The mansion was silent, but Adrian's heartbeat wasn't.
It thrashed against his ribs like a creature desperate to escape a cage, clawing up his throat until breathing felt like swallowing fire. The hallway to his room stretched endlessly, marble gleaming beneath the dim night-lights, the air too still, too perfect, as though mocking the chaos inside him.
He shut the door behind him—quietly at first.
Then he locked it.
Then he pressed his forehead to the wood.
Not because he was tired.
No, exhaustion was a familiar companion. One he could live with. One he had learned to tame with work and discipline and the self-imposed rules that dictated every second of his existence.
This was something different.
This was fear.
A visceral, bone-deep horror that threaded cold fingers into his spine.
He pushed himself away from the door and staggered—not walked—to the edge of his bed, sinking down as if every muscle in his body had surrendered at once. His hands hung useless between his knees, fingers trembling as he stared at the floor, the polished surface reflecting dim fragments of his silhouette.
His breath came too fast.Too shallow.
He tried to slow it.Failed.
Tried again.
Every time he closed his eyes, the image replayed—
Seraphina standing at the balcony, not hysterical, not dramatic, not performing as she used to. No. Tonight, there had been something hollow about her, something frightening in the vacuum behind her eyes.
It was the expression of someone who had already stepped over the threshold in her mind.
If he had come even five minutes later—even two—even thirty seconds—
His stomach twisted violently.
He would have walked into that room and found—
He swallowed hard.
And then what?What would happen to him then?What part of him would crack this time?What piece of himself would he lose, the way he lost everything else?
He lifted a shaking hand and dragged it through his hair.
"Not again," he whispered into the empty room."Not another death. Not because of me."
The words scraped out of him like broken glass. They didn't soothe him. Didn't reassure him. But at least they filled the silence before his thoughts could devour him whole.
His hands moved on their own, covering his face.
His breaths came jagged, uneven.
Every scenario flashed through him—from the balcony to the courtyard far below, from the thud of a body hitting marble to the unimaginable quiet afterward.
He jolted upright, fingers fisted in the sheets as if clinging to something solid could drag him back into his own skin.
He remembered the kidnappers' voices.Whispers of what they'd do to him if ransom didn't come.Whispers of what they'd do when the waiting got boring.Whispers of killing him just to send a message.
He remembered his parents rushing, rushing, rushing—Rushing to save him.Rushing to get there in time.Rushing into a death meant for him.
He remembered the CIA agent's hand on his shoulder when they finally cut him loose, telling him he was safe, that it was over, that everything was going to be okay—
A lie.
Nothing was okay.Nothing had been okay since that moment.
And tonight—Tonight almost replayed every nightmare he carried.
Just with a different body.A different scream.A different failure to bear the weight of.
His breath hitched.
He rose abruptly, pacing the room like a man hunted by shadows. His steps were too heavy, too fast, but he couldn't stop. If he stopped, the walls would close in. The memories would. The guilt would.
He pressed his hand to his sternum again.Hard.As though he could keep the fear from cracking it open.
"This is for the best," he murmured to the dark.His voice was soft, strained, almost broken."She signed it. It's done. It's for the best."
He repeated the words again.And again.Each repetition sounding less convincing than the one before.
Was it for the best?
Being tied to a wife he didn't want?A wife who was terrified, unstable, desperate?A wife who once mocked him, dismissed him, and never spared a thought for the person hiding beneath all that fat, all that spoiled indulgence?
He exhaled a slow, shaking breath.
It didn't matter.
What he wanted didn't matter.
His wants were irrelevant.His desires meaningless.He forfeited the right to want—or not want—anything the night his parents died rushing to save him.
If he had been better—More mature—More capable—Less childish—Less reckless—Less self-centered—Less of a burden—
They would still be alive.
He stopped pacing.
His hands hung limp at his sides.
"I can't lose anyone else," he whispered.Not to the room.Not to her.Not even to himself.
He felt the truth settle heavily inside him.
She was alive.Because he had walked in at the right moment.Because he had cancelled the annulment.Because he had shoved a paper barrier between her and death.
A contract where she signed herself into a gilded cage—and he signed himself into a lifetime sentence of responsibility he never asked for.
No love.No partnership.No warmth.Just two people bound by desperation and fear.
He inhaled deeply and forced himself to move, to do anything that wasn't thinking—his body going through the motions of stripping off his shirt, folding it, placing it perfectly in its designated space.
But his hands still trembled.
Every drawer he touched rattled faintly.Every breath he took came out uneven.Every movement carried the residue of terror.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror.The man staring back was sculpted, sharp, severe—everything the old Adrian never was.
But the eyes—the eyes were the same.
Glass cracked under pressure.Glass waiting to shatter.
He touched the mirror lightly.
"She signed it," he whispered again.
And this time something like guilt moved beneath his ribs.
She signed it because she was terrified.She signed it because she had no future outside this mansion.She signed it because she had nowhere else to fall except over that balcony.
He shut his eyes.
His voice dropped to a whisper meant for no one—not the company he ruled, not the world that bowed to his wealth, not even Seraphina herself.
Just for the empty space where his parents' ghosts lingered.
"I'm doing the right thing. I have to be."
His throat tightened.
"Because if she died tonight… if she died because of me…"
He couldn't finish the sentence.
He didn't need to.
The silence answered for him.
He collapsed into the nearest chair, leaning forward, elbows braced against his thighs, head hanging as exhaustion and panic collided inside him.
He didn't sleep.He couldn't.
But he breathed—slowly, painfully, deliberately—until the tremors finally lessened.
Until he could believe he'd prevented a tragedy.Even if the chain that prevented it now bound them both.Even if the marriage ahead was one neither of them wanted.Even if the weight of her life now rested quietly, unbearably, on his shoulders.
He whispered once more, barely audible:
"At least she's alive."
And for Adrian Vale Harrington—a man who had lost everything—that was enough.