POV: Xavier
The world outside the estate walls felt like a useless, sprawling dream. Xavier moved through his days in the hotel with the hollow precision of an automaton. Board meetings were a droning theater. Financial reports were grids of meaningless numbers. Every interaction was filtered through the new, excruciating knowledge: he was a fraud in a fraud’s palace. His father’s calm, controlling presence was a constant, silent mockery. And Isabella was in the belly of the beast, playing a role more dangerous than any of them.
He couldn’t reach her. Any direct contact would be monitored, analyzed, and used against them. He saw her once, from a distance, being escorted from the black sedan into the estate’s side entrance, a slim figure in grey swallowed by the stone facade. The sight wa
