5

After returning to his room, Lucas brought a tray of delicious food and drinks. This made Lilith so full that she fell back asleep. This made Lilith wonder if the food and drinks Lucas brought might have contained sleeping pills, considering how soundly Lilith had fallen asleep.

Lilith woke up to a sound as day began to turn into night. The sound wasn't very loud, but its echo throughout the mansion immediately woke Lilith up, her eyes wide open. She felt the darkness and gloom of the room again. The curtains were also tightly closed, blocking even the moonlight from entering the room.

Tring

The sound was heard again. A faint metallic echo, like a heavy object moving slowly somewhere in the mansion. Lilith's heart was pounding, wondering what that sound was.

“Lucas?” Lilith called softly. Her voice sounded like a whisper.

But of course, there was no answer to her call. Lilith changed her position from lying down to sitting up against the headboard. Her right hand clutched the thick, soft blanket she had been using since last night. The air in the room felt colder than before. Lilith felt that it might be because her adrenaline was rising.

Lilith turned her head to the side of the bed, directly toward the clock showing two in the morning. It was too late to be active. But it was also too early for morning, to welcome the sun. Lilith sighed slowly as she rubbed her face. Lilith pulled back the covers and stepped down from the bed, then walked toward the door of the room.

With hesitant movements, Lilith grabbed the door handle and opened it. The hallway outside the room was lit only by dim wall lamps. Shadows stretched long across the floor. Lilith began to frown even deeper. This time, Lilith felt uncomfortable and wary about the mansion now. But she had no choice but to move forward, right?

“Lucas?” She called again, even louder this time.

Silence. Lilith walked towards the stairs and looked down at the foyer. It was empty. The entire mansion was filled with nothing but emptiness illuminated by dim lights. There were no footsteps. There was no sign of life there. And there was absolutely no sign of Lucas in the mansion.

Lilith's stomach tightened, and a chill instantly pierced her entire body. “Where would he go in the middle of the night?” Lilith whispered as she continued to scan the mansion.

Lilith began to feel that the mansion was holding something that was still vague in her mind. Which, slowly, seemed to be fighting her own instincts. Until Lilith's gaze returned to the end of the corridor. Specifically, to the door that had been locked that morning. The one Lucas had warned her to stay away from.

But upon closer inspection, the locked door standing at the end of the corridor seemed to silently invite Lilith to approach and enter it. Lilith was stunned. “Should I go back to that door and find something? Or escape now while Lucas isn't at the mansion? But... where would I go?”

Lilith's heartbeat quickened. She told herself several times to turn back to her room and wait until morning for Lucas to return, as if she shouldn't be wandering around in the early hours like a thief. But instead, she walked toward it. Step by step.

The air felt colder as Lilith's steps brought her closer to the door. When Lilith was finally right in front of the door, her body felt frozen. The door, which had been locked that morning, was now slightly ajar, open a few inches. Lilith's breath caught in her throat. With trembling hands, Lilith pushed the door gently, and it opened without resistance, just like before.

The smell hit her first. Faint and metallic. Not strong enough to identify immediately, but unmistakable. Lilith swallowed slowly. Her legs felt weak, still unsure whether to take another step forward and enter the room or not. Lilith sighed heavily, deciding to enter the room.

The room was larger than Lilith had imagined. Lilith's gaze fell on the walls of the room, which were covered with shelves filled with antiques, ranging from golden pocket watches and ornate daggers to ancient books bound in cracked leather. A grandfather clock ticked softly in the corner of the room, its design centuries old. Paintings covered most of the walls.

Landscapes, castles, battlefields, men in ancient military uniforms, women in Victorian dresses. Each painting looked very authentic. These were not replicas, but genuine works of art with very high selling value.

Lilith's breathing became irregular. “What is all this? How could a man collect such a variety of artifacts from different centuries? Is it because Lucas is a mafia boss? Or is Lucas an antique collector?” Lilith whispered.

Lilith shifted her gaze to the other side of the room, directly toward a display case with its key hanging there. Lilith slowly approached the display case, and her eyes couldn't believe what she saw inside. There was a necklace that Lilith recognized immediately.

Her finger instinctively touched her collarbone. Lilith's breath caught in her throat, and her eyes began to fill with disbelief. It looked exactly like the one her mother always used to wear in old photographs. But that was impossible. Most of her late mother's jewelry had been sold years ago. Wasn't that right?

A chill crept down Lilith's spine. “How... how is that possible? Why is my mother's necklace there? Where did Lucas get it?”

Lilith shook her head slowly. “No. That's impossible. It must be a similar necklace. It can't be my mother's...” Lilith looked away.

Lilith turned slowly and scanned the room again. That's when Lilith realized that at the far end of the room, there was a large red curtain made of thick velvet. The red curtain covered the entire side of the wall. Lilith's heart beat faster as she stared at the tightly closed wall.

“Why cover the wall in a private room that's always locked?”

Lilith swallowed hard. “No...” She whispered to herself.

But her feet kept moving and she stepped closer to the wall. Each step felt heavier than the last. Her right hand rose, hovered, then began to grasp the fabric tightly. The covering felt thick and cold. Lilith sighed and pulled the fabric until the curtain shifted to the side.

Instantly, her world tilted. The wall behind it was covered with her portraits. Lilith believed there were dozens of her portraits on that wall, arranged very neatly. Lilith's body staggered backwards. The air seemed to thin and her breathing became labored. Portraits of herself at various ages and with various expressions.

There was a portrait of her as a child, sitting under a mango tree that Lilith remembered from her father's yard. Long before her mother died in an accident. Then another portrait of her as a teenager standing outside high school wearing her uniform, laughing with her friends. Then another when Lilith was seventeen, wearing a black dress at her father's funeral, who also died in an accident.

“This can't be... all of this. This can't be...” Lilith whispered, her breath growing increasingly labored.

Lilith tried to reach for something nearby to hold onto. She didn't want to fall. Lilith's vision blurred as she looked back at each portrait, and it wasn't just her imagination. The portraits were precise, down to the smallest detail of herself. Even the scar on her left wrist. Her legs felt weak.

At the center of the wall was the largest portrait of her, a recent one. It was Lilith standing on the stage of The Masque Club last night. Lilith was wearing a shiny, thin auction dress, her eyes wide, looking very surprised. The portrait depicted the moment just before Lucas's bid for her reached seventy billion dollars.

“No way... how could Lucas get everything? How could he collect so many portraits of me? That easily? What kind of madness is this?”

Brak

Lilith dropped several books on the small table behind her. Her heart was pounding so hard that Lilith thought she would explode. Then, Lilith realized something worse was displayed in the center of all the portraits. An old painting with slightly cracked paint. But that wasn't what made Lilith's breath catch in her throat.

The canvas looked very old, not only because of the slightly cracked paint, but also because of the scratches that looked so beautiful and authentic. The girl in the portrait had a face very similar to Lilith's. From her face to her eyes, the girl in the painting was exactly like Lilith. The girl was standing in clothes from a different era, with handwriting from 1920 completing the bottom of the canvas.

Even one in what looked like a centuries-old gown. And the girl had long, wavy hair just like Lilith's now. Her breath came in sharp gasps. “This isn't real. This can't be real,” she whispered.

A cold draft brushed the back of her neck. The scent of masculine perfume wafted stronger into Lilith's nostrils. And suddenly, Lilith was sure that she was no longer alone in the room. Lucas was already in the room, standing right next to her.

“You weren't supposed to see all this yet.” Lucas's voice was calm.

Lilith's entire body stiffened. Slowly, Lilith, still frightened by everything she had just seen in the room, began to turn around. Lucas stood a few steps away in the dim light. His expression was unreadable. But his eyes were not entirely human. Not anymore. And no longer completely.

Lilith looked at Lucas with a gaze that was very different from before. Lilith seemed to be struck by something ancient within Lucas. Something that had been watching her for too long and too deeply. Lilith clenched her palms tightly. The muscles in her neck tensed.

“You've been watching me all this time,” she breathed.

His gaze flicked to the wall, then back to her. “For longer than you can imagine.”

Her heart dropped. “How long?” she whispered.

Lucas' jaw hardened, his jaw muscles clearly visible. “Long enough to know that you always come back to me,” he said softly. The look in his eyes softened, but his clenched jaw showed that he was holding back.

The room felt like it was closing in on Lilith, whose mind was starting to wander. “I've never met you before,” she said firmly, sounding indignant.

A faint, almost sad smile touched his lips. “You have,” he murmured. “Just not in this lifetime.”

Lilith understood for the first time in her life. This was never about money. It was never about the seven billion dollars Lucas had spent to buy her at the auction that night. She hadn't been collateral. She had just been reclaimed by someone she had never really known and who seemed so obsessed with her.