Bondage

Chapter Seven: House Of Ghosts

The rain came without warning—heavy, relentless, hammering the mansion’s tall windows like fists begging to be let in.

Tari had grown used to the silence of the house. But tonight, it wasn’t silent. It breathed.

The hallway outside her bedroom felt colder than usual as she walked barefoot through it, the soles of her feet nearly numb against the marble. Lightning struck, illuminating the corridor in stark, pale light. Her eyes caught it again—what she thought she'd imagined last week.

A shadow behind the gallery wall.

She turned to the portrait of Bride Number One. Her face had been repainted since Tari first saw it. The eyes were darker. The mouth, thinner.

A whisper slithered down the corridor.

Tari...

She jolted, spinning around. Empty.

But her pulse quickened—not from fear, but a pull. As if something wanted her to look deeper.

She walked to the farthest end of the hallway, where the portraits ended. The last frame hung crooked. She reached behind it and felt cool air brushing her fingers. A draft.

A hidden seam.

Tari pushed. The wall gave way with a low groan, revealing a narrow passage cloaked in darkness.

---

Inside the Passage

Dust and time clung to every surface. The wooden floorboards moaned beneath her steps. A few feet in, the narrow corridor opened into a hidden chamber.

Tari’s breath caught.

There, surrounded by shattered glass and moth-eaten curtains, was a nursery.

A crib.

An old music box sat on a nearby table, its key rusted halfway through a turn. She opened it anyway.

It played a broken tune.

On the wall, faded crayon drawings: A man with red eyes. A woman in chains. A little girl with a cracked smile.

Tari stepped back.

Then she saw it—scrawled across the mirror in lipstick, aged but still legible:

“He lies about the first child.”

---

Elsewhere in the Mansion

Felix poured himself a drink, watching a monitor in his study.

“She found the nursery,” he said flatly.

Behind him, Jericho leaned against the bookshelf.

“She was bound to.”

Felix smiled, bitter. “The house wants her to know. That’s the problem with ghosts—they don’t know when to stay buried.”

Jericho didn’t respond. His mind was elsewhere—on the ledger, on Operation Cleaver, on the little girl whose drawings once decorated that same room.

---

Back in the Passage

Tari crouched beside a hidden panel in the floor.

Inside: old journals, dried petals, a broken locket... and a photo.

A woman who looked exactly like her.

Identical.

But the photo was decades old.

On the back, written in a trembling hand:

“My daughter will break the chain. Even if I can’t.”