CHAPTER TWELVE: TANGLED IN THE DARK

The shadows in Blackwood Manor didn’t just stretch, they moved.

I felt it that night. A breath of cold on the back of my neck. The sensation of being watched, even though I was alone. Or supposed to be.

I’d left my door slightly ajar on purpose. Something about being locked in felt worse than leaving myself vulnerable. And Lucien hadn’t spoken to me since the encounter in the wine cellar two nights ago. Not a word. Not a glance. Just silence—a weapon wielded by a man who knew how to make you feel nonexistent.

I should’ve been relieved.

Instead, I felt like I was being hunted.

It was past midnight when I crept from my bedroom barefoot. The marble was cold beneath my toes. I wasn’t sure where I was going—only that I couldn’t breathe in that gilded cage of a room anymore. The walls whispered with memories that weren’t mine, ghosts that didn’t belong to me, and yet clung like frostbite.

The hallway was lit dimly by wall sconces. Everything was too still. Too perfect. It made me crave imperfection. Noise. Emotion. Something real.

I turned down the east wing, one I hadn’t explored yet. A locked door with a biometric pad stopped me at the end. I didn’t have to guess who it belonged to.

Lucien’s private study.

Because of course the man had secrets. Of course he needed a room that was locked to everyone else. Just like he locked away whatever part of him wasn’t made of ice and iron.

I leaned against the wall across from the door, my breath shallow.

Why did I care?

Because I’d tasted fire beneath that ice once. And it burned worse than I expected.

“Can’t sleep?”

I gasped, whirling around.

Lucien stood in the dark like he’d been carved from it. His shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves pushed up. No tie. No mask. Just him.

His voice was quieter than usual, but no less dangerous. “You’re not safe wandering this house.”

“I live here,” I said, folding my arms. “Or have you forgotten?”

“I forget nothing,” he said, stepping closer. “Especially not the look in your eyes when you kissed me like you wanted to set the world on fire.”

My breath hitched.

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t turn this into something it’s not.”

His expression flickered—disappointment or anger, I couldn’t tell.

“You came to me,” he said. “Don’t pretend it was only heat. You felt something.”

“I did,” I whispered, “and it scared the hell out of me.”

Lucien didn’t touch me. But his presence was a gravitational pull, yanking everything inside me forward.

“Good,” he murmured. “Fear means you’re still human.”

A silence stretched between us, taut and charged.

Then he looked at the locked door behind me.

“Do you want to see what’s behind it?”

I stared at him.

Was it a test? A trap? Or something else entirely?

“I thought I wasn’t allowed in.”

“You’re not.”

Then why offer?

“Show me,” I said.

Lucien stepped forward. His thumb pressed against the biometric pad. The light blinked green. A soft mechanical click. The door creaked open.

What lay beyond wasn’t what I expected.

No weapons. No computers. No war-room filled with secrets.

It was a sanctuary of a different kind. Shelves of books—mostly philosophy and history. A grand piano in the corner, half-covered with a velvet cloth. A wall of black-and-white photographs—some of them old, faded, carefully preserved.

A woman stood out in many of them.

She had Lucien’s eyes.

“My mother,” he said quietly.

Something shifted in his voice.

“She died when I was fifteen.”

I turned toward him slowly.

“You keep her here?”

“This is the only place she ever smiled.”

I took in the room again. The quiet elegance. The absence of the coldness that infected the rest of the house.

“She played the piano?” I asked.

Lucien nodded. “Every night. Until the cancer made her fingers too weak.”

I didn’t ask how she died. I didn’t need to. I could see the answer written in the clenched lines of his jaw, the shadows behind his eyes.

This room wasn’t for secrets. It was for mourning.

And Lucien Blackwood, for all his power, was still a boy standing in the ruins of his mother’s lullabies.

He moved past me and pulled the velvet cover off the piano. Dust stirred in the golden lamp light.

“Do you play?” he asked.

I nodded. “A little.”

He gestured toward the bench.

I sat.

My fingers hovered over the keys.

Lucien stood behind me, close but not touching. I played the first chords of a lullaby I half-remembered from childhood. It was fragile. Off-key.

But it made something inside me ache.

Halfway through the piece, my hands began to shake.

Lucien’s hands came down over mine.

Not to stop me. Not to control.

To steady.

We played together, four hands over eighty-eight keys. The notes trembled, imperfect. But they filled the room.

And the silence between us changed shape.

When the final note faded, I sat frozen.

Lucien leaned down, his breath warm against my ear.

“You shouldn’t be able to do that,” he said softly.

“Do what?”

“Make me feel like I still have a heart.”

I turned toward him. Slowly. And when our eyes met, it felt like the room disappeared.

He kissed me again.

But this time it wasn’t desperation. It wasn’t rage.

It was something far more dangerous.

Hope.

We didn’t speak as we walked back down the hallway. I reached my bedroom door. Lucien stopped behind me.

“Ivy,” he said, his voice low, almost reverent.

I turned.

But his eyes weren’t on me anymore. They were behind me. Sharp. Alert.

I spun just as a loud bang shattered the silence.

Glass.

Downstairs.

The security alarm didn’t go off.

Lucien moved before I could react, pulling me behind him.

“Get in the room,” he growled.

“What”

“Now.”

He slammed the door shut, locking it from the outside.

I pressed my ear against the wood, heart hammering.

Voices echoed below. Not staff. Not Lucien’s.

Foreign.

Threatening.

I grabbed my phone. No signal.

Then something else caught my attention.

Under the bed.

A blinking red light.

I dropped to my knees and pulled it out.

A small black device.

With an antenna.

A transmitter.

I stared at it, horror creeping in.

Someone has been listening. Watching. This whole time.

The door handle jiggled violently.

Not from Lucien’s side.

But from this side.

I scrambled back, heart in my throat.

And then I heard it.

A voice through the door.

Familiar.

Male.

Low.

“Ivy,” it said.

“Don’t scream.”