I didn't move until I heard their footsteps fade completely. The room felt freezing now, the air heavy with the smell of Cyprian's sudden, manic outburst. My legs were still shaking, but the fear was being pushed aside by a cold, sharp clarity. Cyprian was losing his mind, and Elara was holding the map to his madness.
I looked at the ledger lying on the floor. I didn't pick it up. If I was going to play this game, I had to stop acting like a thief and start acting like the woman who owned the house.
I walked out of the study and followed the scent of her perfume. It wasn't hard to find her. She was in the small lounge near the terrace, draped over a velvet chair with her wine glass nearly empty. She looked bored, but the way her eyes snapped to mine when I entered told me she was waiting for me.
"Still awake?" she asked, tilting her head. "I thought Cyprian made it pretty clear that you should be hiding under your covers."
I didn't stay by the door. I walked straight to the cabinet, poured myself a glass of sparkling water, and sat in the chair directly opposite her. I moved slowly, making sure my posture was perfect, just like his mother's.
"Cyprian says a lot of things when he's overstimulated," I said, my voice steady. "He's always been a bit dramatic about his privacy. It's almost charming, in a twisted sort of way."
Elara let out a dry laugh. "Charming? Is that what you call it? The man almost choked you, Raven. Don't try to play the unbothered wife with me. I know exactly how much you're shaking inside."
"I'm shaking because I'm cold, Elara. Not because I'm afraid." I took a slow sip of my water, watching her over the rim of the glass. "I actually feel sorry for you. You spend all this time lurking in hallways and hanging onto the past, waiting for a man who has to be hysterical just to feel something for you."
Her smirk flickered for a split second. I saw the muscle in her jaw tighten.
"He doesn't feel 'hysterical' for me," she hissed. "He feels obligated. There's a difference."
"Obligation is just a fancy word for a debt you can't pay," I countered. I leaned forward, lowering my voice as if we were best friends sharing a secret. "He told me about the clinic, you know. He told me he couldn't protect her. But the way he said it... it sounded like he was actually talking about you. Like you were the one who failed him."
Elara sat up straight, her eyes narrowing. "He said what?"
"He said you were the reason the agreement had to happen," I lied, my heart hammering against my ribs. "He said you were the one who couldn't keep your mouth shut five years ago. That you were the weak link."
"Weak link?" Elara's face went pale, her composure finally cracking. She slammed her wine glass onto the side table. "I was the one who cleaned up the mess! I was the one who stood by him while he was scrubbing her blood off the floorboards of the old guest house! If it wasn't for me, his mother would have had him committed five years ago."
I held my breath. Blood. A guest house. I had reached for a thread and pulled back a whole shroud.
"And yet," I said, keeping my voice soft and taunting, "here you are. Drinking his wine in the dark while he's in my bed. If you're such a hero, Elara, why does he look at you like you're a ghost he's trying to exorcise?"
She stood up, her chest heaving. She walked over to me, leaning down until her face was inches from mine. I could smell the wine and the desperation on her.
"He looks at me that way because I remind him of who he actually is," she whispered, her voice trembling with rage. "You think you're safe because you're pregnant? You think that baby is a shield? The girl before you thought the same thing. She thought the 'heir' was her ticket out."
She grabbed my chin, her fingers digging in just like Cyprian's had.
"She didn't die at a clinic, Raven. She died right here. And Cyprian didn't try to save her. He watched. He watched because his mother told him to, and he was too much of a coward to say no."
She let go of me, a cruel, jagged smile returning to her lips.
"Ask him where the key to the guest house is. Ask him why he hasn't opened that door in five years. And then ask yourself if you really want to be the one to give birth in this house."
She turned and walked out, her silk robe fluttering behind her like a shroud.
I sat there in the silence, the glass of water slipping from my hand and soaking into the carpet. I wasn't just cold anymore. I was terrified.
I looked toward the terrace, toward the dark outline of the old buildings at the edge of the estate.
The secret wasn't in a ledger. It wasn't in a clinic. It was still here, breathing in the walls of a house I was never supposed to leave.
And for the first time, I realized that my baby wasn't the heir to a fortune.
It was the heir to a crime.