Back at the abandoned art deco estate she awoke to silence.
The velvet fainting couch beneath her creaked as she stirred. Her wrists ached, bound only hours before, then freed again—Veritas said he "trusted her now." But the door still locked. The windows still barred.
In the center of the room, an old phonograph played a warbled jazz instrumental on loop, skipping near the end. The sound of something once beautiful, now broken.
---
Veritas's Last Move
He stood at the landing above, pacing like a conductor before a final act. The silver watch in his hand was silent now. Useless.
He had seen the car in the distance—a black shape slipping through the mist. Too fast to be strangers. Too precise to be random.
Rouge had followed him. Tracked the tires. And now, they were coming.
The rain slicked the windows in whispering trails. The storm hadn't stopped all night.
His fingers twitched as he descended the stairs. He didn't know what he was feeling—rage? panic? something colder?
He stopped halfway down the staircase. Looked at her. Her back was turned. Still unaware.
He thought of letting her go. For half a second.
Then—He moved.
Silent as a shadow, he stepped behind her. The knife flicked open with a quiet metallic snap.Not a showpiece. Not an heirloom. Just a blade. Cold and practical.
He grabbed her by the arm. Pulled her upright. One hand gripped her shoulder. The other brought the knife to her throat.
She gasped. But didn't scream.
"Stay still," he whispered. "Don't make me hurt you."
---
The heavy door downstairs burst open with a crack.
Boots echoed through the marble hall. Velvet coats swept past shattered columns.
Chéri was the first in, eyes blazing, fists already clenched.Lune followed—expression set, heartbreak and fury carved into his young face.Mr. Black stepped into the light last—his face pale as ash, his mouth parted slightly in stunned silence.
And in the background, at the edges of the room like a ghost from a darker time—Rouge. Watching. Always watching.
They saw the blade.
They saw Lyselle's trembling frame.
And everything stopped.
Veritas tightened his grip. His voice lowered."This doesn't have to go badly. I just want to be heard."
---
The room froze in the frame of a single moment.Rain whispered against the tall, shuttered windows. The light that filtered through the dusty chandelier was dim and gold and trembling.
Lyselle stood with a knife at her throat.
Veritas's hand was steady. Too steady for a seventeen-year-old boy. But his eyes betrayed him—wide, rimmed with panic, heart pounding so loud it nearly drowned out the silence.
The gentlemen stared.
And then—
"Put it down," Chéri said, voice sharp, rising above the stillness.He stepped forward without hesitation, arms up like someone talking down a jumper from a ledge."Veritas. Put it down. Now."
No answer. The knife stayed where it was.
Lyselle's breath was shallow. She didn't move. Didn't blink.
Lune's voice cracked.A raw, furious sound, torn from something deeper."What the hell are you doing!?"
His fists were shaking at his sides. He took a step forward—and stopped only when Chéri threw out a hand to block him.
Veritas glanced between them. For a second—just a flicker—his mask slipped. And the boy beneath it looked afraid.
And then there was Mr. Black.Rémi.Still frozen.Still silent.
His lips parted, but no words came out. His gloved hands trembled at his sides. His eyes weren't on the knife.They were on her.On Lyselle.
As if he couldn't believe she was real. As if the past had just been shattered into the present—and all he could do was watch it bleed.
Rouge didn't blink.
He didn't need to.
His voice was low. Calm. And cut like a razor.
"Even for you," he said, "that's low."
Veritas flinched. Just slightly.
He pressed the blade a fraction closer. Not enough to cut—but enough to terrify.
"I didn't want it to be like this," he said through his teeth. "But you left me no choice."
His gaze snapped to Mr. Black.
"You were never going to make a move. You were going to sit in your own memories and rot while she slipped away again."
A beat.
"I did what you were too afraid to."
But no one responded.
No one agreed.
They just watched—silent, still, stunned.
And the knife remained.
---
The silence stretched, suffocating.
No one dared move.
Lyselle's eyes remained steady—not on the blade, but on the man across the room.
Her voice, when it came, was quiet. Barely louder than the wind curling through the cracked windows. But it carried.It reached him.
"Rémi…?"
A single word. A name, said like a question. Said like a memory.
And it broke him.
Rémi's eyes widened.His breath hitched, sharp—like something struck in the ribs.His knees nearly buckled.
The sound of his real name—his name—not Mr. Black, not the phantom he'd become—hit him like thunder through fog.
He staggered back one step. Then another.
His gloved hand pressed to his chest, like he was trying to hold something in. Something vast. Something broken.
Across the room, Veritas froze.
He felt her breath against his knuckles. Felt the slight tremble in her body.Saw the way her voice had reached someone he couldn't.
His grip loosened.
His breath caught.
And then, his hand began to shake.
The knife glinted—no longer a weapon. Just metal. Cold. Out of place.
Veritas looked down at it.Then at her.Then at the others.
Their stares weren't full of fear anymore.
They were full of disappointment.
Chéri, livid, with tears in his eyes.
Lune, pale with disbelief. His hands clenched so hard his knuckles had gone white.
Rouge, unreadable—but even his silence felt damning.
And Rémi… still standing there, hollow and shaken. A man pulled violently out of the past, face raw with regret.
In that moment, Veritas didn't look like a villain.
He didn't look like a prodigy. Or a mastermind. Or a leader.
He looked like a boy.
A boy who had gone too far.
A boy who didn't know how to walk back from the edge.
His mouth opened, as if to say something.
But no words came.
Instead, he let go.
The knife fell.
It clattered to the floor like a final note in a silent room.
Lyselle flinched—but didn't run.
She simply stared at the space where it had been.
Veritas didn't move.
Not even as the others surged forward.
---
For a moment, no one moved.
The knife lay on the floor like a curse broken, the echo of its fall still haunting the room.And Lyselle—the girl at the center of it all—stood frozen.
Then her legs gave out.
She sank to her knees, arms wrapped around herself. Her composure, her strength—shattered.Not a damsel. Not a symbol. Just a girl.
Shaken.Trembling.Breathing too fast.
No one rushed to her.
Except Rémi, who took one instinctive step forward—and stopped himself.
He faltered.His hands hung uselessly at his sides.His mouth opened, but no sound came.
He wanted to reach for her. To help her.But how could he?
He had let this happen.He had let him do this.
Rémi turned his face away—too ashamed to meet her eyes.
That's when Chéri snapped.
A sound like rage torn from the chest:
"You bastard!"
He lunged, tackling Veritas with full force, sending them both to the dusty ground in a violent blur.
They crashed beside the fallen knife, limbs tangled. Chéri's fist slammed down once. Then again.
But Veritas didn't fight back.
Not even a flinch.Not even a word.
He lay there, arms limp at his sides, like someone who had already taken the worst hit—from himself.
His breath was shallow.His expression unreadable.His eyes fixed on the ceiling, as if trying not to feel anything at all.
Rouge stepped in—not urgently, not angrily. Just with quiet, efficient force.He grabbed Chéri by the collar and hauled him off, muttering nothing, saying nothing.
But the look he gave Veritas—
It was ice.
Colder than anger. Colder than hate.It was disappointment.And from Rouge, that was worse than anything else.
Veritas looked away.
He couldn't meet it.
Across the room, Lune dropped to his knees beside Lyselle.
Not touching her. Not speaking.
Just… there.
Her breath was still shaky. Her hands trembled in her lap.
And his heart broke.
Tears stung his eyes, gathering at the corners like glass just before the fracture.
He didn't know how to help her.Didn't know what to say.
But he wouldn't leave her.
Not like this.Not again.
---
Veritas stayed on the floor, dust clinging to his sleeves like ash.
Chéri's fists still stung.
Lyselle's voice—Rémi—still echoed.
And somewhere, deep in the locked vault of his chest,something cracked.
He wasn't sure what it was.
But it hurt.
And for the first time in a long time, he let it.