By morning the next day, the mansion had settled into its usual rhythm — silent, polished, suffocating.
Emily woke to the faint echo of footsteps in the hall, a breakfast tray waiting by her door, and a note in crisp handwriting:
> Eat. Stay inside today.
– L.V.
She almost crumpled it.
Stay inside.
Always inside.
Her room, though beautiful, had begun to feel like a cage — the velvet curtains like bars, the high ceiling echoing her isolation. Every hour stretched longer than the last.
She tried reading one of the books she'd found on the shelf — something old and heavy about economics — but the words blurred. Eventually, she set it down and pressed her palms against the cold glass of the window.
Outside, the courtyard was quiet except for a pair of guards by the gate. They stood like statues, heads turning only when the wind shifted. Even freedom looked guarded.
When she finally heard a knock, she nearly jumped.
It wasn't a maid this time.
It was him.
Lucas Vale stood in the doorway, sleeves rolled to his forearms, his expression unreadable as always.
"You shouldn't be walking around alone," she said before she could stop herself. "Aren't you supposed to be… protecting the house or whatever it is you do?"
Something flickered in his eyes — amusement, maybe. "I could ask you the same. You've been pacing since dawn."
"I'm not used to being locked up."
He stepped inside, his presence filling the room in a way that made her chest tighten. "It's not a prison, Emily."
"Then what would you call it?" she challenged.
Lucas didn't answer right away. His gaze moved to the untouched breakfast tray, then back to her. "You haven't eaten."
"Maybe I'm not hungry."
He sighed quietly, walking toward the window. His reflection shimmered against the glass — broad shoulders, calm posture, but the tension was there, coiled beneath the surface like a drawn wire.
"You think I like this," he said finally. "Keeping you here. Guarding doors, moving people around like chess pieces."
"Don't you?"
He turned slightly, a faint, humorless smile on his lips. "Control doesn't mean enjoyment, Emily. It means survival."
The way he said it — quiet, deliberate — made her pulse skip.
She studied him, noticing the faint shadow beneath his eyes, the strain in his jaw. He looked like a man who hadn't slept properly in days.
"Why do I get the feeling you've been surviving for a long time?" she asked softly.
Lucas's gaze met hers. "Because you're observant."
She wanted to push — to ask about the scars, about the medals, about the way his expression sometimes slipped when he thought no one was watching — but before she could, he stepped closer.
"Emily," he said, voice low, "the people who came here weren't amateurs. Until I know who sent them, this house stays sealed. That means you stay inside. For your own safety."
She shook her head. "You keep saying that like it makes it easier."
"It's not supposed to be easy."
Their eyes met — defiance against restraint, control against chaos — until she finally looked away.
"You don't trust anyone, do you?" she murmured.
Lucas was silent for a long moment. Then, in a tone barely above a whisper, he said, "Trust gets people killed."
Something in his voice cracked, almost too subtly to catch. And in that fleeting sound, Emily heard it — the echo of a past he never spoke about.
She wanted to ask more. But he turned toward the door before she could find the words.
"Eat something," he said quietly. "You'll need your strength."
"For what?"
He glanced back at her, expression unreadable. "To endure me."
The door clicked shut behind him.
For a long time, Emily stood there, heart racing, staring at the space he'd just occupied.
He was infuriating. Arrogant. Impossible to read.
But he wasn't just cold. He was broken in ways he refused to admit.
And that realization scared her more than his gun ever could.
That night, when she finally lay down to sleep, she thought of his words — Trust gets people killed — and wondered what kind of ghosts still haunted the man who'd said them.