do this? What did my mother know?”
Celeste stirred, her voice thin and broken. “It was never just me they wanted.”
Liana turned to her. “Then who?”
Her mother’s eyes—sunken, haunted—met Damian’s through the rearview mirror.
“You.”
---
They arrived back at the private Voss estate just before dawn. Doctors and a private nurse were already waiting, called in by Damian during the ride. Liana helped as best she could, but it was clear her mother needed rest, not questions.
Still, she couldn’t stop trembling.
“Why would Vanessa want me?” she asked Damian once they were alone in the study.
He poured her a glass of water but didn’t sit.
“She was always power-hungry. Obsessed with legacy. My father favored me, even though she was older. She hated that.”
“And my mother? What did she have to do with it?”
“She found out something—something that could ruin Vanessa. I don’t know what yet. But your mother had to be silenced.”
Liana felt the ground shifting beneath her feet. “And me?”
Damian stepped closer. His voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. “You are the loose thread in Vanessa’s perfect tapestry. If she pulls it hard enough, everything unravels.”
Liana looked up at him, vulnerable and defiant all at once. “Then she’ll have to kill me to keep her secret.”
His jaw clenched. “She won’t touch you. I won’t let her.”
For a heartbeat, their eyes locked.
And then he turned away, as if that moment was too much.
---
The next few days passed in a haze of tension and silence.
Celeste was healing slowly. She hadn’t spoken again since the ride. Liana stayed by her side, holding her hand, whispering stories from their past to keep her tethered.
Damian, meanwhile, disappeared into his office for hours, making calls, sending encrypted emails, working his network to uncover Vanessa’s whereabouts.
On the third night, Liana found him asleep at his desk, papers strewn everywhere. She paused at the doorway, hesitant to wake him. He looked so different in sleep—so human.
His walls were down.
She walked closer, brushing a curl of hair from his forehead.
His eyes snapped open.
They stared at each other, startled, frozen in place.
“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” he said, voice rough from sleep.
She straightened. “You should rest. You’ve been working nonstop.”
“I can’t afford rest. Not until I find her.”
Liana sat across from him. “What happens when you do?”
“I’ll bring her to justice.”
Liana frowned. “The kind your family knows? Or the kind the law does?”
He looked away. “I don’t believe the law will touch her. She’s too protected. Too smart.”
Liana leaned forward. “Then what? You kill her?”
Damian met her eyes again. “If I have to.”
A silence fell between them.
Then she said quietly, “Don’t let her turn you into the same kind of monster she is.”
His face hardened. “I’m already half-monster, Liana. The Voss name made sure of that.”
But Liana didn’t flinch.
She reached out and took his hand.
“No,” she whispered. “You’re not. Not if you’re still fighting to be better.”
He didn’t speak.
He just held her hand, tightly.
Like it was the only thing keeping him from falling.
---
Later that night, Celeste finally spoke again.
Liana rushed to her side. “Mom?”
Her mother’s eyes fluttered open. “There’s a book…”
“A book?”
“In the library… behind the mirror. Hidden. I wrote everything down. In case they got to me.”
Liana gasped. “Damian, we need to check the Easton library—”
“No,” Celeste whispered. “Not our house. The Voss estate. The original one.”
Damian froze.
“That house was abandoned after the fire.”
Celeste coughed weakly. “Not everything burned.”
---
The decision was made by morning.
Damian and Liana would go to the old Voss estate—the ancestral manor, long since rotting on the edge of the woods.
The drive was quiet, tense. Liana sat with her arms crossed, heart racing. She’d heard stories of the place. People said it was cursed. Haunted by the sins of the Voss bloodline.
Damian parked outside the tall iron gates. Vines choked the walls, and birds scattered as they approached the rusted front door.
He pried it open, and they stepped into darkness.
The house groaned, like it remembered them.
Together, they moved through the dust-covered corridors, flashlights cutting through the gloom. Every painting on the walls seemed to stare.
Then they found it—the drawing room.
And the mirror.
Behind it, just as Celeste had said, was a hidden alcove.
Inside: a leather-bound book, old and cracked.
Damian opened it with trembling hands.
Names. Accounts. Secrets.
The Voss family’s sins laid bare.
And in the back, a sealed envelope labeled:
> “To be opened only if I disappear.”
Liana opened it.
It read:
> “Vanessa is not just after power. She’s after blood. She needs a Voss heir to secure the last piece of the estate her father left her. Damian refused her. She wants Liana. She plans to force a union. Stop her.”
Liana nearly dropped the letter. “What—what does this mean?”
Damian looked at her, horror dawning in his eyes.
“She wanted to marry you into the Voss bloodline. Force you into the family. And if she couldn’t get me… she planned to use you.”
“She’s my sister?” Liana asked, trembling.
“No. But in her twisted mind, you’re still an Easton. You still hold value.”
“She was going to force me—”
Damian grabbed her shoulders. “I won’t let that happen. Ever.”
She stared at him, breath shallow. “You promise?”
“I swear on my life.”
He held her close, his arms a fortress.
For the first time, she let herself cry.
---
But outside, in the shadowed trees, someone was watching.
Vanessa Voss smiled as she lowered the binoculars.
“They found the book,” she said to the man beside her.
He wore a crown tattoo on his neck.
“Should we stop them?”
Vanessa turned, her lipstick blood-red.
“No,” she said softly. “Let them have hope. It makes the fall that much sweeter.”
---
Back at the estate, Damian made arrangements to move Celeste into a safer location.
But danger was closer than they realized.
That night, the power went out.
And Liana woke up alone.
She rushed to her mother’s room—
Empty.
The nurse—unconscious on the floor.
She screamed.
Damian came running. “What happened?”
“She’s gone!”
Then they found the note.
“Come alone, Damian. Or she dies. – V.”
---
Damian didn’t hesitate.
“I’m going.”
“I’m going with you,” Liana said, voice steel.
“No.”
“She took my mother. This ends with me.”
They stared at each other.
Then he nodded.
But his eyes said what his mouth didn’t.
If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself.
---
They followed the coordinates left in the note—to an abandoned church deep in the woods.
Inside, candles lit the pews.
And at the altar, bound to a chair, was Celeste.
Vanessa stood behind her, gun in hand.
“Well, well,” she purred. “The prodigal son and his pet lamb.”
“Let her go,” Damian growled.
“I would,” she said sweetly, “but I need her. And her daughter.”
She turned the gun toward Liana.
Damian moved instantly.
A shot rang out.
And everything turned red.
---
To be continued…
- Writer
