Amelia Harlow
We took this selfie the day of our first official date. I still remember how awkward I felt then—two years older than him, unsure if I should let myself fall. But his eyes… the way they held me, the way they promised love and care without needing words—slowly, I surrendered.
The years we spent in med school were drenched in joy, in long nights of studying side by side, in whispered promises between library aisles, in laughter that spilled out over coffee and cramped hostel rooms. Nathan had a heart that carried love in its purest form, and somehow all of it was for me.
He loved the color blue. Dark shades, light shades—it didn't matter. It was always blue for him. And because of that, I wore blue for him. Every dress I picked, every scarf I wrapped, carried a piece of his favorite color—so that he would never doubt the love I held for him. On our wedding day, when brides around me glittered in white, reds and golds, I walked down in a sky-blue dress. We had searched everywhere, every boutique, every designer, until we saw it together. And when our eyes met in silent agreement, we both knew—this was the one.
He handed me a bouquet of white roses that day. I always loved sunflowers, but he insisted. "White roses will match you," he said, "and the dress." He was right. I didn't mind. Because it was him, and he was all that mattered.
I loved him so much.
The memory stung sharper than a blade as my fingers pressed against the piano keys. A black piano—he had bought it for me long before the wedding, knowing I loved to play. He said the sound of music suited me, that when I played, I belonged to another world.
Tonight, I played Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. The notes filled our room, slow and haunting, growing faster and faster as my chest tightened. My fingers burned, but I didn't stop. The music echoed through the cold walls of the Ashford mansion, like a prayer, like a scream. As if the sound itself would drag out the secrets hiding in this house of liars.
Then I heard it.
Footsteps. Soft but hurried. And something else—a sound like muffled crying.
I froze. My fingers shook above the keys. The music stopped, and silence filled the room. And in that silence, the footsteps grew clearer.
I followed.
The sounds pulled me up to the second floor, along the long hallway with blinking lights. My heart pounded with every step. The closer I got, the clearer it became—the sobbing, raw and broken. It was coming from Victor's room.
Another Ashford drama, I thought bitterly. But what I saw when I reached the door—no drama could explain it.
Victor's body lay stretched out on his bed. Blood soaked the sheets, dripping onto the floor in dark. His teeth—his teeth were scattered across the floor like broken pearls, slick with blood. My stomach lurched.
A pair of pliers rested in his limp hand, crusted with red. Did someone use it on him? Or—God forbid—did he rip them out himself?
Beside the bed stood Lilith and Samuel. Their faces were pale, their eyes wide with terror. For a moment, none of us moved. Their gaze met mine, and I knew—we were trapped together in the same nightmare.
The scene shattered me. Only days ago I stood over Nathan's broken body, and now Victor. Torn apart in a way so cruel, so monstrous, it didn't feel human.
I wasn't sad. No. Sadness had been taken from me the day they stamped Nathan's death as an "accident." I had nothing left for them—not sympathy, not tears. What I felt was shock, horror, and a cold, gnawing rage.
One by one, the Ashfords began to arrive, drawn by the noise. Helena gasped, clutching at Marcus's arm. Cordelia's face twisted, not with grief, but with something sharper—fear. Grace staggered back, covering her mouth as if the sight alone would poison her. Dominic entered last, his presence like a stormcloud, his jaw locked tight.
The room was thick with silence and dread. The air smelled of iron and death.
No one cried for Victor. Not really. Their expressions were masks of shock, but underneath I saw something else. Confusion. Terror. And perhaps—relief.
I stood frozen by the doorway, my hands shaking. Inside my chest, a cruel thought whispered: One less Ashford to suspect. One less liar to watch.
But the condition of the body… it was savage, beyond reason. Whoever killed Victor hadn't just wanted him dead—they wanted him destroyed.
"God have mercy…" Lilith's voice cracked. She pressed her hands together, tears brimming in her eyes.
"Don't just stand there!" Marcus barked, his voice breaking the tension like glass shattering. "Call the police!"
Samuel trembled, fumbling with his phone. His eyes wouldn't leave Victor's ruined face.
I leaned against the wall, dizzy. The room spun with whispers, with gasps, with the kind of fear that eats through bone.
When the police finally arrived, their faces betrayed their horror. Even they—men used to blood, to violence—struggled to look at Victor's mutilated body. They tried to speak of evidence, of procedure, but their words faltered under the weight of what they saw.
The body was carried out, covered in a white sheet, though red seeped through quickly. And as the officers left with their grim cargo, I caught Marcus's expression—hard, calculating, as though he were already rewriting this story in his head.
Later, when the report came, I read it with shaking hands. The words blurred, but the meaning was clear enough.
Victor Ashford: dead. Cause uncertain. Suicide? Torture? Murder?
No answers. Only more questions.
And as I lay awake that night, the piano keys still echoing in my mind, I realized something terrifying.
Nathan's death was just the beginning.
Now the walls of the Ashford mansion dripped with blood, and I was locked inside with them.
The opening of Nathan's will is delayed, the police will come to investigate Victor's death—or murder. I'm in deep shock: Nathan's death had been deemed an accident, yet Victor's is branded a murder. Something darker is being kept from me, and I had to uncover it.