chapter - 5 " The visit "
822 Words
Ashlyn’s POV
The Blackwood estate looked exactly the same.
Cold. Distant. Like the woman who owned it.
Its gates were taller than I remembered, though maybe that was just the way fear bends memory. The sky hung heavy above us, a soft gray, like it too was unsure if it should cry or hold back.
Lily stood beside me, calm, composed, like she wasn’t standing in front of a house that had swallowed up every truth I’d ever believed.
“You ready?” she asked.
I wasn’t.
But I nodded anyway.
The drive through the iron gates felt endless. Trees on both sides lined the gravel path like soldiers — silent, unmoving, waiting. The mansion came into view slowly, like it was watching us long before we saw it.We stopped at the grand steps. I stepped out first, my hands colder than they should’ve been. Lily followed, her notebook in her purse, just in case.
The butler opened the door before we could knock.“I need to speak to Selena,” I said.His expression didn’t change. “She’s not taking visitors.”
“She’ll take this one,” Lily replied, her voice sharp like a blade dipped in honey.He hesitated. Then stepped aside.
The mansion swallowed us whole.
It was quiet. Too quiet. Like even sound didn’t dare echo in these halls. Every painting on the wall, every vase — they looked like they belonged to ghosts. And I felt like one of them.
We waited in the same sitting room I’d once stood in wearing a white dress, smiling for photos beside a man I no longer knew. Back then, I thought it was love.
Now, I wasn’t sure what it was.
Selena Blackwood entered ten minutes later.
She hadn’t aged a day. Sharp jawline, black silk dress, no smile. She looked at me like she’d been expecting this moment. Or maybe like she’d been dreading it.
“Mrs. Blackwood,” I said, steadying my voice.
She looked at me as though I were a stain on her white rug. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I have questions.”
“I don’t have answers.”
Lily stepped in. “Then let us speak to Vincent.”
A flicker. That’s all I saw — in her eyes. A twitch of something close to panic. But it was gone just as fast.
She stepped aside without another word.
We followed the polished hallway, marble cold beneath our feet, every wall lined with portraits of a family I wasn’t sure I ever belonged to. Not really.
She led us into a room — dim, quiet, smelling faintly of medicine and steel.
And there he was.
Vincent Blackwood.
In a bed. Wires in his veins. A machine whispering next to him.
I froze.
Coma.
He was in a coma.
No one had told me. Not Asher. Not Selena. No newspaper headline. No family call.
Just... silence.
Lily gasped softly beside me, but I couldn't take my eyes off him.
He looked nothing like the powerful man I remembered. His chest rose and fell like a metronome stuck in a sad rhythm.
“He’s been like this,” Selena said behind us, voice sharp, “for nearly a year.”
I turned to her slowly. “And no one thought to inform his daughter-in-law?”
“You stopped being family the moment you started digging into things you shouldn't,” she replied, venom wrapped in silk.
Lily stepped forward. “Why do you care what she finds? Unless there’s something you don’t want her to see.”
Selena didn’t flinch. “You think you’re clever. You think love gives you the right to rewrite history. But this family… this family isn’t held by truth. It’s held by silence.”
I clenched my fists. “Then maybe I’ll be the first to break it.”
Selena tilted her head. “Be careful who you threaten, dear. You’re not strong enough to face what lies beneath this roof.”
I stared at Vincent once more. “Maybe I’m not. But he was. And if he ever wakes up, I’ll make sure he knows I was here.”
She scoffed. “If.”
We left the room without another word.
The door shut behind us with a finality I felt in my bones.
Outside, I finally breathed again.
Lily looked at me. “Ash… she’s hiding something. That panic when I said Vincent’s name? She wasn’t ready for that.”
I nodded. “He knew the truth, Lily. He knows what happened. Maybe even why Ryder disappeared.”
“But now he’s locked inside his own body,” Lily whispered.
“For now,” I said, turning toward the car.
And for the first time in a long time, I felt something hot and sharp simmering under my skin.
Not fear.
Anger.
Because the lies were no longer abstract — they had names. They had faces.
- Writer
