Chapter Seventeen: Between Fire and Gunmetal

I didn’t sleep. Not really.

Even with Lucien in the same room—his body tense in the armchair, his silhouette glowing gold against the firelight—my mind stayed wired. The folder he’d shown me replayed in my head like a ghost that refused to let go. Numbers. Transactions. My father’s name repeated over and over, each time scraping something raw and bleeding inside me.

I felt like a girl caught in a dream where every floor beneath her gave out just before she stepped. First the engagement. Then the mansion. Then the kiss. Now this.

“Ivy.” He called.

His voice pulled me back.

I looked up, startled to see that dawn had begun painting the room in fractured light.

“I have a meeting with someone,” Lucien said, straightening. “But I want you to stay here. No calls. No walks. Don’t even open the window. Understood?”

I opened my mouth to argue, then saw the flicker in his eyes.

He was worried.

Genuinely.

Something about that scared me more than the photograph itself.

“Okay,” I said softly.

He paused by the door. “And Ivy…”

“Yes?”

“If anything happens, anything strange at all, call Emilia. She’ll come to you first. Then me.”

I nodded.

Then he was gone.

I spent the morning in silence. My phone buzzed with two missed calls from my father. I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Not now.

I wandered the halls instead, feeling more like a ghost than a bride. The mansion looked different now. Not cold, just… fake. A beautiful façade hiding rot beneath its walls. Like the Blackwoods themselves.

My father. What had he done? How deep had he buried me in this war before I even had a chance to choose?

A sound pulled me from my thoughts.

A knock. Soft. Three taps. Just like the one from the night before.

I froze.

Emilia wasn’t due until later. Lucien had told the staff to give me privacy. My fingers curled instinctively.

I approached the door slowly.

“Ivy?” a voice whispered from the other side.

Feminine. Breathy. Familiar.

I opened it a crack and my heart stopped.

Mother?

She stood in the hallway wrapped in a silk coat, sunglasses hiding her face, but I would know that scent—white gardenia and French despair—anywhere.

“Mother?” My voice came out like a gasp.

She slipped in before I could think, locking the door behind her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I whispered, staring at her like I had seen a ghost.

Her hands cupped my face like I was a little girl again. “I had to come. I heard things. Saw things.”

“What are you talking about? How did you even”

“Ivy, they are watching you,” she whispered, eyes darting. “Not just the press. Not just Lucien’s people. The ones who want him dead.”

I pulled back. “You knew about the threats?”

She nodded slowly. “I saw your picture on a site I shouldn’t have been able to access. And I know that look in your husband’s eyes. I saw it in your father once. Right before everything fell apart.”

I sank onto the edge of the bed.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

She joined me. “Believe this, I never wanted this for you, my dear. I begged your father not to offer you to Lucien Blackwood.” She said.

“Then why didn’t you stop it, mom?”

She flinched. “Because he told me if I interfered, it wouldn’t just be you in danger.”

My throat closed.

Of course. My father.

Using love as leverage. Like he always did.

“Listen to me carefully,” she said, her grip tightening on my wrist. “There’s a man named Declan Vale. He’s the one behind the messages, the threats. He wants Lucien to fall—and he’ll use you to do it.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Lucien is the last thing standing between Vale and a multi-billion-dollar weapons deal. If Lucien dies, Vale wins. If you’re collateral—”

The door burst open.

And behold, Lucien stood there, eyes burning like wildfire, his coat still swirling from the wind outside. His gaze locked on my mother.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked with a harsh tone.

My mother stood, lifting her chin. “Protecting my daughter. Since no one else will.”

Lucien stepped forward. “You shouldn’t have come. You don’t know what you’ve done.”

I stood between them. “Stop it! She didn’t come to hurt me. She came to warn me.”

Lucien’s jaw clenched. “Warn you about what?”

“Declan Vale,” I said. “She says he’s the one coming after you.”

Lucien went still.

A beat passed. Two.

Then: “He wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, but he has,” my mother whispered. “And he’s closer than you think.”

After she left—under heavy security escort—Lucien said nothing.

He poured a glass of scotch. Didn’t drink it.

He stared into the fire like it held all the answers he refused to give me.

“You knew about Vale,” I said.

He didn’t answer.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t want you afraid.”

I laughed bitterly. “Newsflash, Lucien, I’m already afraid.”

He finally looked at me. “Good. Fear keeps you alive.”

My throat burned.

“So does truth.”

Lucien set the glass down. “He’s not just coming for me. He’s coming for everything I’ve built. You included. He’ll go after your mind first. Make you doubt everything. Then your heart.”

I swallowed hard.

“What does he want with me?”

Lucien’s voice lowered. “He wants to use you to destroy me.”

Silence settled between us as if we were in a graveyard.

But beneath it, something darker churned. And I could feel it in my bones:

This wasn’t just about power.

This was personal.

Later that night, I woke to a noise.

A click.

The sound of a lock sliding open.

I bolted upright, heart thundering.

The door creaked.

A man stood in the shadows.

Not Lucien.

Not anyone I knew.

His smile was calm. Cold.

“Good evening, Ivy.”

My breath caught.

He raised a gun, silencer attached.

“But I’m afraid the dance ends here.”