Semua Bab Claimed By The Wrong Voss : Bab 1 - Bab 8

The chair across from her had been empty for twelve days.Zaria knew because she had counted. Not out of longing—she was past that—but because counting was the only thing that felt like control in a house that had never once made her feel like she belonged in it.The breakfast table was set for two. Every morning, a servant she had never heard speak placed a second cup on the opposite side, poured coffee into it, and left without looking at her. The coffee went cold. The chair stayed empty. And Zaria sat with her hands folded in her lap and her face arranged into something that could not be read.Her phone buzzed against the table.She already knew who it was before she turned it over.─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──Her father's name sat on the screen like a bill she had been avoiding.She let it ring once more. Then she picked up."Zaria." His voice carried the particular tone he reserved for investments he was beginning to doubt."Father.""How are things progressing?"Not "How are you?" Not "Are you

Camille was already seated when Zaria reached the bottom of the stairs.Already comfortable. Already holding a cup of tea, the same servant who passed Zaria every morning without a word or glance had placed it in her hands as if it were the most natural thing in the world.Zaria stopped at the doorway of the living room and took it in.The way Camille sat, not stiff, not performing, just *settled*, like the furniture had been arranged around her specifically. The way Vivienne was perched on the armchair across from her, leaning slightly forward, her whole posture softened in a way Zaria had never once seen directed at her. The low sound of easy conversation filling a room that had felt like a cold waiting area every single morning for the past year.*This woman is in her house.*Zaria walked in.─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──Camille looked up first.Her face did something warm and immediate, a smile that reached her eyes, or performed reaching them so convincingly it made no difference. She was soft-f

Camille's coat was still on the hook when Zaria came downstairs the next morning.She walked past it without stopping, without looking at it for longer than a second, but it followed her into the kitchen the way things do when they mean more than they should. A coat on the hook and a house that had decided, long before Zaria arrived, who actually belonged inside it.She made her own coffee that morning. The servant who usually moved through the kitchen at this hour was nowhere, and Zaria found she preferred it, the quiet, the absence of another person who looked through her, just her hands and the kettle and the grey morning coming through the window.She stood at the counter and drank and thought about her mother.*Months. Not years.*Her father's voice. Then underneath it, softer and more damaging, *your mother was always too soft. I hope you're not making the same mistake.*Mirelle's words had not left her. They sat in a part of her mind she kept returning to without meaning to, pr

She could not leave.She had calculated twice already: the room, the people, and the specific geography of a gathering where everyone knew everyone and a woman slipping out early would be noticed and mentioned and stored away for later use. Vivienne was near the main door. Ethan was somewhere to her left. The only route that did not require passing someone who would stop her with a smile and a question was blocked by a cluster of older men in expensive suits who showed no signs of moving.She was trapped.And he was thirty feet away.She turned slightly, putting her shoulder toward him, and reached for a glass from the tray of a passing server without looking at what was in it. Her hand was steady. She was proud of that, the steadiness of her hand while the rest of her was doing something she could not fully describe. Not panic but something deeper than panic. The specific cold of someone who has been living on the assumption that a thing cannot touch them and has just discovered the