Chapter 07

I didn’t mean to find it.

Not at first.

I was just walking — quiet, aimless loops through the same hallways. Trying to breathe. Trying to remind myself I still could.

The collar was tight against my throat again, a little higher today. I’d put it on without thinking this morning, like muscle memory. The silk had become as natural as skin, as automatic as the rhythm of my pulse beneath it. Maybe obedience becomes automatic when fear wears a familiar face, when submission is measured in the precise placement of fabric against vulnerable flesh.

The estate was mostly silent as usual. These afternoon hours stretched like pulled taffy, thick and endless, somewhere between the structured routines of morning and whatever darkness evening might deliver. Carpets muffled my steps — Persian runners worth more than most people’s cars — and the gold sconces along the walls cast everything in a soft, false glow — like the light didn’t want to admit what time of day it really was. Like even the illumination here had learned to lie.

I’d been walking the same circuit for weeks now. Left at the portrait of the woman with the knowing smile. Right at the marble alcove where shadows gathered like secrets. Past the sitting room with its uncomfortable chairs that no one ever sat in. The routine had become meditation, or maybe medication — a way to move through space without having to think about the boundaries that defined every other aspect of my existence here.

But today felt different. Restless. Like something under my skin was trying to claw its way out.

I turned left instead of right. That was all.

One wrong turn.

The change was immediate. This corridor felt abandoned, forgotten. The wallpaper here was older, darker — a deep burgundy with a pattern that seemed to shift when I wasn’t looking directly at it. The hallway narrowed as I walked, the ceiling arching lower, like it was hiding something deeper in its spine. This section felt different — less decorative, less maintained. The art was older, darker. Abstract pieces that suggested violence rather than beauty, charcoal sketches of figures caught mid-scream. Dust had gathered in the corners of the trim, and I realized the cleaning staff either avoided this wing or had been instructed to leave it untouched. It smelled faintly of leather and something older. Something still.

My footsteps echoed differently here, sharper against hardwood floors instead of the thick carpeting of the main corridors. Each sound seemed to hang in the air longer than it should, as if the walls were listening and reflecting back what they heard.

The hallway curved, and I found myself in a section of the estate I’d never seen before. The doors here were different — heavier, more ornate, each bearing small brass nameplates with inscriptions in scripts I couldn’t read. Italian, maybe. Or Latin. Languages that suggested age, tradition, things that predated my understanding.

And then I saw it.

One of the forbidden doors — unmistakable, heavy, black wood with no knob. I’d been warned about doors like this on my first day. “Some rooms are not for guests,” I’d been told in that careful, clinical tone that made warnings sound like medical diagnoses. “Some doors stay closed.” But this one… was open.

Just barely.

A breath of space between frame and edge. Like someone forgot. Or like someone wanted it found.

The gap was maybe an inch, but it felt like a chasm. Like a crack in the foundation of everything I’d been told about this place, about the rules that governed my existence here. Through that narrow opening, I could see nothing but darkness, but somehow that darkness seemed alive, pulsing with its own malevolent energy.

I stood in front of it for a moment.

Listening.

No sound from within. No sound from the corridor behind me. Even my own breathing seemed muted, as if the air itself had grown thick and expectant. No camera above the door, or at least not one I could see. I’d learned to spot them in the weeks since I’d arrived — small, discrete lenses tucked into crown molding or hidden behind decorative flourishes. But this section felt unwatched, abandoned to its own secrets.

My heart drummed once, hard, against my ribs.

I thought about the contract I’d signed. The rules I’d agreed to follow. The consequences outlined in careful, legal language that somehow made them more terrifying than explicit threats ever could.

And then I did something I hadn’t done since the day I signed my name:

I made a decision without asking permission.

The handle was cold under my palm, colder than the air around it. It turned without resistance, without the slightest protest, as if it had been waiting for exactly this moment, for exactly this touch.

I slipped inside.

The room was dim. Lit only by the filtered light from a small, high window near the ceiling — the kind of window that looked more like an afterthought than an architectural choice. The light that made it through was gray and weak, casting everything in tones of shadow and suggestion rather than clear definition. It wasn’t a bedroom. Or an office. Or a dining room.

It was something else.

Something purposeful in its emptiness.

Tall ceilings stretched above me, disappearing into darkness that the weak light couldn’t penetrate. No furniture. No decorative elements. No warmth or comfort of any kind. The floors were polished hardwood, dark and gleaming, reflecting what little light existed like a black mirror. Just empty space that felt deliberately hollow, carved out for a specific purpose that required nothing but room to contemplate and space to understand.

But it was the far wall that drew my attention, that made my skin prickle with recognition of something fundamentally wrong.

A large glass case mounted there — sealed, backlit, and empty. Except for a single item inside:

A white silk ribbon.

Old. Faded at the edges, yellowed with age in a way that suggested years rather than months of careful preservation. Tied in a loose bow, the kind a child might make when first learning the intricacies of knots and loops. It hung in the center of the case like a sacred artifact, mounted behind glass like it had bled for someone important.

The display was elaborate for something so simple. Professional lighting that made the ribbon glow softly against black velvet backing. A small brass placard beneath it, though I was too far away to read whatever inscription it might bear. The case itself looked expensive, museum-quality, the kind of display reserved for priceless artifacts or religious relics.

Something about it made my skin crawl.

Not the ribbon itself — there was nothing inherently sinister about a piece of faded silk. But the reverence of the presentation, the shrine-like quality of the room, the fact that this single, simple object warranted its own space, its own temple. Someone had worn that ribbon once. Had chosen it, tied it, lived with it against their skin. And now it was here, preserved behind glass like evidence of a crime that had never been officially committed.

I didn’t touch the case.

I didn’t even step closer.

I just stared, trying to decode the story this room was telling, the message encoded in its careful emptiness and singular focus.

What the hell is this place…

Then I heard it.

A sound behind me.

A footstep.

Deliberate.

Not fast.

Not urgent.

Just the measured cadence of someone who had all the time in the world and knew exactly where they were going. The sound of expensive leather against hardwood, confident and unhurried.

Just coming closer.

My blood turned to ice water. Every muscle in my body went rigid, prey instincts firing in conflicting directions that left me frozen like a deer in headlights.

I turned—

And saw him in the doorway.

Dante.

He didn’t say a word.

Just stood there, one hand resting lightly against the frame, like this was his house — not just the walls, but the air, the space, the silence itself. Like he owned every molecule of oxygen I was breathing.

He was dressed as always — dark slacks, white shirt with sleeves rolled to his forearms, no tie. Casual elegance that somehow made him look both approachable and utterly untouchable. His dark hair was slightly mussed, as if he’d been running his fingers through it, and there was something in his expression I couldn’t quite read.

It wasn’t his presence that scared me.

It was his stillness.

There was no rage. No fire. No movement at all, except for the rise and fall of his chest, the slow blink of those unreadable dark eyes. He didn’t look surprised to find me here. He didn’t look angry, exactly, though there was something coiled behind his calm expression that suggested danger the way a snake suggests venom — invisible until it’s far too late.

He looked at me like he’d known I would be here.

Like he’d let the door stay open.

Like this was exactly what he’d been expecting, maybe even hoping for.

The silence stretched between us, taut as a wire, until finally he spoke.

“Didn’t you read the rules?” he asked finally.

The voice was soft.

Almost gentle.

The same tone he might use to inquire about the weather or comment on the quality of morning coffee. But it wrapped around my spine like a wire pulled tight, each word carrying weight that had nothing to do with volume.