The greenhouse looked different at night.
By day, it was a palace of light and glass, filled with rare orchids and climbing vines.
By midnight, it was something else entirely.
The moonlight fractured through the panes, turning every shadow into a whisper and every leaf into a blade.
Diana moved carefully.
She hadn't told Claiborne where she was going.
Hadn't told anyone.
The guards were gone from this wing of the estate.
Too gone.
Which meant someone had moved them.
Her hand tightened around the note in her pocket.
If Damien had sent it, he'd be waiting inside.
If he hadn't…
She pushed the door open.
Warm air, heavy with the scent of night-blooming jasmine, wrapped around her like a false embrace.
"Hello?" she whispered.
A figure stepped out from behind a row of hanging plants.
Not Damien.
Cassie.
Her smile was thin, brittle.
"You came."
Diana didn't move closer. "Why?"
"Because you deserve to know exactly who you're in bed with," Cassie said, her voice sharp enough to cut. "You think you've seen Damien's darkness? You've seen nothing."
"I don't need your warnings," Diana said flatly.
"Oh, but you do," Cassie purred. She reached into her coat and pulled out a folder. "This is the part he's buried. The part that would make you run and never look back."
Diana hesitated, eyes flicking to the folder.
And that was all Cassie needed.
She stepped closer, forcing the papers into Diana's hands.
On top—an old police report.
A grainy photograph of a younger Damien, blood on his shirt.
The headline screamed in bold letters:
> TEEN HEIR QUESTIONED IN BROTHER'S DISAPPEARANCE.
Her stomach lurched.
Rhys.
"What is this?" Diana demanded.
"The truth," Cassie said simply. "He didn't lose his brother. He made him disappear."
Before Diana could speak, a deep voice cut through the humid air.
"Funny," Damien said from the doorway, his silhouette framed in shadow.
"I don't remember inviting either of you here."
Cassie's smirk didn't falter. "We were just talking about family."
Damien's gaze shifted to Diana, his expression unreadable.
"Put the papers down," he ordered.
She didn't move.
"Now."
The weight of his voice rooted her in place—caught between the danger in his eyes and the danger in her own curiosity.
Cassie's eyes glittered with triumph.
"Go ahead, Damien. Tell her what you did."
The greenhouse went quiet.
Only the sound of the glass panes creaking in the wind.
Damien stepped forward, slow and lethal.
"I warned you," he said to Diana. "You keep asking questions… one day, you won't like the answers."