The Sterling Shadow

Chapter 10

Evelyn’s POV

The Alps did not welcome.

They loomed.

They were white and endless, their jagged peaks cutting into the charcoal sky like the teeth of a predator. As the jet broke through the cloud layer, the sheer scale of the mountains felt like a warning from the earth itself. Up here, nothing was soft.

Not the land, not the legacy, and certainly not the people who carried the Sterling name. We carried it like a weapon, sharpened over generations, until we forgot it was ever meant to be a birthright.

The jet descended in a haunting silence. The engines were marvels of engineering, muted by money to ensure they disturbed nothing, not even the thin, frigid air. Below us, the Sterling villa began to emerge from the snow like a secret that had never truly wanted to be found.

It was a sprawling construct of stone and reinforced glass. It had old-world bones, but they had been braced with modern arrogance. The villa wasn't built on the mountain; it was carved into it, as though the architecture itself feared being exposed to the sky.

I watched the grey stone grow larger, my breath hitching only once. This was not a refuge. It was a hiding place for people who owned the world but couldn't face it.

The tires kissed the private runway with a precision that bordered on reverence. The moment the aircraft slowed, a familiar weight settled into the center of my chest. It wasn’t the frantic pulse of fear or the leaden sink of dread; it was a cold, sharpened awareness.

I was back inside the shadow.

“Welcome home, Madam Chair,” the pilot’s voice crackled softly over the intercom.

I didn't answer him. I couldn't. The word home felt like a bitter pill under my tongue.

When the door hissed open, the cold rushed in immediately. It was clean, biting, and absolute, slicing through the pressurized warmth of the cabin like a reminder that comfort was always conditional in this family.

I stepped down onto the tarmac, the wind whipping my hair across my face. My heels clicked with a sharp, metallic rhythm against the ground, but the sound was swallowed almost instantly by the vast, deadening silence of the snow.

No press. No cameras. No prying eyes. This was Sterling territory, where the laws of the outside world were merely suggestions.

A black SUV waited at the edge of the runway, its engine idling with a low, predatory hum. The windows were tinted so darkly they reflected nothing back at me, not even my own image.

A driver stepped out, his head bowed in a gesture that was less about respect and more about practiced submission.

“Mrs. Knight,” he said, reaching for my bag.

I stopped him with a single look, my voice cutting through the wind. “Madam Chair.”

A flicker, a micro-expression of surprise, passed through his eyes before he masked it. He gave a sharp, formal nod. “Of course. My apologies, Madam Chair.”

Inside the car, the silence was even thicker, insulated by layers of bulletproof glass and heavy leather. As we began the ascent, the road winding through pine forests where the trees stood like sentinels bribed into loyalty centuries ago, my phone vibrated in my hand.

I looked down at it. I told myself I wouldn’t. I told myself that the woman who survived the last forty-eight hours didn't care about a screen. But the habit was a parasite. My thumb hovered over the glass. I wanted to see a missed call. I wanted to see a frantic text. I wanted to see the world burning because I had left it.

Instead, I turned the device face-down on the seat.

The villa revealed itself in stages. First, the tall iron gates that parted without a sound, then the secondary security perimeter, and finally, the sprawling stone entrance. As the car pulled under the covered drive, the door was opened from the outside before I could even shift my weight.

She was already waiting.

Aunt Augusta Sterling did not step forward; she never did. She was a woman who expected the rotation of the earth to bring things to her. She stood framed by the massive oak doors, draped in charcoal wool and pearls so old they had softened to a creamy, dull glow.

Her silver hair was swept back into a style that had likely not changed in forty years because for Augusta, the world changed to suit her, not the other way around.

Behind her, the villa stretched inward, a cathedral of quiet wealth. The walls were lined with portraits of the Sterling dead, men and women who had crashed markets, bought governments, and funded wars. I had known their names before I could do long division.

“Evelyn,” she said. Her voice was like the mountains: dry, thin, and cold.

I inclined my head, matching her tone. “Aunt Augusta.”

Her eyes moved over me in a single, clinical sweep. She cataloged my posture, the quality of my coat, the tension in my jaw. Her gaze lingered on my face, not yet on my stomach but she was looking for something beneath the skin. She was looking for the crack in the porcelain.

“You look… rested,” she observed.

I offered her a polite, disciplined smile, the kind we were taught to use at Board meetings when we were about to fire someone. “I am.”

“A lie,” she said softly, though not unkindly. “But a necessary one. Come inside. The mountain air is unforgiving to those who mistake distance for escape.”

I followed her into the Great Hall. The doors closed behind us with a heavy, pressurized thud that I felt in my teeth. The interior was warm, smelling of cedar and expensive wax.

Everything here was chosen because it was meant to outlive the person who bought it.

“You will stay in the east wing,” Augusta said, her heels silent on the marble. “It is quieter there. Away from the staff’s main thoroughfare.”

“I prefer quiet,” I said.

“I know what you prefer, Evelyn. I also know what you need.”

We stopped at the foot of the grand staircase. She turned to face me, her gaze sharpening until it felt like it was peeling back layers of my identity.

“You did not come here to recover. You came here because the world you built for yourself has turned into a cage. You came to disappear.”

I met her eyes, refusing to look away. “Is that not what this family does best? We disappear when the light becomes too bright, and we reappear when we own the sun.”

A ghost of a smile touched her lips. It wasn't warmth; it was an acknowledgment of a predator. “Among other things. But you are hiding something, Evelyn. Something more than a bruised ego.”

She didn't wait for me to answer. She didn't need to. She turned and began to ascend the stairs. “Good. Sterlings who come here empty-handed never survive the winter. Get settled. We will dine at seven. Wear something that reminds you who you are.”

I watched her go before heading to the east wing. My suite was a masterpiece of glass and velvet, overlooking a valley so vast it felt like a painting. As soon as the door clicked shut, the armor I had been wearing since the airport began to crumble.

I shed my coat, leaving it on the floor. I walked to the table and picked up my phone.

Nothing.

No messages from Caleb. No frantic voicemails. The silence from him was a physical weight, louder than the wind outside. I scrolled through our last messages, the mundane details of a life that had been a lie.

Phantom Wife Syndrome.That’s what the high-priced therapist back in New York had called it. The psychological reflex of a woman who had been trained to orbit a man, even after the sun had gone dark. I was still waiting for a gravity that no longer existed.

I swallowed a sob that felt like broken glass.

‘You deleted him,’ I reminded myself.

‘You are a Sterling.’

‘You are the Chair.’

I set the phone down and walked to the window, pressing my forehead against the cold glass. The frost began to bloom around my breath.

A soft knock came at the door. A maid entered, her eyes downcast, carrying a tray of tea and light biscuits.

“Madam Chair, Aunt Augusta has requested your presence for dinner. She also wished for me to remind you that the security perimeter is active. You are not to leave the villa grounds without an escort.”

“I understand,” I said, my voice steady.

The dinner was held in the smaller dining room, a space that felt like a bunker made of mahogany. Augusta was already seated, her glass of water untouched.

“Tell me,” she said, as the first course was served. “Why him? Of all the men, why Caleb Knight?”

I didn't flinch. I took a sip of my wine, letting the tartness ground me. “I wanted to see if I could be loved for the woman, not the name.”

Augusta’s laugh was a short, sharp sound. “And?”

“And I learned that 'the woman' doesn't exist without the name. I learned that love without leverage is just a fancy word for vulnerability.”

“And you learned,” Augusta added, her voice hardening, “that your marriage was a stain on this house.”

The word hit the table like a lead weight.A stain.

“It is over,” I said.

“That does not erase the three years you spent being his shadow,” she replied. “The Board saw it as a weakness. They saw you as an indulgence. A Sterling woman who forgot that we do not marry for 'love.' We marry for consolidation.”

She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing as they dropped to my waist. The air in the room seemed to freeze mid-circulation.

“You are carrying more than just the shame of a failed marriage, aren’t you?”

I didn't answer immediately. I felt the heartbeat of my child, faint, but there. I placed my hand flat on the table, the silver rings I wore catching the candlelight.

“Yes,” I said.

“How far?”

“Eight weeks. Maybe ten.”

Augusta’s jaw tightened. “A child. With a man who has spent the last year dragging your name through the mud of every tabloid in Europe with his womanizing antics. A Knight heir.”

I leaned in, my voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper. “No. This is not a Knight heir. Caleb Knight lost his right to this bloodline the moment he prioritized his ego over his wife. This is a Sterling successor.”

I saw her eyes widen, just a fraction.

“If you, or the Board, think for one second that I am going to let you treat this child like a 'situation' to be handled, you are mistaken,” I continued. “I didn’t come here to hide a scandal. I came here to build a fortress. If the Sterling name is a weapon, Augusta, then I am merely sharpening the next generation.”

The silence that followed was absolute. For the first time in my life, I saw Augusta Sterling blink first.

“The Board will call it a liability,” she said, her voice lower now.

“Then let them. And when I return to London with a successor and a vision they can't touch, they’ll realize that a Sterling with nothing to lose is the most dangerous person in the room.”

Augusta rose slowly, her silk dress rustling like dry leaves. “Rest, Evelyn. We will speak of the Board tomorrow. But remember, this mountain protects its own, but it also traps them.”

She left. I stayed in that room for a long time, watching the candles burn down to nothing.

Later that night, I lay in the massive bed, the silence of the Alps pressing against the walls. I reached for my phone one last time. Still nothing.

The habit was dying, but it was a slow, painful death. I thought about the nights I had waited for him. The sound of his keys in the door. The smell of perfume that wasn't mine. The way I had made myself smaller, quieter, just to keep the peace.

Never again.

I rolled onto my side, my hand resting protectively over my stomach.

“You are not alone,” I whispered into the dark, my voice finally cracking. “Mummy’s here. And we are going to take everything they owe us.”