CHAPTER TEN — THE ECHOES THAT WALK
Night at the Blackwood estate was a different kind of alive.
Silence didn't sleep there — it prowled, coiled in the shadows, full of unspoken eyes. Beyond the glass and stone, the world was all outline and darkness, but inside, the house breathed like it remembered every trespass ever made within its walls.
Aria remained in the west wing atrium longer than most people would dare. Not out of defiance, not out of posturing — but because she refused to let Damian's presence dictate the rhythm of her thoughts. The moonlight slanted across the stone floor, a slow silver burn that touched the edges of her shoes.
She replayed the photograph in her mind.
Not the image itself — but the intent behind it.
Pain wasn't sent without reason. Warnings didn't travel empty.
Somewhere, someone had calculated exactly where to stick the needle.
And they weren't finished.
She pushed off the settee and walked deeper into the west wing. No one stopped her, but she could feel the eyes. Cameras? Maybe. People? Definitely. The corridors were long, with vaulted ceilings and oil paintings whose subjects seemed to stare with more judgment than history.
Eventually, she found a door that wasn't locked.
A quiet study. Not Damian's office — smaller, older, with shelves built into the walls and a fireplace untouched for years. A single lamp glowed near the far corner over a mahogany desk. Papers were stacked but orderly. A glass decanter sat untouched by the window.
She crossed the room, fingertips brushing the spine of a leather-bound volume titled Roman Campaigns of the Eastern Line. She didn't stop to read—she kept moving until she stood at the wide windows that overlooked a courtyard sealed behind stone arches.
She watched the stillness until motion flickered.
Not close — not obvious — not enough to trigger defense systems.
Just a shift near the trees.
Minimal. Faint. Wrong.
She didn't turn her head, didn't narrow her eyes, didn't react. She just waited.
Nothing moved again.
But something had.
---
Elsewhere in the estate, Damian stood on the third-floor landing of the central staircase, one hand braced against the rail, his gaze fixed on nothing and everything.
He hadn't gone to his office.
He hadn't gone to his room.
He listened.
Not for footsteps.
For intent.
He replayed Aria's words — not the ones that threatened, but the ones that bled truth.
Someone wants to remind you of what you left undone.
He'd lost people. Some by his hand. Some by fate. Some by calculation gone wrong. But the woman in that photograph—she wasn't random. That was chosen memory. That was dug-up burial.
And it wasn't aimed at him alone.
He knew leverage when he tasted it.
She was right — Aria had become an access point.
Not because she was weak.
Because she was visible.
And visibility always came at a price.
A sharp click sounded behind him. Carmella approached, tablet in hand.
"We've finished the preliminary sweep."
"And?"
She hesitated. Not long, but enough to register. "There was no perimeter breach."
"There was," he said.
"I mean — nothing shows on any external camera, motion rig, trip alarm, or path register. The envelope was left without alert."
"Which means someone walked right through your systems."
"Or someone inside walked it across," she countered.
He didn't like that option, but he'd considered it.
"And the photograph?" he asked.
She paused again. "It wasn't printed recently. The chemical composition reads as older. Years."
"Someone saved it."
"Yes."
"And waited."
"Yes."
He turned and started walking toward the east wing.
Carmella followed. "What do you want done?"
He didn't look back. "Find who used to visit that woman."
"And when we do?"
"Bring them in."
Alive or not wasn't specified.
Carmella didn't ask.
---
Down in the study, Aria hadn't moved from the window.
But she was no longer looking outside.
She'd turned slightly, eyes tracking the reflection in the glass — the shape in the doorway behind her.
She didn't reach for a weapon.
Didn't tense.
Didn't speak.
She waited.
The figure stepped into the light.
Not Damian. Not Carmella.
One of his house men — tall, built like a wall, in a black suit tailored for concealment rather than fashion. The kind whose footsteps never warned before arrival.
"Miss Hale," he said, his tone low but not aggressive.
She looked at him, unreadable. "You're following me."
"Security detail," he replied. "You're not permitted unaccompanied after breach protocol."
"No one stopped me."
"No one was ordered to."
"So you're here to escort me."
"I'm here to observe."
Aria stepped away from the glass. "Observation implies doubt."
"Everything implies doubt."
"What do you know about the woman in that photo."
His expression didn't change. "Nothing that I'm cleared to share."
"Cleared," she repeated. "Not capable."
His right eye twitched. Barely, but there.
She closed the distance between them one slow step at a time. "You think I'm a liability."
"I think you're an unknown."
"Unknowns," she said quietly, "tend to own the most outcomes."
He didn't respond.
"Did Damian send you?" she asked.
"I go where I'm needed."
"That's not an answer."
"It wasn't a question."
She exhaled once, neither laugh nor sigh. "What's your name."
"Elliot."
"Do you have orders concerning me."
"Yes."
"State them."
"No."
Their eyes met, a clean, thin tension drawn between stillness.
Then — distant footsteps.
Measured. Irrefutable.
Elliot stepped back half a pace.
Damian entered the doorway, gaze cutting immediately to her. Then to Elliot.
"You're dismissed," he said.
Elliot didn't argue. He bowed his head once and withdrew as silently as he'd arrived.
Damian looked around the study, then back to Aria. "You're done walking."
"No."
He ignored it. "Come with me."
She didn't move.
"I won't repeat it," he warned.
"You don't have to." She stepped forward, not toward him, but past him into the hallway. "Lead if you need to pretend control."
He followed without rising to the bait.
Their steps fell in tandem through the wide corridor, neither speaking, neither slowing. He didn't lead her back to the atrium, or the central halls.
He led her to what looked like an ordinary wall.
He touched his palm to a panel almost invisible in the seam of the molding. A lock clicked, and a narrow door opened inward.
They stepped into a windowless room lit by recessed lights, the air cool and dry. Along the walls were monitors — not digital screens, but projection glass that flickered with segmented feeds.
She scanned the images.
Not just exterior.
Interior.
Corridors. Entry points. Service tunnels. Rooftop angles. Underground access lanes. Even the surrounding woodlands beyond the estate fence.
He watched her read it all.
"You brought me here to intimidate?" she said.
"No."
"Then why."
"Because something is coming through these walls. And I need you to see it before it finds you first."
She faced him, eyes sharp. "You think I'll run."
"No," he said simply.
"Then what."
"You'll be ready w
hen it breaks."
---
The monitors flickered.
A night breeze stirred unseen.
Somewhere, beyond stone and security, the thing that left that photograph was still walking.
And it remembered exactly where to return.
---