Se connecterThe partition is made of silence, but it is reinforced by glass.I am standing at the window of the West Wing suite. It is late. The house is quiet, settled into the uneasy truce of the night.Below me, the garden stretches out towards the cliffs. It is a dark, tangled landscape of shadows and wind-whipped roses.But there is a light.A single, burning point of orange in the darkness.Aureliano.He is standing on the stone terrace, his back to the house, facing the sea. He is smoking.I watch the cherry of his cigarette brighten as he inhales. Fwoosh. Then dim as he exhales a plume of grey smoke that is instantly snatched away by the wind.He looks destroyed.Even from this distance, even in the dark, I can see the slump of his shoulders. The way his head hangs heavy on his neck. He isn't the King tonight. He is a man standing in the ruins of his own kingdom.I press my hand against the cold glass.I miss him.It is a physical ache, a hollow space in my chest that throbs with every be
The West Wing suite has changed.It used to be a cage. Then it was a sanctuary. Now, it is a fortress within a fortress.Aureliano is gone. He is locked in the East Wing, brooding over his bloodline, drinking himself into a stupor to forget that he slept with his sister.But his absence has created a vacuum. And nature abhors a vacuum.Ciro and Spadino have filled it.They are everywhere.When I wake up, Ciro is sitting in the armchair, watching me sleep. When I take a bath, Spadino is sitting outside the door, guarding the threshold. When I eat, they are both there, watching every bite, ensuring I consume enough calories to feed an army.They have become... intense.It isn't the chaotic, competitive intensity of the early days. It isn't the "who can break her first" game.It is a wall of muscle and devotion.They know.They know I am pregnant. They know Aureliano thinks it’s an abomination. And they have decided that their job—their only job—is to make sure I don't feel the cold draf
The house is divided.It isn't a line drawn in chalk. It isn't a barricade of furniture. It is a wall of silence so thick it muffles the sound of the ocean.Aureliano has moved.He didn't just move out of his office. He moved out of the West Wing entirely. He took his suits, his files, his bottles of scotch, and he retreated to the East Wing—the guest wing, the wing where the dead ancestors hang on the walls.He has ceded the main house to us. To the bastards.I stand in the doorway of the library. It is empty. The desk where he used to work is bare, stripped of papers and pens. The chair is pushed in. It looks like a museum exhibit. Here sat the King, before the fall.I walk to the window.Below, in the driveway, Aureliano is getting into his car. He is surrounded by guards. He doesn't look up. He doesn't check the window where I am standing.He gets in. The door slams. The car drives away.He is gone.He goes to the office in the city every morning at 6:00 AM. He returns at midnight
The office smells of stale scotch and despair.Aureliano is still sitting behind his desk, his head in his hands. Spadino is on the floor, curled into a ball against the bookshelf, staring at nothing.Ciro is standing by the window.He has been silent for ten minutes. He has been staring at his reflection in the glass, watching the monster stare back.But Ciro isn't just a monster. He is an Enforcer.And Enforcers look for loopholes.He turns around."Wait," he says.His voice is rough, like gravel grinding in a mixer. But it cuts through the silence.Aureliano doesn't look up. "There is no waiting, Ciro. It’s done. We are damned.""Maybe not all of us," Ciro says.He walks to the desk. He limps slightly, the phantom pain of the bullet wound flaring with the stress. He stops in front of Aureliano."Look at me," Ciro commands.Aureliano lifts his head. His eyes are red-rimmed, hollow. He looks like a man who has aged ten years in ten minutes."What?""The timeline," Ciro says. "Decembe
The study is a tomb.The curtains are drawn, blocking out the moonlight and the sea. The air is thick with cigar smoke and the sharp, medicinal tang of expensive scotch.Aureliano sits behind his desk. He is still wearing the ruined suit from the hallway confrontation. His tie is gone. His shirt is unbuttoned to his sternum, revealing skin flushed with alcohol and rage.He is drinking straight from the bottle.Glug. Glug.He slams the bottle down on the mahogany. It leaves a wet ring on the wood.The door opens.Ciro enters first. He is limping slightly, favoring his left leg—a phantom pain from the crypt, or maybe just the weight of the night dragging him down.Spadino follows. He looks anxious. He is chewing on his thumbnail, his eyes darting around the room, looking for the threat.They stop in front of the desk.They look at their brother. Their King.They have never seen him like this.Aureliano is usually a statue. Cold. Immovable. Tonight, he is a ruin. His eyes are bloodshot.
The front door is open.Aureliano left it wide. The night air rushes in, carrying the scent of sea salt and damp earth, trying to scrub the hallway clean. But the smell of bile lingers. It hangs heavy and sour, a ghost of the King’s revulsion.I am standing at the bottom of the stairs.I should run.The path is clear. The guards are gone. The gate is open. I could walk out into the darkness and disappear before anyone realizes what happened.But I can't move.My feet are lead. My knees are water.I look at my hands. They are shaking. They look... dirty.I rub them against my jeans. Rub. Rub. The friction burns, but the feeling doesn't go away.It isn't dirt. It is shame.It is a thick, oily film that coats my skin. It seeped into my pores when Aureliano looked at me with that expression of pure, unadulterated horror.Abomination.He didn't just reject me. He quarantined me. He looked at me like I was a carrier of a plague that had infected his bloodline.And in his mind, I am.I am th
The silverware sounds like swords clashing.Clink. Scrape. Clink.It is our final meal. The Last Supper. But there is no messiah at this table, only three Judases and the woman they sold for thirty pieces of silver.I sit in the chair to Aureliano’s right—the Queen’s chair—one last time. I am weari
The house settles into an uneasy silence after the brawl. The maids have swept up the glass in the foyer, but the stain of violence hangs in the air like cigar smoke.I am sitting on the window seat, knees pulled to my chest, watching the moon reflect off the black water below.Five days.One hundr
Ciro doesn't take me to the kitchen. He doesn't take me to the dining room.He drags me down the hallway, past Aureliano’s office, past the heavy oak doors that locked me in the dark. His grip on my arm is bruising, tight enough to cut off circulation, but I don't pull away. I don't complain.I am
The house is screaming.Downstairs, in the main drawing room, the Dowager is tearing her sons apart. I can hear her voice echoing up the grand staircase—a shrill, terrifying sound that cuts through the stone walls like a diamond drill."You have let this house rot!" she shrieks. "Discipline is dead







