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Chapter Six: Fault Lines

Author: Kemi Adejumo
last update Last Updated: 2025-12-25 23:20:51

I learned his habits before I learned his moods.

He rose early, earlier than his father ever did. He walked the grounds like a man inspecting a prison he intended to fortify. He didn't speak to the guards with the booming ego of my husband; he spoke to them with a quiet, terrifying precision.

He was mapping the house.

I recognized the behavior because I had done the same, but where I looked for exits, he looked for weaknesses.

Our paths crossed more frequently after that—not by chance, but because he seemed to be everywhere I sought to be. I refused to hide. In this house, shadows were where things were broken. I preferred the light, where I could see the blow coming.

But his gaze had changed. It was no longer just the dismissive look of a son looking at a stepmother. It was the look of a man who suspected a leak in his pipes.

One afternoon, I was summoned to the library. Not by my husband, but by a guard who didn't look me in the eye.

The heir was sitting behind the massive mahogany desk that usually belonged to Silas. He looked more natural there than his father ever did. He didn't look up when I entered. He let me stand in the center of the room, the silence stretching until it felt like a physical weight.

"The household accounts," he said finally, tapping a ledger. His voice was like a blade dragged over stone. "My father says you oversee the domestic ledgers."

"I keep the records he asks me to keep," I replied, my voice a practiced neutral.

He looked up then. His eyes were cold, stripping away my composure. "You keep them too well, Rosalia. Every cent accounted for. Every delivery timed. It’s a very tidy performance for a woman who was sold to a man like him."

I felt the sting of the word *performance*. "I do what is required to remain useful."

"Useful," he repeated, the word sounding like an insult in his mouth. He stood up, walking around the desk with a slow, predatory grace. He didn't stop until he was in my personal space, tall enough that I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. "Or perhaps you’re just making sure you know exactly how much this house is worth before you try to take your piece of it."

"I don't want his money," I said, the truth slipping out with a sharpness I hadn't intended.

"No? Then what do you want?" He leaned in closer, his scent, cedar and something metallic, filling my senses. "Women like you always want something. You traded your youth for a gold cage. Don't play the martyr now. It’s insulting to both of us."

The judgment in his voice was a physical heat. He didn't see a survivor. He saw a predator—one he intended to declaw.

"I am not playing anything," I said, my hands tightening at my sides.

"Good. Because I’m going to be watching these books. And I’ll be watching you." He reached out, not to touch me, but to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear. His fingers were ice cold. "My father might be blinded by the 'salvation' he thinks he bought you, but I see exactly what you are."

"And what is that?" I whispered.

"A debt that hasn't been fully collected yet," he said. He stepped back, the tension snapping. "That will be all. Go back to your rooms. Stay where you are supposed to be."

Dismissed. Like a servant. Like an object that had been audited and found wanting.

I walked out with my pulse hammering against my ribs.

That night, my husband came to my room. He smelled of wine and stale power. His touch was a routine I had long ago learned to survive by leaving my body and hiding somewhere deep inside my mind.

But as I lay staring at the ceiling afterward, the heir’s words echoed in the dark.

“I see exactly what you are.“

He didn't see the girl who had been sold. He didn't see the woman trying to burn his world down. He saw a threat. He saw a liar.

He didn't see me as a person, he saw me as a variable that could ruin his inheritance.

And in this world, there was nothing more dangerous than being the one thing a man like him couldn't control.

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  • His Father’s Wife   Chapter Six: Fault Lines

    I learned his habits before I learned his moods. He rose early, earlier than his father ever did. He walked the grounds like a man inspecting a prison he intended to fortify. He didn't speak to the guards with the booming ego of my husband; he spoke to them with a quiet, terrifying precision. He was mapping the house. I recognized the behavior because I had done the same, but where I looked for exits, he looked for weaknesses. Our paths crossed more frequently after that—not by chance, but because he seemed to be everywhere I sought to be. I refused to hide. In this house, shadows were where things were broken. I preferred the light, where I could see the blow coming. But his gaze had changed. It was no longer just the dismissive look of a son looking at a stepmother. It was the look of a man who suspected a leak in his pipes. One afternoon, I was summoned to the library. Not by my husband, but by a guard who didn't look me in the eye. The heir was sitting behind the massive m

  • His Father’s Wife   Chapter Five: The Heir

    He arrived without ceremony. No announcement. No dramatic entrance. Just the quiet shift in the air that came when someone important stepped into a room and everyone else instinctively adjusted their posture. I knew he had arrived before I saw him. The servants moved differently—faster, sharper. Guards straightened. Voices lowered. The house inhaled and held its breath. I stayed where I was supposed to be. Invisible. From the balcony above the main hall, I watched him enter. He was taller than I expected. Broad-shouldered, dressed simply, the kind of simplicity that was intentional, expensive, untouchable. His face was carved with restraint rather than cruelty, his expression unreadable in a way that suggested practice, not nature. This was not a man who learned power by shouting. This was a man who learned it by watching. His eyes swept the hall once, quick and assessing, noting exits, distances, people. When they passed over me, they did not linger. Good. I

  • His Father’s Wife   Chapter Four: One year later

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  • His Father’s Wife   Chapter Three: The Marriage

    They told me I was getting married three days after the auction. Not as a question. Not as news. As instruction. The words were delivered the same way everything else was in that place, flat, efficient, without room for reaction. As if my response had already been accounted for and deemed unnecessary. I stood there while the woman spoke, hands folded in front of me, eyes lowered, practicing the stillness that had kept me alive so far. Marriage, I learned, was the word they used when ownership needed a respectable shape. It sounded cleaner than purchase. Safer than acquisition. Something people could nod at without asking too many questions. Something that could be explained away at dinner tables and behind closed doors without anyone needing to confront what it truly was. I was moved from the house before dawn. The sky was still dark when they brought me outside, the air sharp against my skin. I inhaled deeply, instinctively, as though I could store the outside world inside my

  • His Father’s Wife   Chapter Two: The Auction

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  • His Father’s Wife   Chapter One: The Price of a daughter

    I was sold the day I turned eighteen. There was no cake. No candle. No celebration marking the day my life split into before and after. My father sat at the small wooden table in our living room, elbows spread wide, papers arranged neatly in front of him as though he were preparing for a business meeting instead of a burial. The room smelled faintly of dust and old furniture, familiar in a way that suddenly felt like goodbye. My mother stood near the doorway. She had not moved in a long time. I knew because her hands trembled, fingers twisting into each other as if she were holding herself together by force alone. My mother only shook when something inside her had already given up. “Sit,” my father said. He did not look at me when he spoke. I hesitated, something tight coiling in my chest, then crossed the room and sat opposite him. The chair scraped loudly against the floor, the sound sharp in the quiet. My brothers sat on the couch behind me, one scrolling through his phone

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