Cassandra's eyes darted over the table, pretending confusion. "What book?" she asked softly, her tone carefully neutral, while her mind weighed every detail of the scene.
"The Princess and her Handsome Knight. The Billionaire's Runaway Bride. Don't Run My Love. The Handsome Father of My Babies…" Theodore recited the titles with an edge of disdain, each one a deliberate probe into her mind. They had been hidden in the bed's secret compartment—books that belonged to the 'original' Cassandra Bolton, not her.
Her lips twitched in frustration and shame yet she could not reveal the truth, not yet. She wasn't even aware that tacky and cringe, shameful book were there. One doesn't need to read to know what kind of books those are. The titles of the book alone could shame one.
"Well, everyone has hobbies, don't they?" Cassandra Bolton replied with a light, almost coquettish smile, hiding the sharpness and disdain coiling beneath her words.
Her pulse thudded beneath her ribs as Theodore Bolton's gaze pinned her, scornful and piercing. I don't read those, she screamed silently, her mind whirling with careful, silent plotting. One wrong word, one misplaced glance, and the dangerous man before her could unravel everything. And kill her. Maybe torture her inhumanely before killing her.
"Eat your food," Theodore Bolton said finally, his tone a low command rather than a suggestion, before rising and moving toward the door.
"Are you leaving, big brother?" Cassandra asked, lacing her voice with feigned reluctance, while her mind calculated every angle of his sudden attention.
"Don't want me to leave?" he murmured, his voice a cold whisper that seemed to crawl into the corners of the room. Then, without waiting for an answer, he exited, closing the door with a deliberate, echoing click.
Relief washed over her, fleeting and dangerous. She allowed the mask of obedience to slip, replaced instantly by a cold, unreadable expression. A sheen of sweat clung to her back, and her heart thumped with the realization of the razor-thin line she was walking.
Theodore Bolton was not merely a cruel brother; he was a predator in a family of predators. The original Cassandra Bolton had barely interacted with him—luckily. But what would happen if he suspected the truth? If he knew that she, the seemingly fragile little sister, was not herself but something far more vengeful, far more cunning?
Cassandra Bolton's mind raced over the morning's events, dissecting them with surgical precision. Theodore Bolton's unusual visit, his sudden "concern," the carefully orchestrated food—it all hinted at something deeper, something dangerous.
Was he suspicious? Or was this a trap, testing her limits, probing for the faintest flicker of deception?
Why did the non existential brother who never paid attention to Cassandra Bolton suddenly acting like a responsible and concerned older brother?
Her lips curved into a careful, innocent smile as she set herself to eat, hiding the storm of thoughts behind it. Survival here required patience, calculation, and the perfect performance of sweet obedience. And Cassandra Bolton had long since learned to play the role better than anyone could imagine.
Cassandra Bolton pondered deeply as she pulled out a handful of long silver needles—the spoils of her not-so-subtle ransacking spree yesterday.
To anyone else, they were just needles. To her, they were salvation in metallic form. In the House of Bolton—where the very carpets probably had more murder attempts stitched into them than patterns—it was almost adorable to find something so practical. Like discovering a spoon in a room full of guillotines.
Smiling to herself, she dipped the needles into every steaming dish and bowl. Only one soup hissed with betrayal, the needle turning black at the tip. Ah, poison—the Bolton family seasoning. Cassandra didn't even blink. She gobbled down every safe dish like a feral street dog at a feast, then—because she wasn't completely stupid—sampled the poisoned soup anyway. Just a spoonful. She needed to build immunity for poisons. Enough to remind herself that death had better move faster if it wanted to catch her.
Then, with the finesse of a con artist, she poured half of it into the other bowls, arranging the crime scene like a painter staging a masterpiece of deception.
But the thought nagged her: her body was fragile. Pathetically so. One spoon of poison and she'd probably keel over like a fainting goat. That wasn't right. Not in a family like hers.
The Boltons trained their children young—blood, fire, and toxins as daily bread. Yet she, the daughter of the House, had the immune system of a daisy in winter. Why? Who had decided she should stay soft, weak, and human in a nest of vipers? Suspicion coiled in her stomach like a second poison.
There's definitely something going on in the family.
Her mother's inexplicable hate for Cassandra Bolton. Her brother's indifference. Her father whose face she cannot even recall. And her pathetic hopeless situation.
Secrets. Or hidden truths.
The door suddenly flew open.