After Ethan left for work, Elena didn't immediately retreat to her room as usual. She remained at the silent dining table, letting her husband's words echo in her mind.
You understand the language of music. I understand the language of power.
It was a strange comparison, yet somehow it felt perfectly fitting. All this time, she had seen Ethan's business world as something cold, greedy, and unfeeling—the antithesis of her own world, which was full of art and emotion. But the way Ethan had said it this morning implied there was a system, a complexity, even a certain beauty to that world of power; a language she didn't understand.
And for the first time, she wanted to learn.
The sincere warning she had given about Marcus Thorne—a name she had caught from a fragment of Ethan's phone conversation—now felt like more than just a pleasantry. It was a connection, an acknowledgment that their worlds, though separate, were now under the same roof. Driven by this new curiosity, Elena took her teacup to the library, opened her laptop, and did something she had never imagined herself doing.
She typed the name "Marcus Thorne" into the search engine.
For the next hour, she was immersed in news articles, market analyses, and opinion columns. She didn't understand all the complicated financial terms, but she could grasp the big picture. Marcus Thorne was a predator, a "corporate shark" whose reputation was built on the ruins of the companies he had destroyed. And his latest target was Riels Corporation. She read about Thorne's devious tactics, about how he sowed division among boards of directors and spread panic among shareholders.
Elena began to see the scale of the battle Ethan was facing. This wasn't just about money. This was about a family legacy, about the thousands of employees whose fates depended on her husband's decisions. The man she had considered her captor was, it turned out, also a protector to many people. The puzzle grew even more complex.
In the midst of her research, her phone rang. The name "Nathan" lit up the screen. The heart that would normally have leaped with joy now only felt a small flutter.
"El! How are you?" Nathan greeted cheerfully.
"I'm fine," Elena replied, her eyes still fixed on a stock price chart on her screen. "And you?"
"Amazing! I just finished the first draft of a new song, I want you to hear it later. Oh, and I met with a producer from an indie label..."
Nathan went on talking about his world—about melodies, recording opportunities, about his dreams. Elena listened politely, but for the first time, it all sounded... distant. His world, which once felt like the only thing that mattered, now seemed smaller in comparison to the multi-million-dollar war raging in her husband's world.
"...El? Are you still there?" Nathan asked, noticing the pause in their conversation.
"Yes, sorry. I was just... reading something," Elena replied.
After the call ended, a strange feeling settled over her. A sense of guilt for not giving Nathan her full attention, but also the feeling that her center of gravity had shifted.
That evening, when she heard Ethan's car arrive, she didn't hide in her room. She stood near the top of the staircase, watching in silence as her husband entered. Ethan looked exhausted. The lines on his face seemed deeper, and there was a weight on his shoulders that hadn't been there this morning. He walked directly toward his study.
Elena hesitated for a moment, then she walked to the kitchen. "Celli," she called softly. "Please prepare a chamomile tea. A little sugar. And deliver it to the Master's study."
She didn't know why she did it. It wasn't her duty. Perhaps it was a response to her warning that morning, or perhaps it was a small gesture to say, 'I know you had a hard day.'
When she heard the study door close, she returned to her room. She didn't know if Ethan would even notice the small gesture, or if he would care. But for the first time, she didn't feel like a prisoner in that house. She felt like... a very, very secret ally.