FRACTURED TRUTH

CHAPTER FIVE: FRACTURED TRUTH

SERENA'S POV

The morning light filtered through the heavy curtains of the bedroom, casting long shadows across the silk sheets that still smelled faintly of Caspian. I woke up sore, my jaw aching from last night and my thighs still tender.

I lay there for a long moment, staring at the ceiling, replaying his warning. It had kept me tossing and turning until the early hours. He hadn’t come back last night. Good. I needed the space to breathe without his presence suffocating me, turning my body into a traitor even when my mind knew better.

My phone sat on the nightstand like a live grenade. I’d ignored it after he left, too exhausted to face whatever she had sent. But I couldn’t avoid it forever. With a deep breath, I grabbed it and unlocked the screen.

The messages were waiting.

A: Just check for them. You know what I’m talking about.

My stomach dropped. The words were vague, but I knew exactly what they meant.

I typed back quickly, fingers shaking.

Me: Stop. I don’t know what you want from me.

The reply came almost instantly.

A: You do. Check his study. The files.

I stared at the screen, my heart pounding so hard it hurt. This was insane. Caspian had left for some emergency meeting, but his security was everywhere. Nathan could walk in at any moment. If I got caught snooping in his private study, I'm doomed. He’d tighten the chains even more. Or worse, he might decide I wasn’t worth the trouble and pull Lucas’s treatment.

But if I did nothing, I might never know the truth. Or what really happened that night.

For Lucas, I told myself again. Always for Lucas. But this time it felt like I was risking everything for answers that might destroy everything.

I slipped out of bed, and threw on a simple robe, and padded barefoot through the mansion. The place was eerily quiet. Every expensive painting and marble surface reminded me how far I was from my old life. I paused outside the walk-in closet connected to the master bedroom.

Curiosity, or maybe masochism, made me open the doors.

Rows of designer clothes hung perfectly organized. Designer, shoes lined the shelves in every color. Jewelry boxes sat neatly stacked on a center island. I opened one at random. A diamond tennis bracelet sparkled up at me, probably worth more than a year of my old event-planning income. Another bag held a set of emerald earrings that matched the gown I’d worn last night. There were at least a dozen more bags, all untouched.

He’d been buying me things for weeks. Expensive, beautiful cages disguised as gifts. Reminders that he could provide everything I needed for Lucas while taking everything from me in return.

I touched the cold diamonds, feeling a strange mix of resentment and guilt. Last night I’d been on my knees for him, gagging on his cock for my brother’s treatment. Now I was about to betray that by digging through his secrets.

I took a deep breath, closed the closet, and headed down the hall to Caspian’s private study. The door was unlocked. The arrogant bastard probably thought no one would dare enter. My hands were sweating as I slipped inside and closed it softly behind me.

The room smelled like him, dark wood, leather, and paper. A massive mahogany desk took over the space, laptop closed in the center. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves held rare first editions and business files. One wall displayed framed photos. Caspian with his father, a stern older woman, Helena, and a faded picture of a beautiful woman, his late mother, Evelyn.

I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. Proof about the documents? Something connecting me to the truth?

I sat in his oversized leather chair and opened the laptop. The screen lit up, demanding a password.

I tried the obvious ones first.

CaspianLaurent

LaurentInternational

Evelyn

All wrong.

My pulse raced. I tried variations with numbers, birth years I vaguely remembered from public profiles. Richard, his father. Nothing. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I kept guessing, each failed attempt making the error message flash like a warning.

Serena. Wrong.

Lucas— wrong.

I was making a huge mistake. Caspian was too smart for simple passwords. He probably had layers of security I couldn’t even imagine. If the laptop locked me out or sent an alert, I was done.

Still, I kept trying, fingers flying.

“Come on,” I whispered desperately. “Just one clue. One thing that makes sense of any of this.”

I was about to try one more when I heard it.

The soft click of the mansion door.

My blood turned to ice. I froze, my hands still on the keyboard, the laptop screen glowing with another failed password attempt. Then I heard footsteps across the hall.

My heart slammed against my ribs so violently I thought it might burst. This was it. The moment everything came crashing down. Caspian had come back early. Or Nathan had caught me. Either way, there was no explaining why I was in here, digging through his private laptop like a spy.

I slammed the laptop shut, the moment the door opened.

A shadow fell over the desk.

“Serena.”

The voice was low, and dangerous,

I slowly turned in the chair, meeting a pair of piercing blue eyes.

His gaze flicked from my face to the laptop screen, then back to me. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”