The ride to his mansion was silent — not in the quiet way, but in the thick way.
The kind that sticks in your lungs and makes breathing feel like guilt.
Every streetlight we passed flashed a memory I didn't own.
The sound of my heartbeat filled the silence. I swear, he could hear it too.
He sat beside me, not speaking — just listening.
His head tilted, slightly. His fingers drumming on his knee, perfectly in sync with the monitor's beat from the hospital.
Like he wasn't sitting next to me.
But her.
---
The mansion was too big.
White marble. Steel gates.
And that awful silence again. Not empty — just… haunted.
He helped me out of the car.
Didn't ask.
Didn't wait.
Just placed his hand on my back like it belonged there.
> "You'll sleep in Amelia's room."
Amelia.
My sister.
His wife.
He said her name like a prayer.
Like a curse.
Like it still meant more than mine ever would.
---
The room looked like her — even though I hadn't seen her in years.
Soft lavender sheets.
Vanity filled with her perfumes.
A diary on the nightstand.
I froze.
> "You can write again. You always liked that."
His voice was too smooth. Too steady.
I turned to correct him — to say, that's not me — but the look on his face made me pause.
It was the look of a man who'd been drowning...
and thought he'd finally touched the surface.
> "We can start slow," he said.
"You don't have to remember everything tonight."
"But I need you to wear this."
He handed me a necklace.
Her necklace.
The heart-shaped locket I had seen once at a family event when we were sixteen.
The one he gave her.
I didn't want to touch it.
But I took it.
Because his hands didn't move until I did.
---
That night, I stared at the ceiling.
The bed smelled like roses.
Like her.
Like the last memory I had of her voice calling me selfish.
---
Somewhere around 3AM, I woke up gasping.
Sweating.
Panicked.
Because I heard it again — that voice.
Soft. Familiar. Almost mine, but not.
> "Don't let him touch the scar…"
I looked around. Nothing. Just darkness.
Then my hand went to my chest, and I felt it — the faint line.
Where her heart had been sewn into me.
---
I wanted to scream.
But footsteps outside the door made me freeze.
They stopped.
Right in front of the room.
> Tap. Tap. Tap.
Not a knock.
Just fingers… feeling the wood.
Slow. Heavy.
Then silence.
I held my breath.
And the heart — her heart — beat like thunder.