It wasnt long before the family was assembled in the main hall—a space designed to diminish the individual. Its high, vaulted ceilings swallowed the frantic, uneven rhythm of Runa's heart. Althea stood rigid near the fireplace, her expression carved from cold flint. Beside Roman, Aurora sat on a velvet settee, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles looked like polished white marble.
Toni stood apart, her face a mask of mounting horror. She was a Vale; she knew her family were not "good" people. She knew the world they built was paved with cold deals and quiet graves. But there was a line. What Jason had attempted in Runa's room was a violation of the only thing Roman truly respected: total, orderly possession.
But as the minutes ticked by, the air in the room curdled. Runa realized with a sickening jolt that this wasn't about her safety. It wasn't about the attempted assault.
Roman didn't ask for a defense. He didn't ask for a story. He walked up to Eli and struck her across the face with the heavy, ringing force of a man accustomed to absolute, unquestioned obedience.
Toni gasped, lunging forward. "Father, stop—"
Eli shot her a look. A single, sharp command flared in those electric blue eyes, even as her head snapped back from the blow. Don't.
Toni froze, her breath catching in a jagged sob.
"You almost let her escape," Roman said, his voice terrifyingly calm, a low predator's rumble. "And in your incompetence, you endangered your sister again."
Toni's eyes widened, her voice trembling. "You know about the audition—?"
"Why do you think no one would know?" Jason interjected from the periphery. His voice dripped with a smug, oily satisfaction. He leaned against a marble pillar, nursing his bruised ego and his blackened eye. He had snitched—perfectly redirecting the narrative away from his midnight intrusion and onto Eli's "betrayal."
"I got her back," Eli said evenly. A thin trail of blood was already pooling at the corner of her mouth, staining the pale skin. She didn't wipe it away. She stood like a soldier under fire, her spine a rod of iron.
Roman's gaze flicked dismissively to Jason. Of course, Jason hadn't mentioned his own attempt on Runa; in his curated version of the night, he was the loyal son uncovering a conspiracy of sisters.
Eli straightened her spine, her voice raspy. "It was—"
Crack. Another blow. The sound echoed like a gunshot off the stone walls. Runa let out a strangled cry, and even Aurora flinched, her eyes fluttering shut. Roman didn't want explanations from a subordinate who had failed.
"Stop!" Runa cried, stepping forward, unable to watch the systematic breaking of the only person who had looked at her like a human being. "It was my fault! I forced her—"
"I wanted to go!" Toni shouted, her voice finally shattering. "I begged her! Eli was just trying to keep me safe while letting me have one hour of my own life! She was protecting me!"
"No," Eli said sharply, finally looking at her sister. Her voice was a final warning. She was trying to draw all the lightning to herself, to be the only lightning rod in the room.
Aurora finally spoke, her voice thin and brittle as dry leaves. "Antonette, you know the rules. You know we cannot have you in the public eye. You are a Vale."
Eli wiped the blood from her lip with the back of her hand, looking directly at her mother. "Why?" Her voice cracked, the mask finally slipping to reveal the raw, bleeding heart beneath. "Why can't we? Toni has talent. She deserves a life that isn't lived in the shadows of your deals. Can't she have her dreams?"
Runa felt a jolt of shock. She looked at Eli's profile, realizing with a stinging clarity that Eli had heard her in the library. She hadn't just listened; she had internalized it. Eli was repeating Runa's own words, weaponizing them against her parents to shield her sister.
"Eli, shut up," Althea snapped, her eyes darting nervously to Roman. She looked at her sister as if she were a stranger. This flash of defiance had happened once before—two years ago—and Althea had thought it was buried forever. What was wrong with her? Since when did Eli care about "talent" or "dreams"?
"I told her to use a fake name," Eli continued, her voice rising in a rare, beautiful show of defiance. "I protected her. I did your job for you! She can have a fake name, a fake background—we have the power to do that! It's not impossible for us!"
"Ha! Do you know the danger of us in the public eye? Cameras follow actresses!" Roman's voice boomed, his patience finally snapping like a dry branch. "It puts a target on our back! We survive because we are the ones watching, not the ones being watched!"
Roman didn't speak again. He grabbed Eli by the shoulder—a rough, bruising grip that bunched the fabric of her shirt—and shoved her toward the side room.
"Dad, no! I'm sorry!" Toni tried to reach them, but Roman ignored her as if she were a ghost.
The heavy oak door of the "discipline" room clicked shut. The sound was final. It was the room where the Vales broke what they couldn't bend.
Aurora rose instinctively, her hand reaching out as if to catch a falling glass, but she stopped herself. The habit of submission was a poison in her veins. Althea turned away, staring at a landscape painting on the wall, her face a mask of studied, agonizing indifference. Jason just smiled—a slow, sickening curve of his lips as he watched his rival fall.
Toni stood shaking, silent tears streaming down her face as the muffled, rhythmic sounds of "discipline" began behind the wood.
That afternoon, Eli emerged from the room alone.
The transformation was jarring. Her left eye was swollen shut, a dark, angry purple blooming across her jaw and temple. Blood stained the crisp white collar of her shirt, stark and incriminating. Her gait was stiff, labored, and she was cradling her left arm against her ribs.
She didn't look at anyone. She didn't seek out sympathy. She walked straight past Althea, past Toni, and past Runa without a single word. She looked like a ghost returning to a graveyard.
A few minutes later, Aurora followed her into the residential wing, carrying a bowl of warm water and medicine with shaking hands. It was a pathetic, quiet act of motherhood—the only one she dared to show when her husband wasn't looking.
That evening, in the suffocating silence of her room, Toni's phone buzzed on the nightstand.
It was a text from an unknown number. The callback for the indie film. They wanted her.
Toni stared at the screen for a long, long time. The blue light reflected in her tear-filled eyes, highlighting the grief etched into her young face. She looked at her closed door, where she could hear the faint, haunting sound of Runa's muffled crying from across the hall. She thought of the blood on Eli's face—the price paid for her "one hour" of freedom.
Slowly, with a hand that didn't stop shaking, Toni reached out and turned the phone off.
The darkness settled over the estate once more. But this time, it wasn't the silence of control. It was the silence of permanent damage. And as Runa sat in the dark, she realized the most bitter truth of the Vale legacy:
They didn't just destroy their enemies. They devoured their own.
The countdown to the wedding was still ticking, but the family was already in pieces.