BOUND TO HER LIGHT

CHAPTER 9

The morning felt heavier than the night before.

Isla didn’t go to breakfast in the grand dining room. She couldn’t sit across from Gabriel Duván with his sharp words still echoing in her chest like open wounds. Instead, she ate in the small staff kitchen, the air thick with the smell of toast and faint traces of furniture polish.

Even Mrs. Hills’ presence felt colder today.

“You start work at eight sharp, Miss Barlow,” the housekeeper said as she rinsed dishes with military precision. “Mr. Duván expects nothing less than excellence in this house.”

It wasn’t said kindly.

Isla only nodded, eyes fixed on her untouched toast.

She spent the morning folding tiny laundry Maxen’s onesies, Evie’s little dresses each crease sharper than the last, as if perfection in fabric could erase yesterday’s disaster.

But Gabriel’s words kept coming back like a splinter she couldn’t dig out.

You failed. I don’t tolerate incompetence.

Her fingers trembled as she smoothed out a small blue shirt. For a moment, her vision blurred, and she had to blink hard to keep the tears back.

Evie found her in the playroom later, perched awkwardly at the door, clutching a stuffed rabbit.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked in a small voice.

Isla forced a smile so thin it hurt. “No, sweetie. I’m not mad.”

Evie’s little brow furrowed. “Because of yesterday? I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

Isla’s throat tightened. She shook her head quickly. “It’s okay.”

But her eyes betrayed her, tears spilling faster than she could stop them.

Evie shifted uncomfortably, not knowing what to do.

Maxen, sensing things the way toddlers somehow always do, toddled over with his battered toy car clutched in both hands. He dropped it in her lap like an offering, looking up with wide brown eyes.

The gesture shattered her.

She covered her mouth, shoulders shaking as silent sobs escaped before she could hide them.

Mrs. Hills’ voice drifted through the doorway, sharp as a knife.

“Miss Barlow, Mr. Duván does not tolerate emotional theatrics from the staff.”

Isla froze, scrubbing at her face quickly. “I… I wasn’t...”

But Mrs. Hills was already gone, her footsteps clipped and disapproving.

By late afternoon, Isla was a frayed thread barely holding together.

Every sound in the house seemed too loud the ticking of the hall clock, Maxen’s squeals, the faint hum of Gabriel’s wheelchair somewhere far down the corridor.

She kept imagining packing her things, walking out the gates, never looking back.

But then she saw Evie curled up with a picture book, Maxen asleep in his crib, and she thought of her father coughing in that tiny apartment, her mother’s weary face, the rent notice waiting like a shadow.

She couldn’t fail. Not here. Not now.

That night, when the house finally went still, Isla sat on the edge of her narrow bed, staring at her trembling hands.

The tears came again, hot and angry this time.

She had never felt so small, so useless, so painfully aware of her own powerlessness.

But somewhere through the hurt and exhaustion, a single thought broke through:

She would stay.

No matter how cold Gabriel Duván was. No matter how much this house pressed down on her like a weight.

She wasn’t going to let him win.