Chapter 4: The Woman Who Hid in the Shadows
827 Words
The first time I seen her, she never speak.
She watched like shadow.
That’s how I knew she’s dangerous.
The mansion shift after Marcus Hale’s death.
Not in panic because Adrian doesn’t allow that—but in tension.
Guards move sharper. Conversations die when I enter rooms. Staff lowers their eyes.
And somewhere in that silence, she always hide.
I can feel it the way prey feels a predator.
Or maybe the other way where the predator never takes off her eyes in the prey.
I hear her name by accident.
When Adrian is on the phone in his office, voice low as everything screamed prestigious. I pause outside the door—not to spy, just to exist.
"Stay where you are,” he says.
“No, Lila. Not now.”
The name sticks in my throat.
Lila.
Not a wife’s name.
A secret’s name.
Three days has past and i had finally see her.
She’s smaller than I ever imagined. Beautiful in a fragile way. The kind of woman that men think they need to protect, even when she’s the only one cutting them open slowly.
She stay too close to Adrian.
Her hand was on his arm.
Her head tilted up at him like he’s oxygen she can breath.
And when she sees me—
She pales, couldn't move.
And out of nowhere he moves slowly behind him.
Hiding.
Like a child when she knows she did something unforgivable.
That’s was the first cut.
Not that deep.
But deliberate.
“Evelyn...” he says calmly. “This is Lila.”
He doesn’t explain.
He doesn’t apologize.
Lila doesn’t speak.
She just tightens her grip on his sleeve.
As if I might reach across the room and tear her throat out until she couldn’t breath.
She’s not wrong to be afraid or frightened.
“Hello....” I say softly.
Lila swallowed.
“I—I didn’t know you’d b—be here,” she whispered.
“You are in my house,” I reply. “Where else would I be?”
Her fingers dig into Adrian’s arm like a prey afraid of predator.
He lets her.
Later that night, I confront him.
Not screaming.
Not crying.
I don’t give him the satisfaction he always wanted to see.
“She lives here?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“You slept with her.”
“Yes.”
“You kept her after the wedding.”
“Yes."
Each word lands like a bullet that bleeds me out.
I nod slowly.
“Why?” I ask.
Adrian steps closer, eyes dark, confusing.
“She’s useful,” he says.
“Comforting. Predictable.”
“And me?” I ask.
He looks at me like I’m a fascinating weapon.
“You’re a dangerous knife” he replies.
“She uses me because she needs me,” he continues.
“You’re here because you can’t live without me.”
The words are precise.
Designed to hurt.
“You were starving when I found you...” he says quietly. “Alone. Fragile. Angry. You need my world to survive, in fact you need me to survive.”
I feel something twist in my chest.
Not pain.
Rage.
---
She listened.
I know she always does.
She wants to see me break.
She want a proof that she’s loved and I’m not.
Even thought she never seen the true Adrian.
She won’t get it—she never did.
---
Later, I pass her in the corridor.
She presses herself against the wall to avoid me.
“I’m n—not your enemy,” she whispers.
I stop.
Turn at her.
“You’re standing between me and the man I plan to destroy,” I said. “That makes you many things to describe and none of them is safe.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Adrian loves me,” she says desperately like someone who's begging to love her.
I lean in.
“He doesn’t love,” I whisper. “He owns.”
Her breathing stutters.
Good.
From the end of the hall, Adrian observes.
He doesn’t interfere.
He wants to see which of us blinks first.
I don’t.
She did.
Alone in the bedroom, I sit on the edge of the bed Adrian shares with ghosts and lies.
He thinks I’m dependent who need him everywhere.
He thinks I married him because I had no choice.
He thinks Lila is a shield.
He’s wrong.
She’s prey.
And prey bleeds.
I didn’t touch Lila.
Not yet.
I let her live in fear.
I let her cling tighter to Adrian.
Because when she fall,
She won’t fall alone— i won't let her fall alone.
Same woman.
Different past.
Different eyes.
“I don’t need you,” I whisper into the mirror.
“I just needed access— access to survive.”
Somewhere down the hall, Adrian laughs softly.
He thinks he’s winning.
He always does—
Right before everything burns like hell.
- Writer
