CHAPTER 6: What He Decided

CAELUM POV 

I left her standing there with the charm still in my hand and no answers.

She needed the silence more than she needed my words right then. So did I.

I walked out of the room and made my way across the estate to my private residence, the quieter wing away from the main house where I could actually think. The door shut behind me with a soft click. I didn’t turn on the lights. I just sat in the dark leather chair by the window with the charm resting in my palm.

It was small and light, but it didn’t feel like it.

She had drugged the car. That part was clear. She thought she was dealing with Ethan. She had timed everything around him, watched him, planned it down to detail, and still ended up with the wrong person.

I turned the charm slowly between my fingers. I kept thinking about her face when I held it out to her. The way her expression changed for a second before she fixed it again. Like she was trying to catch up with something she didn’t plan for.

She always did that. Even in the park. Even when she was small and acting like nothing could touch her.

I had seen her face everywhere I went without finding it once. Until that night. And then it didn’t even come when I expected it.

It came wrong.

I leaned back in the chair and stayed like that for a while. Thinking didn’t help. It just kept going back to her.

Walking away made sense. That would have been easier. That would have kept everything clean.

But she was already inside it.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

The door opened without a knock.

Only one person did that.

Dante stepped in like he already knew what kind of night it was. He had a bottle in one hand and two glasses in the other. He didn’t ask anything. He just crossed the room and sat down across from me.

“You’ve been sitting here a while,” he said, pouring into both glasses. “You only get like this when something is wrong.”

I took the glass from him but didn’t drink yet.

He watched me for a moment. “So what is it?”

I didn’t answer immediately.

Then he nodded like he already had a guess.

“Ethan’s wife.”

That got my attention—but I didn’t show it.

Dante exhaled. “Alright… so it’s her.”

I took a slow drink. “I met her before she was Ethan’s wife.”

That stopped the room.

Dante’s hand paused in mid-air. “Before?”

I corrected it. “When we were children.”

Now he really looked at me.

“So you’re telling me you knew your nephew’s wife before she became his wife.”

“I’m telling you she’s the same person.”

That made him stop completely.

He set his glass down.

“Caelum.”

“Hmm.”

“You don’t drop something like that and sit here like nothing has changed.”

“I’m not sitting like nothing changed.”

“Then act like it,” he said sharply. “Because this isn’t a coincidence anymore.”

Silence stretched.

Dante leaned forward slightly. “What exactly are you saying? That you’ve known her all these years?”

“I didn’t find her,” I said quietly. “I lost her.”

That made him pause again.

“Lost her?”

I didn’t answer that part.

Dante exhaled, slower now. “Ethan is not stable. If he finds out anything is off, this becomes a war.”

“I know.”

“And the family is already watching her like she’s temporary.”

I looked at him then. “She’s not temporary.”

That landed differently.

Dante studied me. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

“I am.”

“No,” he said, lower now. “You’re not thinking like someone who intends to walk away clean.”

That was the first time I didn’t answer immediately.

Because it was true.

He leaned back. “So tell me plainly—what are you doing?”

I turned the charm between my fingers.

“I’m not walking away,” I said. “And I’m not pretending I can.”

Dante went quiet for a moment.

Then he exhaled.

“Then you’re already inside this,” he said. “You just haven’t accepted how deep.”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

I didn’t sleep that night.

I stayed in the chair, the house quiet around me, the kind of quiet that only happens when everyone else believes nothing is wrong.

But it wasn’t quiet in my head.

By morning, I understood I was no longer deciding anything—I was just accepting it.

It had already settled.

I would stay.

Not because it made sense.

Because walking away didn’t sit right anymore.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

Morning came into the dining room like nothing had changed.

I was already seated when she came in.

She stopped at the doorway for a moment. Just long enough for me to notice it. Then she walked in like she hadn’t.

Sat at the far end of the table.

Didn’t look at me.

Didn’t have to.

The mother-in-law spoke first, her voice light but sharp underneath. “Zaria, darling, the flowers in the east sitting room still haven’t been changed. You really should be more attentive. People notice these things.”

The table didn’t move. Nobody corrected it. Nobody needed to.

I set my cup down.

“They’re fine,” I said.

The room shifted slightly after that.

Not loud. Just enough.

“I’ll have them changed if there’s an issue,” I added. “But it’s not something you need to worry about.”

Silence followed.

Ethan's mother, Vivienne, looked at me for a second longer than necessary, then went back to her tea without another word.

At the far end of the table, Zaria stopped moving.  

It wasn’t obvious. She didn’t make a show of it.  

She just paused, and it was too deliberate to miss. Her fingers tightened around her cup for a second, then she made herself let go.  

She didn’t look at me.  

But I could tell she felt it.  

The shift. It was there now, between us.  

And for the first time since I arrived, I didn’t hide it. I let her feel it.