Scene 1 (The Night's Truth)
Alexa pressed her bedroom door shut with both hands, as the echo of Marcus's cold baritone still lingered in her head like an infection. She clicked the lock and tested it once, then twice, then dragged the small latch down. For the first time since she had set foot in this mansion, she wasn't sure if her room was keeping danger out; it felt more like it was locking her in.
Her slim blade rested by her bedside, within arm's reach, but it didn't feel like enough anymore.
She slumped onto the chair by the desk as she rubbed her temples. "A spy from the underworld… reporting back to destroy dynasties," she whispered to herself. The words tumbled in her mind, even colliding with memories of her parents, of the blood-soaked night she had tried to bury under steel discipline.
She opened her laptop silently, as the blue glow spilled over her pale face, and her fingers flew over keys, pulling up fragments of reports, coded files, mafia family insignias she had memorized long ago. The heads… the heirs… always the heirs. Just like Aaron.
Her brows joined together. "If they've marked him… then Marcus isn't the only target, which means this house, this family—they're already in the crosshairs."
She pulled up old files that her administrator once forced her to memorize. Families that vanished overnight, even empires that fell without explanation, they always traced back to shadows like the spy kneeling downstairs. She hated how neatly it all connected.
Her monologue darkened, as her voice dropped low in the silence: "And me… what am I? A shield for a child? A pawn in Marcus's chessboard? Or I'm the knife sent to gut him when the time comes?"
She exhaled harshly, then closed the laptop. The sound echoed like a gunshot in the quiet. Then—
A sound.
Her head immediately snapped up.
At first, it was faint, dull, but then it became clearer. Screams. Not long, drawn-out shrieks—but short, bitten-off ones, as if someone was choking the air from the throat. They rose in pitch, then cut, rose again, then silenced.
Her pulse jumped as she crept to her door, and her ear pressed against it. The screams stopped. Silence. Then, footsteps. Two sets. Steady. Heavy.
Alexa cracked her door open by an inch.... barely, but wide enough for her eye to scan the area outside of her room.
The corridor was washed in half-light, shadows pooling like ink. Down the hall, she saw them.
Harris was first, expressionless like stone, his stiff uniform wrinkled only by his rapid breath. His gloved hands flexed once, then stilled.
And behind him came Marcus, who was taller and darker. The kind of presence that didn't walk but owned every inch of floor beneath him. In his hand, there was something white, something soft, handed wordlessly to Harris. Gloves.
Bloodstained gloves.
Alexa's heart dropped immediately into her stomach.
Marcus's face betrayed nothing as his jaw was set, and his eyes cold, as if he'd just finished signing paperwork instead of breaking someone apart. Harris accepted the gloves with his usual precision, but his lips were pressed thin, and they were even tighter than usual.
Alexa nearly slammed the door from the weight of her pulse. She pushed it shut quietly, locking it fast as her chest rose and fell as though she'd just run a marathon, and her fingers trembled against the wood.
"They… they tortured him," she breathed out. "And Marcus—Marcus didn't even blink."
She then staggered back a step, as her hands pressed to her mouth, and the image of Marcus handing off bloodied gloves carved itself into her memory like stone.
"Who… what exactly are you, Marcus Delacroix?" she whispered into the dark.
Her knees bent, and she sank onto the floor, clutching her slim blade tightly in both hands. Her inner voice sharpened, cold as steel: You wanted to play detective, Alexa? Congratulations. Now you're living inside the crime scene.
And for the first time since she entered the mansion, she wondered—not if she'd survive Aaron… but if she'd survive Marcus.
Scene 2 (The Study, Shadows Between Truths)
The mansion was silent… too silent. Alexa was pacing inside her room, as the faint memory of those bloodstained gloves worried at her thoughts. She tried to convince herself to sleep, to let it pass… but her instincts wouldn't let her. Something was happening in the study, something Marcus didn't want anyone to know.
Her body moved before her mind even caught up. She crept from her room, as every step was measured, and this time, she had a dagger hidden beneath her sleeve. The corridors seemed endless, as they were painted in moonlight and shadows.
When she reached the heavy oak doors of Marcus's study, she heard voices leak out—low, rough, strained.
She then pressed her ear to the wood.
"…You were sent here by them, weren't you…" Marcus's voice was calm, almost too calm. It was the kind of calm that made the air colder.
Then there was still silence. The spy then muffled a chuckle. "You already know who I serve…"
Alexa's breath hitched as her nails dug into the wood.
"…the family that ends dynasties, one heir at a time…"
Her blood froze almost too quickly. The spy admitted it…
Marcus's voice again, it was sharper now: "And yet you entered my house… You crept toward my son's room… did you think I wouldn't notice…"
Alexa's heart stopped instinctively. Aaron…
The spy coughed, as though spitting blood. "It doesn't matter how careful you are… because the heirs always fall… yours is already marked…"
Alexa clapped her hand over her mouth. No… Aaron…
She leaned harder against the door, desperate to hear more.
Marcus's tone then darkened; each word was a dagger. "Tell me who gave the order… tell me which family dares to move against me…"
The spy only laughed again. "You already know… the same family who ended hers…"
Alexa's body jolted with curiosity. Hers?
Her mind raced. Did he mean Marcus's late wife, Rosalina… or… her own parents? …
Marcus slammed his fist against the desk; the sound even made Alexa flinch. "Enough!"
But the spy's final words slithered out: "I repeat: Heirs fall… fathers fail… and even the strongest will kneel when their bloodline is erased…"
The room fell silent, and now it was safe for Marcus's ragged breath.
Then… a scrape of a chair, and a low whisper. Marcus again—this time softer, trembling at the edges. "Aaron… my Aaron will not…"
Alexa's eyes widened. Her chest tightened. He was about to say something—something that sounded like a secret bigger than anything she had pieced together.
"My Aaron will not share the same fate as—"
"Papa!"
A shout split the air like thunder.
Aaron's small voice, loud and terrified, rang out from down the hall.
Everything stopped.
The study fell into silence. Alexa stumbled back from the door, heart hammering. The timing was too sharp, too uncanny—Aaron's voice had cut Marcus off before he could reveal the rest.
And just like that, the truth remained buried in shadow.