The Shadows of the House
"Their attitude might become a burden for you later on."
Aletta exhaled a long, heavy breath, fighting to steady her nerves. "Does it offend you, Mas Jendral?"
Jendral remained silent. His gaze was fixed forward, distant, as if weighing a response that refused to form. To Aletta, the silence was a jagged edge. It was no secret; Jendral and his parents moved in different orbits, never aligned.
Then there was Vivian—his eighteen-year-old sister. She clung to Jendral with a spoiled, suffocating devotion.
"Have you two... never gotten along? Even before this?"
"There are complications," Jendral clipped his words, shutting the door on the topic. "You don't need to pry."
Aletta fell silent, watching his profile. It wasn't just the rejected match with Sofia. There was a deeper rot in those family roots, something fractured long ago.
The Gilded Cage
They reached the house.
