Chapter Eighty-Four: The Stone Fortress
Armed with the terrible truth, the silence of the mansion changed. It was no longer a sanctuary; it was a beautiful, haunted sepulcher. Every portrait, every heirloom, seemed to whisper of Lyanna's ghost and the blood vow that had twisted her brother's soul.
I couldn't look at Aurora or Sophia the same way. Their kindness, their love for me—was it real, or was it part of the penance for their shared secret, their shared guilt? They were complicit in Rowan's deception, even if their motives were to protect me from a past they couldn't change.
For two days, I was a ghost myself. I moved through the rooms, eating when food was placed before me, sleeping in fitful bursts on the chaise in the sunroom, refusing to enter the bedroom I'd shared with him. He, in turn, was a phantom presence. I'd sense him sometimes—a shadow at the end of a hall, the scent of sandalwood lingering outside a door I'd just closed. But he didn't approach. He was giving me space, or perhaps he was simply at a loss, his playbook for this level of disaster finally empty.
On the third morning, something shifted. A cold, clear resolve hardened within me, cutting through the fog of grief and horror. I was done being a piece in their game. I was done being a living monument to a dead girl's tragedy.
I found Aurora arranging lilies in the grand foyer. "I want to see him."
She paused, a long-stemmed flower in her hand. "Aira, darling, perhaps you need more time—"
"Now," I said, my voice flat, leaving no room for maternal coaxing. "Tell him to meet me in the library."
The library was his father's domain, a room of sober intellect rather than painful memories. When I entered, he was already there, standing by the cold fireplace. He looked as if he hadn't slept, his shirt rumpled, his hair finger-combed into chaos. The ruthless CEO, the fearsome mafioso, was gone. In his place stood a man stripped raw, waiting for a sentence.
I didn't sit. I stopped in the center of the Persian rug, putting a solid expanse of space between us.
"I know about Lyanna," I said. No preamble. The words hung, stark and undeniable.
He flinched as if struck. All the color drained from his face. He'd known this moment would come, but hearing the name from my lips, in this tone, was clearly a fresh agony.
"I know my brother courted her. I know he used her. I know he is responsible for her death." I forced the words out, each one a shard of glass in my throat. "I know the vow you made. And I understand, now, exactly what I am to you."
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His eyes were desperate, pleading.
"I am your revenge on the Graces, made flesh," I continued, my voice trembling but clear. "I am the stolen treasure. The ultimate humiliation for my father. A living, breathing replacement for the sister you lost." I wrapped my arms around myself. "This baby isn't a new beginning. It's the final piece of your vengeance. A Royce heir born from a Grace daughter. The ultimate conquest."
"No," he choked out, the word a ragged protest. "Aira, no. It stopped being about that—"
"When?" I fired back, my composure cracking. "When did it stop? When you decided to keep me? When you started enjoying the spoils of war? When you realized you liked the way I felt in your bed?" I took a step forward, fury giving me strength. "You built this entire relationship on a lie. On a foundation of my family's blood. You made me love you while hiding the corpse in the basement."
He was shaking his head, a broken, continuous motion. "I love you," he whispered, the confession sounding like a death rattle. "It became real. You have to believe that."
"I don't have to believe anything!" I shouted, the sound echoing off the high shelves. "Your love is a poison, Rowan! It's born from hatred and nurtured in deceit! It's the love of a jailer for his favorite prisoner! I don't want it! I can't… I can't breathe in this love!"
I was crying now, hot, angry tears. "I want a divorce."
The words landed with the force of a physical blow. He staggered back a step, hitting the edge of the heavy oak desk. The devastation on his face was absolute.
"You can't," he rasped.
"I can. I will. I'll fight you in every court, on every front. I will tell the world what you are. I will take this child and I will disappear, and you will never, ever use us as pawns in your sick war again."
The threat of losing the child finally broke through his shock. A feral, panicked light entered his eyes. "You will not take my child."
"It's my child too!" I screamed. "And I will not let it be raised in this… this stone fortress of grief and violence! I won't let it be another Lyanna, another weapon, another ghost in these halls!"
For a long, terrible moment, we just stared at each other, two devastated enemies across a field of ruined trust. The love was still there, a twisted, aching vine tangled around both our hearts, but it was being strangled by the thicker, older roots of hatred and betrayal.
He looked at me, truly looked at me, and saw not his wife, but the sister of his enemy. The living reminder of his greatest failure. And the woman who held his future in her hands, ready to smash it.
"Get out," I whispered, my strength spent.
He didn't move. He just stood there, a king in the ruins of his own making.
"Get out of this room," I said, my voice stronger. "And stay away from me."
Finally, he moved. He walked to the door. He paused on the threshold, his back to me.
"I will never grant you a divorce," he said, his voice low and final, the warden reasserting himself through the pain. "You can hate me. You can try to run. But you are my wife. Until death, Aira. That was the vow. And for me, it's the only one that ever mattered."
He left, closing the door softly behind him.
I sank to the floor, the cold of the stone seeping through my dress, the weight of his words—until death—settling over me like a shroud. The fight for freedom had just begun, and the man I had to defeat was the same man I had once loved with all my broken, foolish heart.