Chapter 71: The Glass on the Floor
Midnight came like a held breath.
Serene woke to darkness and the soft sound of something breaking. Glass against stone—a delicate, shattering sound that didn't belong in the quiet of the sleeping house. She lay still for a moment, her heart beginning to pound, her body still heavy with the remnants of the pills Ethan had given her.
Beside her, the bed was empty. The sheets were cool where he should have been.
She sat up slowly, listening. The house was silent now—no more sounds, no footsteps, no voices. Just the wind against the windows and the distant creak of old beams settling.
She should stay in bed. Should pull the covers up, close her eyes, pretend she hadn't heard anything. This house was not her home. These people were not her family. Whatever was happening in the darkness, it was not her concern.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood.
---
The corridor was dark, lit only by the faint glow of the moon through the tall windows at either end. Serene moved silently, her bare feet cold on the stone floor, her nightgown whispering against her ankles. The sound had come from somewhere on this floor—not from Ethan's study, which was at the other end of the house. From somewhere closer.
She passed David's room, the door closed, no light beneath it. Mia's room, the same. Celeste's suite, dark and silent.
And then she reached the door at the end of the corridor.
Diyen Leo's room.
The door was slightly ajar. A sliver of light escaped from within, warm and yellow against the darkness of the hall. Serene hesitated, her hand hovering over the wood. She had been forbidden from this room. Mia had made that clear. Celeste had made that clear. She was not family. She was not welcome. She was not allowed to breathe near the man who lay sleeping within.
Another sound came from inside—soft, pained, the kind of sound a person made when they were trying to do something and failing.
She pushed the door open.
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The room was dim, lit by a single lamp beside the bed. The curtains were drawn, the fire low, the air thick with the smell of medicine and sleep. And on the floor, shattered into a hundred glittering pieces, lay a glass.
Serene's eyes moved from the glass to the bed, and her heart stopped.
Diyen Leo was awake.
His eyes were open—hazel, like Ethan's, like David's, but softer, older, rimmed with red from years of sleep. He was looking at her. Actually looking at her, his gaze tracking her face, her hands, the way she stood frozen in the doorway.
His hand was extended toward the bedside table, fingers still stretched toward the place where the glass had been. He had reached for it. He had tried to reach for something, to drink, to move, to do something after years of stillness.
And he had failed. The glass had slipped. It had shattered. And now he lay there, trembling with the effort of what he'd attempted, his eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made her chest ache.
She moved before she could think.
"Don't." The word was silent, but she signed it anyway, her hands shaping the letters without conscious thought. "Don't move. I'll help you."
---
She crossed to the bed, her bare feet careful on the cold stone, stepping around the shattered glass. Her heart was pounding, her hands shaking, but she didn't stop. She reached the bedside and looked down at him—at this man who had always been kind to her, who had called her "little Serene" and asked about her studies, who had held her hand once and told her she was always welcome in his home.
His lips moved. No sound came out—not yet, maybe not ever—but she saw the shape of her name.
Serene.
She nodded, tears burning her eyes. She signed: I'm here. I'm here. Let me get you some water.
She turned to the pitcher on the bedside table, her hands reaching for a fresh glass—
The door opened behind her.
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"What are you doing?"
Mia's voice was a blade.
Serene spun, the glass in her hand, her face pale. Mia stood in the doorway, still dressed in the gown she'd worn for the party, her hair disheveled, her eyes wild. Behind her, Celeste appeared, her face sharp with suspicion.
They saw the broken glass on the floor. They saw Serene, barefoot, nightgowned, a glass in her hand. They saw Diyen, trembling, his eyes fixed on her.
Mia's face contorted.
"You." Her voice rose, cracking with fury. "You curse. I told you—I told you not to breathe near him. Not to come near this room. Not to—" Her eyes fell on the shattered glass, and something in her snapped.
"You ruined my engagement. You tried to steal my fiancé. And now—" She stepped into the room, her hands shaking, her face white with rage. "Now you come to kill my father? When you failed once? When your family's poison couldn't finish him, you come to do it yourself?"
---
Serene shook her head frantically, her hands rising to sign. No. No, I heard the glass break. I came to help. He was reaching for water. He was—
"I don't understand your hands!" Mia's voice was a shriek. "I don't understand your lies, your tricks, your pathetic attempts to make us feel sorry for you. You are nothing. You have always been nothing. And I will not let you take my father the way you took everything else."
Celeste moved into the room, her face cold, her eyes fixed on Serene with an expression that held no mercy.
"Mia is right. You should not be here." Her voice was quiet, controlled, somehow more terrifying than Mia's fury. "You were told to stay in your room. You were told not to come near Diyen. And yet here you are, in the middle of the night, with a glass in your hand and my husband trembling."
Serene shook her head, her hands moving faster now, desperate. He woke up. He reached for the glass. I was only trying to help. I would never hurt him. I would never—
"You would never?" Mia laughed, the sound broken and terrible. "Your family tried to kill him. Your hands prepared the poison. Your greenhouse grew the herbs. And you stand there, pretending to be innocent, pretending to be kind, pretending to be anything but the curse you've always been."
---
The door opened again.
Ethan stood in the doorway, his shirt half-buttoned, his hair disheveled, his eyes moving from his sister's tear-streaked face to his mother's cold mask to the broken glass on the floor. And then to her—to Serene, barefoot in her nightgown, a glass in her hand, her face white with terror.
"What's going on?" His voice was low, controlled.
Mia whirled on him. "What's going on? What's going on is your wife—your curse of a wife—came to finish what her family started. We found her in Father's room, with a glass, with—" She pointed at the shattered glass, at Diyen trembling in the bed. "Look at him. Look at what she's done."
Ethan's eyes moved to his father. To the trembling hand still reaching toward the table. To the broken glass glittering on the floor. His jaw tightened.
"Serene." His voice was careful, measured. "What were you doing here?"
---
She tried to sign. Her hands were shaking too hard.
She tried to reach for her notepad, but it was in her room, on the bedside table where she'd left it, and she had nothing—nothing to explain, nothing to defend herself, nothing to make them understand.
Mia stepped between them, her voice rising. "Are you still asking her questions? Can you not see what's in front of you? The glass on the floor. Father trembling. Her—" She pointed at Serene, her finger shaking with rage. "Her, standing there with a glass in her hand, in the middle of the night, when she was told to stay away."
Ethan's eyes didn't leave Serene's face. "Serene. What happened?"
She opened her mouth. Tried to speak. Tried to force sound through a throat that had been silent for years. Nothing came out. Nothing ever came out.
She signed, desperately: He woke up. He reached for water. The glass fell. I was only—
"I don't understand." Mia's voice was savage. "I don't understand her hands, her lies, her—"
Ethan held up a hand, silencing her. His eyes were fixed on Serene, his expression unreadable.
"Serene." His voice was quiet. "Get out of the room."
---
She stared at him.
He didn't believe her. Of course he didn't believe her. He never believed her. He had believed Ava over her, Darren over her, his own rage over her. And now he was believing Mia, believing the broken glass, believing the worst.
"Go to your room." His voice was harder now. "Right now."
She flinched. The word hit her like a slap—not the words themselves, but the dismissal. The assumption of guilt. The belief that she would hurt the man who had always been kind to her.
She looked at him, her honey-brown eyes wide with something that might have been hurt or might have been the last shred of hope dying.
He didn't look away. Didn't soften. Didn't give her anything but that cold, steady gaze that told her exactly where she stood.
She set the glass down on the bedside table, very carefully, very deliberately. Then she turned and walked toward the door.
Mia stepped aside as she passed, her face triumphant. Celeste watched with cold satisfaction. And Ethan—
She didn't look at Ethan.
She walked down the dark corridor, her bare feet silent on the cold stone, her nightgown whispering around her ankles. She didn't run. She didn't cry. She didn't do anything but walk, one step at a time, toward the room that was supposed to be hers but had never been home.
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