Chapter 18: The Locked Door
The aftermath of Kaelen's breakdown was a silent, surgical operation. There were no sirens, no public scandal. Dr. Evans and the security team worked with a brutal, efficient quietness. Kaelen, sedated into a limp, sobbing doll, was removed from the nursery and whisked away to a waiting car. To another facility, I presumed. A stronger one, with higher walls.
Silas oversaw it all from the hallway, a statue of cold command. He didn't look at me again. When the west wing was empty and silent, he turned and walked away without a word, leaving me standing alone in the eerie quiet, the ghost of Kaelen's screams still clinging to the air.
The house became a tomb. The staff moved like mourners, their faces etched with a new, profound fear. The east wing, my gilded wing, felt less like a sanctuary and more like the heart of the beast. Silas was gone for two days. Where, I didn't know. Managing the fallout, I assumed. Erasing his son's latest failure.
He returned as abruptly as he'd left. I was in the music room, not playing, just sitting at the grand piano, my fingers resting on the cold ivory keys. I hadn't been able to shake the chill that had settled in my bones since the nursery.
I heard his footsteps in the hall, firm and deliberate. He stopped in the doorway. I didn't turn around. I could feel his gaze on my back.
"It's done," he said, his voice flat, devoid of any emotion. "He won't trouble you again."
The finality in his tone was absolute. It wasn't a reassurance. It was a statement of fact. Kaelen had been removed from the board. Permanently.
I finally turned to look at him. He looked tired, the lines around his eyes deeper. But the cold resolve was unwavering.
"What did you do to him?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"What was necessary," he replied. He walked into the room, coming to stand beside the piano. He looked down at me, his expression unreadable. "The situation required a permanent solution."
A permanent solution. The words hung in the air, heavy and ominous. My blood ran cold. "Silas… he's your son."
"He is a threat," he corrected, his voice hardening. "To my legacy. To you. To my heir. Sentiment has no place in this."
Kaelen's words echoed in my head. He'll use you up, too. You're not special. You're just useful. I looked at Silas, at the ruthless calculation in his eyes, and for the first time, I felt a fear of him that was entirely for myself. Not for the woman I'd been, but for the woman I was now, carrying his child, tied to him in this web of darkness.
He must have seen the fear in my eyes. His gaze softened, almost imperceptibly. He reached out, his fingers brushing a strand of hair from my face. The touch was surprisingly gentle, a stark contrast to his words.
"You are safe," he said, his voice low. "That is all that matters."
But I didn't feel safe. I felt like I was standing next to a man who could extinguish his own bloodline without a second thought. Where did that leave me? Where did that leave our child when we were no longer "useful"?
The baby kicked then, a sharp, insistent movement, as if reacting to my spike of fear. I flinched, my hand flying to my stomach.
Silas's eyes dropped to my hand. The coldness in his face thawed, replaced by that strange, possessive wonder I'd seen before. He placed his large hand over mine, feeling the movement beneath our joined palms.
"He's strong," he murmured, almost to himself.
The intimacy of the gesture, following the horrific conversation about his son, was dizzying. This was the duality of Silas Sullivan. The ruthless king and the possessive father-to-be. I was trapped between them.
Later that night, I couldn't sleep. The image of Kaelen, broken and sobbing on the nursery floor, haunted me. The sound of his screams. The look in Silas's eyes when he'd said permanent solution.
I needed air. I needed to get out of the opulent, suffocating bedroom. I slipped on a robe and padded out into the hallway. The mansion was silent, bathed in the pale glow of night lights.
I didn't know where I was going. My feet carried me instinctively away from the east wing, away from Silas's room. I found myself in the oldest part of the house, a corridor with darker wood and older portraits. I stopped before a door I had never seen open. It was heavier than the others, made of solid oak, with an old, iron lock.
It was the door to the basement.
My breath caught in my throat. The source of my nightmares. The place where I had died.
I reached out, my hand trembling, and touched the cold iron of the lock. It was locked, of course. It had always been locked in my previous life, until our tenth anniversary, when he'd herded us down there…
A wave of nausea and visceral terror washed over me. I leaned my forehead against the cold wood, trying to steady my breathing.
"It's just a room."
I whirled around. Silas stood there, silhouetted in the dim light of the hallway. He was wearing a dark robe, his arms crossed over his chest. How long had he been watching me?
"It's not," I whispered, the words torn from me. "It's not just a room."
He took a step closer, his expression unreadable in the shadows. "What is it, then?"
I couldn't tell him the truth. I couldn't tell him about the fire, the screams, the smell of burning flesh. The words stuck in my throat, a silent scream of my own.
He stopped in front of me, looking from my terrified face to the locked door. A faint frown creased his brow. "It's storage. Old furniture. Things that are no longer needed." His eyes returned to me, sharp and assessing. "Why does it frighten you so much?"
Because you burned me alive in there.
The thought was so loud I was afraid he'd heard it. I shook my head, wrapping my arms around myself. "I don't know. It just… it feels like a tomb."
He was silent for a long moment, studying me. I could see the wheels turning in his mind, trying to decipher my irrational fear. "You're safe," he said again, but this time it sounded less like a reassurance and more like a command. "No one will lock you in there. I give you my word."
He said it so easily. The same way he'd promised me a future. The same way he'd neutralized his son.
He reached out and took my hand, his fingers warm and firm around my icy ones. "Come back to bed."
He led me away from the door, away from the site of my death. But as I walked beside him, back to the gilded cage of his bedroom, I knew.
The door was locked now. But the key existed. And the man who held it was the same man who had just had his own son permanently removed for being a threat.
His word meant nothing. The basement was still there. The nightmare was still possible.
And I was more trapped than ever.