Chapter 8: The Ruin of the Fall

Before she could answer, before she could even think—footsteps. The air in the gallery, which had been static and theirs, suddenly thinned. The ancient varnished eyes of the portraits on the wall—which had been judging her—seemed to shift, their silent, painted gazes turning with a new, hungry interest toward the archway.

Luca stepped into the light, tie loosened, his expression lazy in the way a blade is lazy before it cuts.

“Wrong room,” he said, too calmly.

The silence trembled. Noah didn’t move. Althea didn’t step back. They were still breathing the same air, their bodies wired, their mouths wet and branded.

Luca’s gaze traveled, a slow, meticulous inventory. Her swollen lips. The blood on Noah’s knuckles. The ruin of her dress, the bare skin she was still trying to cover. He noted the red mark on her cheek and the cut on her lip. He wasn’t just looking. He was tasting the air. He could feel the residual, chaotic energy of her containment and the raw, unhinged violence of Noah’s “rescue.” His smile became thin and sharp.

“Well, well,” he purred, his voice echoing in the hall. “The ‘enforcer’ finally played hero.” His eyes met Noah’s. “And, of course, he just had to collect his reward.”

The word hit Noah like a slap. Reward.

It wasn’t an insult. He was telling the truth. He froze. He looked at Althea—at her torn dress, her swollen lips, and her skin that was starting to bruise. He looked at his own bloody knuckles. He flashed on the image of Adrian Holt’s handprint on her cheek. He saw no difference. He hadn’t saved her. He had claimed her. He had taken the same thing Adrian had wanted. The raw, cold, absolute shame—his oldest, most familiar enemy—crashed over him.

Althea felt it. The heart radiating from him vanished. He went rigid in her arms.

“Noah?” she whispered, her voice still shaky from the kiss.

He recoiled. He ripped her hands off his collar and stumbled back, his face a mask of pale, self-loathing horror.

“God,” he choked out.

“Noah, what - "

“He’s… he’s right,” Noah whispered, his voice dead. He looked at her, but he wasn’t seeing her anymore. He was seeing his sin. “I… I am no better than he was. I… Fuck. I’m sorry. Althea, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Her heart shattered. He was apologizing for the kiss. He was ashamed of it. Luca had been right all along. A sin he’s repenting for.

“I… I have to go,” Noah stammered, his “hero” complex crumbling into pure, pathetic guilt. He ran. He fled the gallery, abandoning her, just like he had in the library. He left her bleeding, exposed, half-naked, and wrecked.

The moment he was gone, the adrenaline that had been holding Althea together vanished. The cost of containing her power slammed into her. A wave of agonizing nausea. The smell of burnt sugar and metal wasn’t in the air; it was on her skin. She was hollowed out, empty. She slid down the wall, her legs giving out, a single, silent tear of pure, agonizing humiliation tracing the path through the blood on her cheek.

Luca “tsked,” a sound of false pity. He stepped into the gallery.

“He’s a coward, Althea,” he said softly, his voice full of a strange, cold sadness. “He always chooses his guilt over you. He always will.”

He shrugged off his own expensive tuxedo jacket. He didn’t approach her. He just… tossed it, letting it land by her feet. A silent, respectful offering.

“You’re bleeding, mon coeur,” he whispered.

Her breath caught. That name. It wasn’t a taunt. It landed with a devastating, agonizing intimacy that Noah’s desperate kisses hadn’t touched. It was… familiar. It was a ghost of a memory, a key to a lock she didn’t know was there. She couldn’t place it, but it ached.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Althea.”

The voice was not Luca’s. It was an execution. Cold. Clear. And sharp as a shard of ice. Ricardo Sombra stood in the archway. Behind him, her face ashen with terror, was Hiraya. Beside them, Odesa stood like a statue carved from a single, lethal block of ice. They hadn’t just seen her abandoned. They’d seen everything.

Ricardo’s gaze was arctic. It took in the scene. Adrian’s blood on the floor. Luca’s jacket at her feet. And his daughter. Half-naked, her dress in ruins, her face a mask of dazed, shattered composure. He saw the handprint. He saw the blood in her hair. His face didn’t change. It just hardened. His gaze lifted, passing over Luca as if he were furniture.

“I will deal with the Laurent boy later,” he said, his voice a lethal whisper. He shrugged out of his own impeccable charcoal tuxedo jacket. He walked forward and pushed Luca’s jacket away with his foot in a clear act of dismissal. He wrapped his jacket around Althea, covering her. It was an act of possession, but it was also protection. He was shielding her from the world and shielding the world from her. He could feel the chaotic power radiating from her. The jacket was a physical order: Compose yourself.

He pulled the lapels shut, his back to Luca. He looked at Hiraya. His voice was soft.

“Who?”

Just one word. Hiraya, who saw it all in her vision, who felt the spike of terror and rage, closed her eyes. A single, pained tear escaped. She opened them. Her eyes were no longer soft.

“Adrian Holt.”

Ricardo’s lips thinned into a sinister smile. It was a verdict. He looked at Odesa.

“Find your mother. The three of you will… take care of it.”

Odesa smiled. Hiraya nodded, her face a mask of cold reserve. They vanished.

Ricardo turned to Althea.

“You,” he said, his voice flat, “will come. Now.”

He placed a hand on her back and steered her out of the gallery. She was trapped. She had just been abandoned by the man she fell for, and “rescued” by the man who now wanted to imprison her.