Chapter 9

Victor finished the tour in forty minutes.

He was good at it. Every room introduced with just enough detail. Every door he didn't open explained away with a word or two. Renovation. Storage. Private. His voice never changed pitch regardless of what he was describing.

I smiled, nodded, and stored everything.

The east wing stayed locked. He didn't offer to show me and I didn't ask. But I counted the steps from the main corridor to the door. Fourteen. The lock was newer than the rest of the house. Different brand. Different finish.

Someone had changed it recently.

"And that's more or less everything," Victor said, turning to me at the bottom of the main staircase. "I want you to feel at home here, Lila. This is your house now too."

"Thank you," I said. "It's beautiful."

He smiled. "Damien is particular about the staff schedules. Meals at fixed times. Guests by appointment only. You'll get used to the rhythm quickly." A pause. "If you need anything, anything at all come to me first. Not the staff. They can be... confused about who to answer to."

I held his gaze. "Of course."

"Good." He touched my shoulder once, brief and light. "Good girl."

He walked away toward the study.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs and kept my face exactly where it was.

Good girl.

I went upstairs.

Damien was in the hall outside my room when I reached the third floor. Not blocking the door. Just there. Wheelchair angled toward the window, a phone in his hand he wasn't looking at.

I slowed but didn't stop.

"How was the tour?" he asked without turning.

"Informative."

"Victor is thorough."

"Very."

A beat. I reached my door and put my hand on the handle.

"He told me to come to him first," I said. "If I needed anything."

Damien was quiet for a moment. Outside, the grounds sat grey and still.

"And will you?" he asked.

I looked at the back of his head. The set of his shoulders. The phone still untouched in his hand.

"I haven't decided yet," I said.

He turned then. Just enough to see me over his shoulder. The afternoon light caught the edge of his jaw.

"Honest answer," he said.

"I find they're easier to keep track of."

Something shifted in his expression. Not quite a smile. Not quite not.

"The east wing," I said. "How long has it been locked?"

The shift disappeared. His face went still.

"Since before you arrived."

"And before that?"

He turned back to the window. "Get some rest, Lila. Dinner is at seven."

I went inside and sat on the edge of the bed, hands in my lap, going back over everything. The folder. The date. Eight months. The lock newer than everything around it. Victor's hand on my shoulder…

Good girl.

My phone buzzed.

My agent. A message waiting since that morning.

"Liora... director wants a decision by tonight. The series shoots in three weeks. In or out?"

Three weeks.

Three weeks ago I was fetching dry cleaning and weeding roses, pretending I couldn't pour tea without spilling it. Now I was sitting in a bedroom the size of my family's entire upper floor, married to a man with a file bearing my name dated eight months ago, in a house that was beautiful on the surface and wrong underneath in ways I hadn't finished counting.

And my other life was waiting.

Asking me to choose.

I typed back three words.

Give me tonight.

I put the phone face down and looked at the ceiling.

Somewhere below, a door opened and closed.

Then footsteps. Slow and deliberate.

I had heard those footsteps before… last night, outside my door at three in the morning.

I sat very still until the sound faded.

Then I opened a new message. Not to my agent.

To a number I had used twice before... a doctor from a production shoot two years ago. Someone outside every circle this house might reach.

I typed carefully.

Hypothetically… if someone was being kept unwell without knowing it... what would that look like from the outside?

I stared at the words.

Then I sent it.