Chapter 6 : Liking someone can make even the most disciplined man do foolish, shallow things.

When Alexander Vanderbilt woke, dawn had already crept into the hospital room, washing the white walls in a sterile gray light. His phone sat on the bedside table, fully charged—its screen cold, a silent witness to the messages and missed calls waiting within.

He didn’t open them.

Instead, with movements heavy and deliberate, he unlocked the device and dialed the number of the funeral home.

“Mr. Vanderbilt,” came the voice on the other end, polite but distant, “you may come to collect the ashes tomorrow.”

There was a pause. A long, hollow silence that seemed to echo inside Alexander’s chest.

“...All right,” he murmured at last, his voice dry and thin.

Once the call ended, he simply sat there for a while, staring blankly at the reflection of the morning light on the tiled floor. Then, as though shaking off a fog, he dialed another number.

“Have you found her whereabouts?”

A man’s voice, cautious and subdued, came through the receiver. “Not yet, Mr. Vanderbilt. We’ve already ruled out more than two hundred possible stowaways. At present, about forty people are in police custody, but none of them have provided anything useful. And…”

Alexander’s tone sharpened. “And what?”

“The government has intervened,” the man admitted quietly. “They learned of our private investigation into the stowaways and sent someone to warn us off. It seems… they don’t want us to dig any deeper.”

Alexander’s eyes narrowed, the coldness in them hardening like frost.

It was just like when Colton had received that warning—an invisible hand reaching out from the shadows, pulling strings no one dared touch. These stowaways weren’t ordinary. There was something buried here, something dangerous.

Something that reminded him of Marken.

After a long silence, Alexander picked up his phone again and called Colton.

“Do you still remember that poem you found in Marken’s draft papers?” he asked.

There was a faint hiss of static on the line, followed by Colton’s low exhale—but before he could reply, Alexander gave a bitter, hollow laugh.

“Maybe it meant nothing,” he said, almost to himself. “Maybe that poem was just his favorite woman’s favorite.”

The words caught in his throat like smoke.

And then, unbidden, a memory flickered across his mind—Serena’s voice, soft and wistful, telling him once that her favorite poem was that very same one. The same verses Marken had scrawled in his final notes.

Alexander’s hand, resting loosely at his side, began to tremble. Slowly, his fingers curled into a fist until his knuckles whitened.

The chill in his veins deepened.

Some truths, he realized, don’t reveal themselves—they rot quietly, waiting to be unearthed.

A heavy silence hung in the air before Colton finally spoke, his voice low and uncertain. “Marken never struck me as a shallow man,” he said quietly.

He hesitated, his gaze distant as if retracing memories that no longer aligned with the truth. “He wouldn’t have copied poetry—especially not from his favorite woman’s favorite poem. That’s not something he’d do lightly.”

Across from him, Alexander sat motionless, the light from the nearby window cutting across his sharp features. His lashes lowered, shadowing the anger that simmered beneath the surface. His knuckles turned white as his hand slowly clenched into a fist.

“Liking someone,” he murmured, his voice hoarse, “can make even the most disciplined man do foolish, shallow things.”

He looked up, his eyes hard with realization. “If it really is Serena... then everything finally makes sense. We’ve been searching in the wrong direction all this time—because we never once suspected her.”

Colton’s expression tightened. “Alexander, if Serena truly is that woman, then she’s had a plan from the beginning. She knew we were looking for Marken—she always knew. And yet she never said a word about being the woman Marken loved.”

He paused, his tone growing heavier. “This time, when Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt followed Marken, Serena conveniently disappeared. So... the men on the cliff that night—were they Marken’s?”

The implication hit like a blade to the gut.

If Colton was right, then Marken and Serena had worked together to kill Cornelius.

The truth was too cruel to accept. Cornelius—the only elder Alexander had truly cherished—was gone. And the two people who might have betrayed him were his own brother and the woman he loved.

For a long moment, Alexander couldn’t move. His throat tightened, his pulse pounding dully in his ears. Then, without a word, he turned and strode upstairs, his footsteps echoing against the marble floor.

He stopped in front of Serena’s cabinet. It was locked—secured with a password.

He tried her birthday first.

Password incorrect.

He exhaled slowly, a flicker of frustration crossing his face. He typed in his own birthday next.

Password incorrect.

A bitter, humorless laugh escaped him. “Of course,” he muttered.

Then, almost mechanically, he entered Marken’s birthday.

A soft click echoed through the quiet room.

Password correct.

For a second, Alexander just stood there, his fingers hovering above the lock. The sound of the cabinet unlocking felt like the cruel punchline to a cosmic joke.

He wanted to smash it—to destroy whatever lay inside—but he didn’t.

Instead, he opened it slowly.

Inside was a single small box. Within it rested a delicate jellyfish-shaped stamp and a thin notebook bound in dark leather.

It matched exactly what Colton’s investigation had described—Marken’s old diary.

Alexander flipped through it, page after page of emptiness. Then, on one of the inner pages, he noticed something faint—a square patch of dried glue, as if something had been torn out long ago.

He ran his fingers over the rough patch, his hand trembling slightly, before he finally closed the book.

His mind began to piece together fragments of memory—Serena’s offhand stories, the subtle deflections, the dog that had once followed her everywhere.

Rex.

Rex had been a gift from Serena’s first love.

And that little dog had vanished from the Vanderbilt villa around the same time Marken disappeared.

Piece by piece, the puzzle fell into place, forming a picture Alexander didn’t want to see.

He sank into the nearby chair, the small box resting on the table before him.

The ticking of the clock filled the silence.

He sat there for a long time—long enough for the night to darken, long enough for the stiffness in his limbs to set in—staring at the box that had just rewritten everything he thought he knew about love, loyalty, and betrayal.

---

The funeral for Cornelius Vanderbilt was a spectacle of solemn grandeur. As one of New York’s most influential patriarchs, his passing could not be handled quietly—even if the family had wished it so.

That morning, the sky hung low and gray, heavy with the kind of stillness that precedes a storm. A cold wind whispered through the black umbrellas gathered outside the Vanderbilt estate, carrying with it the faint scent of rain and lilies—the flowers that lined the marble staircase leading up to the grand hall.

Inside, the air was thick with murmurs and mourning. Men in tailored black suits and women draped in somber silk filled the room, their faces schooled into expressions of respect and restraint. Rows of candles flickered along the polished mahogany walls, their flames reflecting against the crystal chandeliers above.

Cornelius’s coffin, a dark oak masterpiece trimmed in gold, rested at the center beneath a towering portrait of him—stern, dignified, and unyielding even in death. The sight alone was enough to silence any conversation.

One after another, high-ranking officials arrived—government dignitaries, ministers, military figures. Cars adorned with small national flags lined the long drive like a procession of shadows. Behind them came the city’s most prominent business moguls, men and women who owed their fortunes, in one way or another, to Cornelius’s reach.

They exchanged brief, muted greetings with members of the Vanderbilt family, offering condolences that sounded both formal and perfunctory. Yet, inevitably, a single question surfaced again and again in hushed tones:

“Where is Alexander?”

No one could answer.

The family members shifted uncomfortably whenever his name was mentioned. Some muttered that he was “handling affairs privately,” others merely averted their eyes. But the truth was simple—Alexander Vanderbilt had not appeared.

For all its grandeur, the funeral carried a peculiar hollowness, as though the absence of the family’s last true heir left an invisible void at the center of it all.

Within elite circles, Cornelius’s death rippled like a stone through still water. Though the family had made every effort to keep the matter contained, such things never stayed secret for long. Outside the walls of the estate, the city continued its usual rhythm—oblivious, perhaps, but not entirely ignorant.

Those who paid attention, those who watched the movements of New York’s great dynasties, would already have heard the quiet whispers:

Cornelius Vanderbilt was gone.

And with his death, the balance of power in the Vanderbilt family—and beyond—was about to shift forever.

---

The room was small—barely large enough to contain the rickety table, a single chair, and the faint scent of damp wood that clung to its walls. Serena sat curled in the corner, her back pressed to the cold plaster, when she heard footsteps echoing down the narrow corridor outside.

For two days now, the same routine had repeated itself. Sometimes, it was the gentle one—the man who knocked before entering, his tone soft but unsettlingly polite. Other times, it was the erratic one, who stormed in without warning, the door crashing against the wall like a thunderclap.

This time, there was no knock. The handle rattled, the hinges groaned, and Serena already knew which version of him she would face.

Marken’s alter ego stepped inside, his figure swaying slightly under the harsh overhead light. His eyes were bloodshot, feverish, his hand clutching several bottles of alcohol. The smell of whiskey filled the air even before he set them down.

Serena instinctively recoiled, her brow furrowing. Her wrists ached from the rope burns she had earned the first night, but she kept her chin high.

Without a word, Marken’s alter ego fetched two small glasses, the kind used for cheap spirits, and placed them between them on the table. He poured himself a drink, then another, the clear liquid sloshing to the rim.

“Serena,” he said, his voice hoarse but oddly casual, “drink with me.”

Serena didn’t move. Her gaze met his—calm, defiant, silent.

Marken’s alter ego tipped back three glasses in rapid succession. Then, without warning, he seized her chin, forcing her face upward. The cold rim of the glass pressed to her lips as he tilted it, pouring the burning liquor into her mouth. Serena sputtered, coughing as the sharp alcohol scorched her throat.

Thankfully, he relented after forcing only a small amount down. Then, as if oblivious to her choking, he continued drinking alone, glass after glass.

Serena said nothing. She watched quietly, knowing that her only chance would come when he was too drunk to stand.

After ten glasses, Marken’s alter ego’s eyes grew glassy. His lips curled into a strange smile as he leaned on the table, studying her with lazy interest. “You know,” he muttered, “you actually fit my aesthetic.”

Serena stiffened at the remark but stayed silent, her mind sharp despite the fear gnawing in her chest. Over the past few days, she had learned enough about this version of Marken to understand what he was: volatile, self-indulgent, and dangerously unpredictable.

He pushed another glass toward her. “Drink it.”

She stared at the glass for a long moment before lifting it. The alcohol burned as she swallowed, but she took it all in one go, pretending to comply. She needed him to keep drinking—to let his guard down.

And he did. Marken’s alter ego smirked, pleased, and poured himself several more.

After a while, he spoke again, his tone turning almost conversational. “Do you know that Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt has passed away?”

Serena froze. For a heartbeat, she thought she’d misheard. Her wide eyes lifted to his, disbelieving.

Marken’s alter ego saw the shift in her face, the faint glisten of tears forming in her eyes, and he smiled—a cruel, knowing smile. “Today is his memorial service,” he said. “Half of New York is there. But not Alexander. No one’s seen him. Probably hiding somewhere. He grew up with the old man—imagine how it must feel to lose him.” He leaned closer, voice dropping to a mocking whisper. “And you? You’re here with me. Don’t you think he’s pitiful?”

Something inside Serena snapped. Her hand shot out, grabbing the nearest glass. With a sharp flick, she flung its contents at his face.

The liquid splattered across his cheek, dripping down his jaw. Marken’s alter ego didn’t flinch. Instead, he slowly took out a handkerchief and wiped his face clean, his expression darkening with every second.

Serena stood abruptly and darted for the door.

But before she could reach it, his hand caught her wrist. His grip was iron, his voice low and venomous. “Mentioning Alexander struck a nerve, didn’t it? So you’re done pretending to be obedient now?”

Her wrist throbbed beneath his grasp. She tried to wrench free, but the room suddenly began to spin. The world around her blurred into shifting shadows.

She blinked hard, her vision splitting into multiple overlapping images of the man before her. Her body felt heavy, unresponsive.

“What did you put in the drink?” she gasped, her words slurring.

Marken’s alter ego tilted his head, a smirk ghosting over his lips. “Exactly what you think. You planned to wait until I passed out and run, didn’t you? Clever girl.”

He crouched beside her as she sank to the floor, her arms trembling, her breath shallow. “If you were just a little more obedient,” he murmured, almost pitying, “I wouldn’t have to use this trick.”

He sighed, as though burdened by her defiance. “Tomorrow morning, there’s a flight. You’re coming with me—abroad. By then, Alexander will be busy at the funeral home, collecting Cornelius’s ashes. He won’t have time to look for you.”

Serena’s vision dimmed, her pulse thundering in her ears.

Marken’s alter ego straightened, his shadow stretching over her as he whispered, “Besides, you’ve already been abandoned, Serena. Cornelius’s dying wish must have been for Alexander to stay away from you. So why fight it?”

The words blurred together as darkness pulled her under. The last thing she saw was his cold smile as the glass rolled from her limp fingers and shattered against the floor.