Semua Bab THE BIDDING ROOM: Bab 11 - Bab 20

LATER THAT NIGHTEvelyn’s new room is quite close to his, close enough that she hears the faint click of his door. It is so close enough that the hallway lights spill under her doorway like molten gold and close enough that she feels him.She lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, sheets pulled up to her chest and then…Footsteps, slow, measured and unhurried. They stop outside her door. Her pulse trips. He’s there. He’s right there. He was not entering, not knocking, just… existing on the other side of the door like a storm waiting for a reason.Minutes pass. Then more. He stays.EVELYNMy breath is shallow. Why is he there?Was he watching her or trying to guide her? Was he deciding on whether to kill her tonight or another day?Does he know she’s awake? closes her eyes. Her chest rises and falls with nervous, careful breaths.Another moment passes. The air shifts.And then…A soft sound, barely a whisper of fabric. A slow exhale through the door.He’s still there.What was stopping h

She woke to warmth. Softness and shadows. Kali blinked, the haze slowly lifting. This wasn’t her room. This wasn’t the wing he had confined her to. This was a darker space, massive and masculine. A room that hummed with authority. Her eyes swept the room and it fell on the huge portrait. Lucien. It registered slowly in her head. Lucien’s bedroom.Her heart skipped a bit. The portrait was beautiful, she couldn’t see it clearly because it was a bit far from the bedside but she knew he looked really handsome in it. It looked like he had just stepped out of a shower, the visible shape of water drops falling on his face from his wet hair. The look in his eyes that terrified her but made her stomach turn at the same time. She bit her lower lip, it should be a crime to look that good and be cruel at the same time. She tore her gaze from it.The sheets under her were black silk, cool and expensive. A low fire crackled in the hearth across the room. Soft lamplight pooled golden across the wa

Evelyn woke with her heart pounding. Not from a nightmare…not exactly. But from a whisper she could’ve sworn was real. “Nana…” A voice she had buried with her childhood. A voice she had mourned until the grief swallowed whole pieces of her. Her eyes opened to the soft spill of moonlight, her breath catching in her throat. The room was empty. Still, she pushed herself upright slowly, scanning the shadows as if memory itself might step forward and become a man. Impossible. It was impossible. He was dead. He had to be. Her fingers trembled as she touched her throat—cold, damp with sweat. I must have been dreaming, it can’t be real. I’m losing my mind. That’s all. The mansion was silent around her, the kind of silence that didn’t feel restful— it felt watched. Then she heard it. A soft footfall outside her door. Measured, slow and heavy. Lucien. She knew it instantly. He had a way of moving that made her nerve endings stand on edge even through walls. He paused directly outside

Lucien moved like a storm that had grown legs.Damien followed at a distance — smart enough not to speak, smarter not to breathe too loudly. Every guard they passed flattened against the wall, terrified of being noticed in the wrong way. The mansion felt different now, tense, cold, and like unseen eyes were watching every movement. This was because the devil was hunting. Anytime Lucien hunted, someone always bled.“Four seconds,” he repeated, voice deceptively quiet. “That’s all the alarm recorded?”“Yes, sir.”“Find the technician responsible for that blind spot.”Damien swallowed. “And do what with him?”Lucien’s eyes glinted. “Hold the funeral tomorrow.”Damien said nothing.They reached the west corridor — the wing nearest Kali’s new room. The place still wore the ghost of her scent. Lucien inhaled once, involuntarily.He hated himself for it, but what he hated more was the truth: Matteo had been in this wing tonight. He had been near her, breathing her air and close enough to tou

The message arrived just before dusk. Lucien read it once. Then again.Then he crushed the phone in his hand. Damien watched the shards fall to the marble floor and did not flinch.“They’re demanding proof,” Damien said carefully. “Not cooperation. Proof.”Lucien’s voice was cold enough to frost steel. “They want a spectacle.”“Yes.”“And they chose the envoy to deliver it because they know he’s compromised.”Damien hesitated. “Or because they believe you are.”Lucien turned slowly.The room seemed to shrink around them.“Devils,” Lucien said quietly, “are allowed many sins. Mercy is not one of them.”Damien nodded once. “Then you’ll refuse.”Lucien’s gaze drifted to the window — toward the wing where Kali stood unknowingly at the center of a war she never asked to ignite. Something in him had shifted and he had begun to feel something for her, feelings he should never have.“No,” he said. “I’ll counter.”EVELYNShe waited until the house settled. Until the guards rotated and the ligh