Panic obliterated Bianca's thoughts. With a feral shriek, she lunged,
fingers clawing towards the phone. "GIVE IT TO ME!"
Elara was ready. She snatched her hand back, darting smoothly behind the
protective bulk of Robert's wheelchair. No recording. Just Bianca's predictable,
guilty terror. The bluff had worked perfectly.
Fuelled by rage and fear, Bianca scrambled to pursue her. "You lying
bi—!"
CRASH!
An antique vase exploded on the marble floor inches from Bianca's feet.
Shards sprayed, nicking her ankles. She screamed, pure animal terror this time,
and froze, trembling violently.
"Bianca!" Robert's roar shook the room. He slammed his fist against his own
chest, gasping for breath, his face purple with apoplectic rage. "Enough! How
did I spawn such a brainless viper?!" He sucked in a ragged breath, his eyes
burning holes into his daughter and wife. "Effective immediately: house arrest.
Both of you. Not one step outside without my permission. Every credit card,
every account — frozen." His voice dropped to a terrifying rasp. "And what you
did last night? Swallow it. Rot with it. Not. One. Word. To anyone. Especially
the Thorne family."
His gaze, colder than arctic ice, swept over the stunned, silent women. "If
a single whisper of scandal touches Elara's name," he hissed, "I will know it
came from you. And you will learn the true meaning of my ruthlessness."
Claire and Bianca's faces cycled through shades of sickly green and
ghostly white. Fury warred with terror, jaws clenched tight enough to shatter,
forced to choke down their venom.
"Now," Robert bellowed, the command cracking like a whip. "APOLOGISE TO
ELARA!"
Suffocating silence, dense and poisoned with hate, filled the space. Seconds
stretched into an eternity.
"Never!" Bianca spat, tears of fury streaking her mascara. Her eyes,
pure venom, locked onto Elara. "What is she to me? My cousin? Or the person unraveling
me in ways no one can see?!" With a choked sob of rage, she whirled and fled,
pounding up the stairs.
"Bianca!" Claire cried, ignoring Robert's thunderous expression. She
shot Elara a final, poisonous glare and chased after her daughter.
The grand living room plunged into an eerie quiet, the only sound
Robert's laboured breathing and the faint tinkle of settling porcelain shards.
Robert turned his heavy gaze to Elara. The rage banked, replaced by
weary calculation. "Elara," he began, his voice low and controlled, "What they
did… was unforgivable. Profoundly so. Rest assured, I will contain this. It
will not leave these wall." He paused, his eyes searching hers. A flicker—unreadable,
unsettling—passed through them. "As for Julian Thorne… there is no need for
fear. They will be silent. He will never know. I have made the consequences…
abundantly clear." His next words carried deliberate weight. "You will be
protected. This ugliness ends here."
"Uncle Rob." Elara's voice cut to rough his assurances, her heart aching
anew at Julian's name. She raised eyes shadowed with exhaustion and chilling
detachment. "I wasn't raped by that scum last night. I escaped." She held his
gaze, a silver of defiance piercing her pallor. "You can confirm with Aunt
Claire. Though I doubt she'll tell you the truth."
Robert stiffened. A muscle ticked in his jaw. "There's no need to
confirm," he stated, his voice suddenly granite. "I trust you, Elara."
Yet, in the angle hidden from her view, a strange, almost triumphant
gleam flickered deep within his eyes. Good. She's still untouched.
Elara's long lashes trembled. She swallowed hard, the silence stretching
thin. "Uncle Rob," she finally whispered, the words heavy with finality, "I
want to move out."
Robert's frown was immediate, sharp. "Move out? This is your home! Where
would you go?" He leaned forward, urgency replacing sternness. "If it's because
of Claire and Bianca, you don't need to worry. I will handle them. After this…
they won't have the chance to harm you again."
"Uncle Rob," Elara interrupted, her clear almond eyes flooding with
bitter tears. "It was luck that saved me last night. Luck I can't count on
every day in this house. Being constantly on guard… against the people who are
supposed to be my family…" her voice broke. ""It's exhausting. I'm
drained." The memory of Bianca's venomous stare solidified her resolve.
"I don't desire the Hayes fortune, least of all Grandpa's shares. I just
want peace. Please... let me go. I was always going to leave eventually."
"I don't agree!" Robert's hand clenched the wheelchair
armrest, knuckles white. His voice dropped, thick with emotion and command.
"I swore at your parents' graves, Elara. As long as I draw breath, I will
care for you. Protect you from harm. That duty doesn't end when you leave this
house, even if you marry." He took a ragged breath. "I failed you
this time. Stay. Let me make it right. Bianca will be sent abroad."
Elara simply looked at him, the silence louder than any argument.
"Uncle Rob," she began softly, bending down slightly, her
voice thick with gratitude and sorrow. "You raised me. Gave me
everything... clothed me, fed me, sheltered me." She took a deep,
shuddering breath. "I'm sorry. Truly. I'll come back for my things."
She straightened and turned towards the door without waiting for a
reply.
"Elara!" Robert's voice cracked, a mix of disbelief and sharp
disappointment. "You won't even listen to me now?" His usually gentle
face hardened into deep lines of frustration and something darker. Was it
Julian Thorne? Had that boy's influence made her defiant?
The accusation, the disappointment in his tone, sent a fresh wave of
heat behind Elara's eyes. She paused for only a heartbeat, a barely perceptible
stutter in her step, then resolutely walked faster, pushing through the heavy
front door.
Outside, the sunlight hit her like a physical blow. Her body swayed
violently, a wave of dizziness crashing over her. Strength leached from her
limbs. She stumbled, catching herself against the cool stone wall of the villa,
gasping. The adrenaline that had sustained her through the confrontation
evaporated, leaving only bone-deep weariness and the terrifying freedom of her
decision. She pressed her forehead to the stone, waiting for the world to stop
spinning, the weight of the Hayes mansion finally, shakily, off her shoulders.
Ashbourne in late winter breathed ice. A bitter wind clawed down
Rosewood Mountain, stripping the last stubborn leaves from gilded ginkgoes that
lined the wide, deserted road. Their skeletal branches clawed at a leaden sky.
Halfway up the mountain, a vintage verdant Rolls-Royce Phantom glided
like a silent predator, crushing carpets of dead, golden leaves beneath its
tires.
Inside, warmth hummed against glass.
"Boss," Ethan Trevithick's voice cut the quiet, its low, Cornish cadence
– youthfully deep despite its acquired polish – retaining the bedrock strength
of the coast. "Old Lady Thorne rang at dawn. Requests your presence at the Old
House… and Master Julian's. Insists he 'wishes to see you'."
Silas Thorne occupied the rear seat like a shadow given form. He leaned
back, eyes closed, draped in a black wool coat so impeccably tailored it seemed
an extension of the night itself. His long legs sprawled with an arrogant ease
that claimed the space as birthright. One black leather glove lay discarded on
the armrest beside him. The other hand— long-fingered, powerful, the knuckles
pronounced beneath pale skin— idly rotated an obsidian signet ring on his left
pinkie. The ring, carved with the Thorne family crest, caught the weak light
like a shard of frozen midnight.
He didn't open his eyes. "Tonight." The word was a low vibration, devoid
of inflection.
As the Phantom began its smooth arc around the mountain's curve, Silas
finally lifted heavy lids. His eyes, the colour of storm-lashed slate, fixed on
the bleak landscape blurring past.
"The girl from last night," he began, the question seeming almost an
afterthought tossed into the quiet. "Any trace…" His voice died abruptly
between thin, unsmiling lips.
His gaze locked into a figure stumbling along the inner curve of the
road, a fragile shadow beneath the barren ginkgoes. Recognition struck like
lightning.
That face.
Memory flooded him, vivid and heated against the car's chill:
Moonlight silvering tangled dark hair across his pillow. The scent of
jasmine and salt sweat. The startling delicacy of her features— the high arch
of her cheekbones, the soft bow of her lips parted on a gasp. Her eyes, wide
and impossibly clear, like amber held to flame, reflecting his own hunger back
at him. Not fear, then, but a fierce, untamed fire meeting his. The fragile
strength of her wrists pinned gently above her head, the silk of her skin
against his calloused palms. The startled cry she'd muffled against his
shoulder, the way her body had arched, not to escape, but to receive him,
surrendering and conquering in the same breath. A bloom crushed under him, yet
radiating defiant life.
The Phantom completed the turn. Silas started to drag his gaze away—
duty, the Thorne name, the cold logic of Ashbourne reasserting itself— when his
peripheral vision snagged. The figure wasn't walking. It was falling.
"Stop the car." The command cracked like a whip, shattering the
insulated calm.
Ethan, startled mid-thought by his boss's aborted question, flinched as
the Phantom jerked to a halt. He twisted in his seat, but saw only the heavy
door swinging open and the sweep of Silas's black coat as he surged onto the
icy road.
On the curve they'd just passed, crumpled beneath the stark ginkgo
branches like discarded velvet, lay Elara Hayes. Her black coat pooled around
her, stark against the grey pavement and dead gold leaves. Her face, turned
towards the sky, was deadly pale, her dark lashes stark smudges against skin
that seemed almost translucent. Her breath plumed in ragged, shallow bursts in
the frigid air. She looked like a fallen star, extinguished on the cold
mountainside.