Chapter Two

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫

The gown Mrs. Halloway had left on my bed was a deep, bruised plum. It was far too expensive for a nanny, and as I zipped it up, the silk felt like a second skin; one that didn’t belong to me.

I looked in the mirror and barely recognized the woman staring back. The desperation was still in my eyes, but the dress made me look like I belonged in the St. Claire lineage. It was a lie I had to wear.

Dinner was served in a dining room that could have hosted royalty.

A long, mahogany table stretched between us, and at the head sat Killian. He had changed into a black tuxedo, looking every bit the lethal aristocrat.

To his right sat Rose. She was a miniature porcelain doll; her dark hair perfectly curled, but her eyes were vacant and fixed on the empty plate in front of her. She still clutched the eyeless doll.

"Sit," Killian commanded without looking up from his wine.

I took my seat across from Rose. The silence was deafening, broken only by the rhythmic clinking of silver against china as the staff served a three-course meal I was too nauseous to eat.

"In this house, we do not speak during the first course," Killian said, his voice sounding smooth and dangerous. "Rose finds the vibration of voices... unsettling."

I looked at the little girl. She wasn't eating. She was staring at me, or rather, through me. I picked up my fork, but my hand trembled. "She needs to eat, Mr. St. Claire. She’s pale."

Killian’s wine glass paused mid-air. He looked at me then; his gaze felt heavy and simmering with a dark heat. "I pay you to watch her, Elara. Not to critique my parenting. If she isn't hungry, she isn't hungry."

"She’s not 'not hungry,'" I countered, my voice growing bolder as the confidence in me pushed past the fear. "She’s terrified. Look at her hands."

Rose’s tiny fingers were gripped so tightly around the doll’s neck that her knuckles were white. Killian slammed his glass onto the table.

The red wine splashed onto the white linen like a fresh bloodstain. The staff vanished instantly, sensing the coming storm.

"You’ve been here four hours, and you think you understand the psychology of my daughter?" he hissed, leaning forward.

The candlelight caught the sharp angles of his face, making him look like a beautiful demon. "My wife died in front of her. Do you have any idea what that does to a child’s mind?"

"I know what it’s like to watch someone you love fade away," I whispered; the image of my mother in the ICU flashed behind my eyes. "But suffocating her with this silence won't bring her back. It’s a tomb, not a home."

Killian stood up, his chair screeching against the marble. He walked around the table, his presence expanded until the room felt too small to breathe in.

He stopped behind Rose, but his eyes were locked on mine. He placed a hand on Rose’s shoulder, and I saw the girl flinch. Not from pain but from a deep, ingrained reflex.

"You think you’re different from the others?" Killian murmured, his hand moving from his daughter’s shoulder to the back of my chair.

He leaned down; his face was so close I could smell the bitter notes of the vintage red wine on his breath.

"You think your 'empathy' is a weapon? It’s a liability. Rose doesn't need a friend. She needs to learn that the world is cold, and the only person who will ever protect her is a St. Claire."

"Is that what you’re doing? Protecting her?" I challenged, turning my head to face him.

Our noses were inches apart. The air between us crackled with a tension that wasn't just anger. It was something primal, something forbidden. "Or are you just hiding your own guilt behind these walls?"

The atmosphere shifted instantly. Killian’s hand gripped the velvet of my chair so hard I heard the fabric groan. His eyes darkened to a shade of midnight I’d never seen.

"Careful, Elara," he warned, his voice sounding like a low, vibrating growl. "You’re a nanny on a temporary contract.

Don't mistake my tolerance for a seat at my table. You are here because you have a face she recognizes. Nothing more."

I froze. "What do you mean? She’s never met me."

Killian didn't answer. He looked at Rose, who had suddenly looked up. For the first time, the girl’s eyes weren't vacant. She was looking at me with a terrifying intensity.

Slowly, Rose opened her mouth. No sound came out, but she pointed a trembling finger at the locket hanging around my neck; the one my mother told me never to take off.

The one that contained a blurred photo of a woman I had always assumed was my grandmother.

Killian reached out; his fingers brushed the skin of my chest as he hooked his thumb under the locket’s chain. He jerked it forward and snapped the delicate gold link.

"Hey! That’s mine!" I cried, reaching for it, but he held it out of my reach.

He flicked the locket open with his thumb. His face went deathly pale. The "Ice King" cracked. The locket fell from his hand and clattered onto the floor.

"Where did you get this?" he whispered, his voice was no longer cold, but haunted.

"It’s my mother’s. Why does it matter?"

Killian looked from the locket to me, and then to the darkened portrait of his late wife hanging at the far end of the hall; a portrait I hadn't looked at closely until now.

The woman in the painting wore the same locket. But that wasn't the twist.

The twist was her face.

Aside from the color of her hair, the woman in the painting; the "dead" Mrs. St. Claire was my identical image.

"Get out," Killian choked out, his hand flying to his throat as if he were being strangled by an invisible force. "Get her out of my sight!"

Mrs. Halloway appeared from the floorboards, grabbing my arm. "Come, child. Now!"

I was dragged from the room, but I looked back one last time. Rose wasn't crying. She was smiling.

A tiny, eerie smile reached her eyes. And she was mouthing a word. I couldn't hear it, but I saw her lips move.

Mamma.

I wasn't just a nanny. I was a ghost. A double. And Killian St. Claire didn't hire me to care for his daughter; he hired me to play a part in a game I didn't even know was being played.

As I was locked back in my room, the sound of glass shattering echoed from the dining hall. Killian was screaming not in anger, but in agony.

I sat on the edge of the bed and my heart was hammering against my ribs. I looked at the broken chain still clutched in my hand.

My mother had lied to me. I wasn't some random girl from the city. My presence in this manor was a calculated move in a war that had started long before I was born.

Then, a soft rustle came from the North corridor.

I stood up and walked to the door. Underneath the gap, a small piece of paper slid through. It was a drawing in crayon. It showed a tall man, a small girl, and a woman with red Xs over her eyes.

Beneath the drawing, in shaky, childish handwriting, were the words:

He didn't kill her. She’s in the North Room.

My blood turned to ice. If the mistress of the house was still alive, who was the woman in the grave? And why did I have her face?

It dawned on me. The "meaningful struggle" had just turned into a fight for my life.