THE ROSSETTI HEIRESS HAS STOPPED BEGGING

CHAPTER SEVEN

The days blurred.

My face stayed swollen longer than it should have. One eye opened only halfway. The split in my lip kept cracking open whenever I tried to eat. The burns under the gauze had gone from fire to a deep, constant ache that woke me whenever I turned the wrong way on the thin mattress they left me with.

Arthur didn’t come back to the dark room. He didn’t need to. The lock and the silence did the work for him.

When they finally let me out, the house felt bigger and colder. I moved through it like I wasn’t fully there. Head down. Steps careful. The staff looked through me. Toria looked at me like she was already bored of the game but still willing to play if I gave her a reason.

I wasn’t allowed near Leo. My own son

That was the new rule. Clear. Repeated. The nanny had been told that if I got within ten feet of him unsupervised, she was to call security. I tried once, early, just to stand in the doorway of the blue room and look at him. The nanny stepped in front of me with apologetic eyes and a firm shake of her head. Behind her I could see Leo on the bed, small under the covers, staring at the ceiling.

I left without arguing. Arguing got me locked up. Locked up meant I couldn’t even watch from a distance.

So I watched from farther away.

At first I told myself it was the house. The shouting. The blood on the hallway runner that someone had cleaned before morning. Children went quiet after things like that. They folded in on themselves. I had done the same at his age in different rooms.

But Leo had never been quiet for long.

He was the kind of child who filled every silence. Chatter about dinosaurs. Questions that came one after another without waiting for answers. Running feet in the corridor. Laughter that bounced off the high ceilings even when no one else was laughing.

Now he stayed in bed.

I saw him once from the end of the hall when the nanny carried a tray in. He didn’t sit up. He didn’t reach for her. He just turned his head slowly and looked at the wall. His face looked too pale. The hyperactive spark that usually lived behind his eyes was gone. He drifted off while she was still adjusting the blanket.

I told myself it was stress. The violence. The way this house pressed down on everyone in it. I told myself a lot of things so I wouldn’t start screaming in the middle of the corridor and give everyone a reason to conclude I was crazy.

I had no control over what he ate. No control over who held the spoon. No control over the juice cups or the snacks or the little bowls of fruit the kitchen sent up. That knowledge sat in my stomach like something sharp. I tried to catch the nanny alone once and ask if he was eating properly. She glanced over her shoulder, whispered that he was “just tired,” or something and hurried away before Toria’s voice could float down the stairs asking where she was.

Toria found me on the second-floor landing that afternoon.

I was standing at the top of the main staircase, one hand on the banister, staring at nothing. My body felt heavy. Every bruise still pulled. I hadn’t slept more than broken pieces of hours since the beating. I didn’t have the energy for another fight. I just wanted to pass her and keep moving until the day ended.

She didn’t feel the same.

“Look at you,” she said, stopping a few steps above me so I had to look up. “Floating around like a ghost. Does it hurt still? Your face looks worse in the light.”

I didn’t answer. I started down the stairs.

She followed.

“Arthur’s with the lawyers today,” she continued, voice light. “Divorce papers. Custody. The whole thing. He said it’s cleaner if you’re not in the house when they finalize it. Less drama.”

My hand tightened on the banister. I kept walking.

“You’re not even going to ask about Leo?” She sounded almost disappointed. “He’s been so quiet. Sleeps all day. Barely talks. Maybe he’s finally learning which woman actually belongs in this family.”

I stopped on the third step down and turned my head just enough to see her.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” She came closer. “Don’t tell the truth? He’s better when you’re not around. Less crying. Less confusion. Children know things, Isabella. They know who the strong one is.”

“He’s sick,” I said. The words came out flat. Tired. “Something’s wrong.”

Toria’s smile thinned. “Or maybe you’re just looking for another way to cause problems. Accuse me of something again. Steal something. Make a scene. It won’t work. Eleanor already knows what you are.”

I turned fully then. The movement pulled at every sore place on my body. “If anything happens to him—”

“What?” She stepped in until there was almost no space left. “You’ll what? Cry? Beg?scream? You’ve already done both. It doesn’t change anything. Arthur is done with you. The boy stays. You go. That’s the order of things.”

I was so tired. The kind of tired that sat in the bones. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t step into her. I just said, quiet, “Get out of my way.”

She didn’t.

She put both hands on my shoulders and shoved.

It wasn’t a hard shove. It didn’t need to be. I was already off-balance, body slow, bandages and bruises making every movement careful. My heel slipped on the edge of the step. The banister was suddenly too far. The world tilted.

I went down hard.

The stairs caught me in pieces. Shoulder. Hip. The side of my head. I tried to grab the railing and missed. My body hit step after step, each one jarring the burns and the swollen places on my face until I landed in a heap near the bottom, breath knocked clean out of me.

For a second there was only ringing and the taste of blood where my lip had split open again.

Above me, Toria’s voice floated down, calm and carrying.

“You should be more careful. These stairs are steep. Especially when you’re still recovering from… everything.”

I pushed up onto one elbow. Pain flared white across my ribs. My vision swam. Somewhere at the top of the stairs a maid had frozen with a stack of towels. She looked from Toria to me and then quickly away, already deciding she hadn’t seen anything.

Toria started down slowly, taking her time.

“Arthur will be home soon,” she said. “Maybe don’t mention this. He hates it when you make yourself look pitiful on purpose.”

I spat blood onto the marble and dragged myself into a sitting position against the wall. My left wrist felt wrong. My head throbbed in time with my pulse.

She stopped a few steps above me and looked down the way someone looks at a stain.

“He’s been asking for you less,” she added, almost conversational. “Leo. Sleeps more. Talks less. It’s better this way. Cleaner. When you’re gone he won’t even remember the difference.”

I stared up at her. The tiredness was still there, heavy and thick, but underneath it something colder had started to settle.

“If you’re touching him,” I said, voice low and scraped raw, “if you’re doing anything to my son—”

“You’ll what?” She smiled. “You’re already on the floor.”

She stepped past me carefully, like I might dirty her shoes, and kept walking toward the main hall. Her perfume lingered after she was gone.

I sat there against the wall until I could breathe without seeing spots. Then I pushed myself up, using the banister, and started the slow climb back toward the second floor. Every step hurt. My wrist protested. Blood from my lip dripped onto the front of my dress.

I didn’t go to my room.

I went as close to the blue room as the new rules allowed and stood in the corridor until the nanny came out with an empty tray. Through the half-open door I saw Leo on the bed again. Eyes half-closed. Too still. The hyper little boy who used to fill every silence was quiet, small under the covers, drifting in and out like the day itself was too heavy to hold.

I pressed my good hand to the wall and stayed there until the nanny noticed me and closed the door the rest of the way.

Something was wrong.

Not just the house. Not just the stress.

Something was being taken from him slowly, in pieces, while I stood outside rooms I wasn’t allowed to enter and watched from a distance I couldn’t close.

And Toria walked through the halls like she already owned what was left.