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Chapter Eleven – The Edge of Trust

Penulis: Frankie.O
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-08-09 18:11:02

The rain came before dawn, hammering the villa’s terracotta roof in steady sheets. Lucy woke to the sound, her eyes opening to the dim light filtering through the drapes. Gabriel’s side of the bed was cold.

For a moment she lay still, listening to the storm, before the events of the previous night crashed back into her mind the forged trust documents, Gabriel’s unreadable stare, the weight of suspicion pressing on her chest.

She found him in the study, sleeves rolled up, the faint blue glow of his laptop illuminating his face. He didn’t look up when she entered.

“You haven’t slept,” she said softly.

“Neither have you.” His tone was flat, but not cruel. He gestured toward the papers spread across the desk. “The signature’s clean. Whoever forged it had access to your handwriting more than just a signature. Notes, letters… practice.”

Her throat tightened. “Patricia.”

“It’s possible,” he said, “but she’s too careful to leave fingerprints. This was done to make me doubt you.”

Lucy crossed
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  • The silence between us    Chapter 29: The Echo of Secrets

    The night was restless. Lucy could not sleep, not with the image of Patricia still imprinted in her mind the gleam of that crimson dress, the way her stepmother’s words had sliced through the fragile peace she and Gabriel had been trying to build. Each step through the grand halls of the Madrid estate echoed like a reminder of the fractures widening between her old life and the new one she was struggling to survive.Her bare feet brushed against the cool marble as she paced. The corridors were dimly lit, shadows stretching long and narrow across the painted walls. It was well past midnight, yet her thoughts spun endlessly. Patricia’s threats were not idle, Lucy knew that. Her stepmother was a woman who thrived on destruction, a predator who had never once hesitated to sacrifice others if it meant gaining control. And now, she had set her eyes on Gabriel’s empire.Lucy pressed a trembling hand against her chest, feeling the erratic rhythm of her heartbeat. She had chosen to stay. She h

  • The silence between us    Chapter 28: Madrid’s Labyrinth

    The flight to Madrid was cloaked in an odd stillness. Lucy stared out the oval window, watching clouds dissolve into the jagged outline of the Iberian Peninsula, her reflection dim and translucent against the glass. Gabriel sat beside her, a newspaper folded on his lap, though she doubted he had read a single line. His posture was taut, jaw locked, shoulders drawn back in the way of a man who anticipated trouble before it arrived.When the plane touched down, the jolt rattled through her chest. She realized her hands had been clenched so tightly in her lap that crescent moons of nail-marks pressed into her palms. Gabriel’s gaze flickered down, noticed, and for a heartbeat his hand hovered close as though he meant to cover hers but he pulled it back, returning to the safety of silence.The private terminal was cool and sterile, but the weight of Madrid struck her almost instantly. Even beyond the tinted glass, the city pulsed with a restless energy. Sirens wailed distantly. Car horns s

  • The silence between us    Chapter Twenty-Seven: Shadows Over Madrid

    The morning of their departure unfolded with the kind of quiet that made Lucy’s skin prickle.The estate, usually alive with the bustle of servants and the murmuring of voices drifting from the kitchens, seemed muted, as though every corner of its marble halls and manicured gardens held its breath. The sun was bright over the terracotta rooftops, gilding the roses in the courtyard, but it offered no warmth to the tension in her chest.Lucy sat at the edge of the balcony that overlooked the vineyards. A tray of untouched breakfast lay beside her coffee long gone cold, a croissant she hadn’t even broken. Her hands twisted in her lap, restless, restless. Sleep had evaded her, leaving her eyes shadowed, her thoughts a tangled knot.Madrid. Just the name felt like a weight pressing against her ribs. She could still feel the folded letter hidden at the bottom of her jewelry box, the one she had found tucked in her stepmother’s scarf two nights ago. Words she had not been ready to read, word

  • The silence between us    Chapter Twenty-Six: A Storm Between Us

    The storm arrived just before dusk, rolling in from the horizon with a low growl that shook the vineyard to its roots. The sky darkened to a bruised violet, heavy clouds pressing low as if they might crush the tiled roofs of the estate. Lucy stood at the tall windows of the grand library, her hand pressed to the cold glass, watching the first spears of lightning split the sky. The scent of rain crept through the cracks in the old stone walls, and for a moment, she welcomed it. Storms, at least, were honest. They did not pretend to be anything other than chaos.Inside her, chaos ruled too. Ever since she had touched the letter sealed in Madrid’s insignia, her heart had carried its weight like a stone in her chest. She had hidden it burned it even yet the words it contained had lodged in her memory, branding her with the knowledge that her family’s betrayals were far from over. She had been ready, in moments of restless midnight pacing, to tell Gabriel everything. Yet every time she ima

  • The silence between us     Chapter Twenty-Five: The Weight of Silence

    Lucy held the letter as though it might scorch her skin. Even after she folded it back into its ivory envelope, her hands trembled with the same unease that had possessed her when she first read the Madrid seal. The parchment was thick, the script elegantly formal, but beneath its polished presentation lurked a threat she could not ignore. She slipped it into the drawer of her writing desk and pushed it closed, as if wood and brass could barricade her from its demands.But the weight of it lingered.Dinner that night stretched in suffocating silence. Gabriel sat at the head of the long oak table, a storm coiled in his expression though he said little. His knife cut through roasted quail with surgical precision. Lucy sat at his right, too conscious of her every movement, pushing food around her plate. Between them, candles flickered against crystal glasses, but their light felt colder than ever.She tried to speak, but the words withered before reaching her tongue. Should she tell him?

  • The silence between us    Chapter Twenty-Four: The Edge of Resolve

    Lucy’s vow still hung in the cool night air of the courtyard, her voice having carried more conviction than she thought herself capable of. The vineyard stretched out in rows of silver-shadowed vines beneath the moonlight, and Gabriel’s eyes remained fixed on her as though she had become the most impossible and dangerous truth he had ever faced.For a long moment, neither of them moved. The soft rustle of the leaves and the faint chorus of cicadas were the only sounds between them. Then Gabriel exhaled, low and rough, as if letting go of a weight he had carried alone for years.“Do you even realize,” he said, stepping closer, “what you’ve just promised me? What you’ve promised yourself?”Lucy straightened her spine, feeling her pulse thrum hot at her throat. “I know exactly what I said. I will not let them use me anymore. I won’t let them use you. If they come for us, then I will meet them head on.”Gabriel’s jaw tensed. He looked at her like a man torn between admiration and dread. “

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