BENEATH THE MASK

Secrets in the Blood

I could barely hear the voices around me. The world had become a blur of sounds and sensations, the edges of my vision darkening as I tried to stay conscious. But the blood—God, the blood—kept coming. No matter what Ethan did, no matter how hard he pressed, it wouldn’t stop.

Everything was slipping away. My thoughts, my control, everything I had worked so hard to keep hidden was spilling out right in front of him. I could see the fear in Ethan’s eyes, the way his hands shook as he tried to hold me together as if he could keep me from falling apart just by being there.

But there was too much blood. Too much to hide.

I could hear footsteps—heavy, hurried footsteps. And then a voice. Not Ethan’s.

My father.

“What the hell is this?” His voice was sharp and commanding, but beneath it, I heard something else. Fear. Panic.

I barely registered him standing over me, staring down at the mess—the blood pooling around me, soaking into the floor. For a moment, I thought he would scream, shout at me for being weak, for bleeding, for breaking. But he didn’t.

Instead, he froze.

He stared at the blood, his eyes wide, his face pale as he took a step back. For the first time in my life, I saw something in my father’s eyes that I had never seen before.

Fear.

“What the hell…” he muttered again, his voice quieter this time, almost as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Why won’t it stop?”

Ethan looked up at him, his hands still pressing against me, his voice hoarse. “I don’t know. It’s not stopping. I… I don’t know what to do.”

I could see the moment it hit my father—the moment he realized that this wasn’t just a beating gone wrong. This wasn’t just about teaching me a lesson or showing me who was in control. This was something else. Something bigger. Something he couldn’t control.

If I died… if he lost me… what would happen to his empire?

I could see the panic in his eyes as the weight of that thought settled over him. I was his only heir. His only chance at continuing the legacy he had spent his entire life building. And now, I was bleeding out on the floor in front of him.

For the first time in my life, I saw him scared.

“Get him help,” my father barked, his voice trembling slightly as he turned to one of the guards. “Now. Get someone who knows what they’re doing.”

The guard nodded quickly, running off down the hallway as my father stepped back, his hands shaking slightly. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing—the man who had spent my entire life beating me into submission, treating me like nothing more than a tool, was now terrified of losing me.

Maybe it wasn’t because he cared. Maybe it was because he knew I was the only thing holding his empire together.

But in that moment, it didn’t matter.

Everything started to go black around the edges, and I felt my body give out, collapsing onto Ethan as the darkness took over.

---

When I woke up, the world was still spinning. My head throbbed, my body felt weak, and my mouth tasted like blood. I blinked slowly, my vision coming back into focus, and realized I was no longer in the hallway. I was in my bed, wrapped in blankets, the room dimly lit.

And I wasn’t alone.

Sitting beside me, her eyes filled with tears was Nina—my old nanny, the one who had taken care of me since I was a child. She was the only person in this entire house who knew the truth about me.

The only one who knew I wasn’t the boy everyone thought I was.

“Alex,” Nina whispered, her voice trembling as she reached out, brushing a strand of hair away from my face. “Oh, sweetheart… I’m so sorry.”

I blinked, trying to make sense of what had happened, but my body still felt too heavy, too weak. The bleeding had stopped, but the memory of it—the fear, the pain—lingered in the back of my mind.

“What…” I croaked, my throat dry. “What happened?”

Nina let out a soft sob, her hands trembling as she pulled a damp cloth from the bedside table, gently dabbing at the dried blood on my face. “Your father… he didn’t know, sweetheart. He didn’t realize how bad it was. He thought… he thought you’d be fine. He didn’t know how fragile you are.”

I flinched at the word fragile. I hated that word. I had spent my entire life pretending to be something I wasn’t—pretending to be strong, pretending to be the heir my father wanted, pretending to be a boy. And now, after everything, I was lying here, bleeding out in front of the people who had forced me to become something I wasn’t.

“It’s because of the hormone pills,” Nina continued, her voice breaking. “All those years of suppressing your body, keeping it hidden… it’s taken a toll. Your body can’t handle it anymore. That’s why you bleed like this. That’s why it won’t stop.”

I closed my eyes, the weight of her words pressing down on me like a suffocating blanket. I had always known there were risks to what I was doing—to the pills, the supplements, the constant pretending—but hearing it out loud from the woman who had been with me through all of it made it real in a way I wasn’t ready to face.

“I’m so sorry,” Nina whispered, her voice thick with guilt. “I never wanted this for you. I never wanted you to live like this. But your father… he made it clear. He made me do it. He made me give you the injections, the pills, the supplements… to make sure you looked the part. To make sure no one ever found out.”

Tears slipped down Nina’s cheeks as she continued to wipe the blood from my skin, her hands shaking. “But I’m so sorry, Alex. I’m so, so sorry.”

I stared at the ceiling, the weight of everything crashing down on me. The truth. The lies. The years of hiding, of pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I had grown up in a cage of expectations and secrets, and now, the cage was crumbling around me.

My mother had tried to protect me from this. I knew that now.

When I was a child, my mother had been the only one who had ever shown me kindness, who had ever tried to shield me from my father’s cruelty. But when she died—when she was taken from me—everything changed.

My father had never forgiven her for being “soft” on me, for letting me be a girl when I was born a disappointment in his eyes. And when she was gone, he made sure I would never be a girl again.

He made sure I would be a boy. His heir. His weapon.

And Nina had been the one to enforce it. But I couldn’t hate her for it. Not now. Not when I could see the guilt in her eyes, the regret that weighed heavy on her heart.

“Nina,” I whispered, my voice weak. “It’s okay.”

She shook her head, tears falling freely now. “No, it’s not, sweetheart. It’s not okay. You deserve better than this. You deserve to be who you are, not what he made you.”

Her words cut deep, but I couldn’t respond. I didn’t know how to respond. I was too tired, too worn down by everything that had happened.

But then, there was another voice—soft, shaky, filled with emotion.

“Alex.”

I turned my head slowly, my vision still blurry, but I could make out the shape of Ethan standing in the doorway, his eyes red, his face pale. He stepped into the room, his hands trembling as he looked at me, his chest rising and falling with uneven breaths.

He had seen everything.

Did he hear the entire conversation?

“Alex…” His voice cracked, and for a moment, I saw the panic in his eyes again—the same panic I had seen when I was bleeding in his arms.

But this time, it wasn’t just about the blood. It was about me.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice breaking as he knelt beside the bed, his hand reaching for mine. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

I stared at him, my heart pounding in my chest, the weight of his words hanging in the air between us.

And for the first time, I felt something crack inside me. The walls I had built, the armor I had worn for so long… it was all starting to crumble.

Because now, Ethan knew.