The Bellamy Estate Morning
Morning light spilled across the marble floors of the Bellamy estate, cool and unforgiving. The house had been designed to impress, every corner a statement of wealth and permanence, but to Claire it always felt like a mausoleum. The halls were too quiet, the portraits of ancestors too stern, the polished glass reflecting her face back at her like an accusation.
She remembered barracks that smelled of sweat and metal, where voices carried down thin corridors, laughter crude and honest. Compared to that, the estate was deathly still. It wasn't silence born of peace—it was silence born of walls, of things unsaid and locked away.
Claire's boots clicked against the stone as she walked toward the dining hall. The air smelled faintly of coffee and lemon polish. Even that scent made her shoulders tense.
---
The Breakfast Table
Richard Bellamy was already at the head of the long table, his posture perfect, his suit pressed even in the early hour. A folded newspaper lay in front of him, his reading glasses perched low on his nose. He didn't look up when she entered.
The place beside him had been set—silver gleaming, a single plate, coffee poured but untouched. Across from her father, the other chair remained permanently empty. Her mother's chair. Always set. Never used.
Claire sat down across from him, folding her hands neatly in her lap. For a long time, the only sounds were the crisp rustle of paper and the faint tick of the antique clock on the far wall.
Finally, Richard lowered the paper. His eyes were sharp, calculating. "You were out late."
It wasn't a question.
Claire forced a calm expression. "I was with friends."
Richard hummed, a noncommittal sound. He lifted his cup, sipped once, set it down with precision. "The Bellamy name is not carried lightly, Claire. Even when you think no one sees, someone always does."
---
The Unspoken Questions
She wanted to bristle, but she knew better. Defiance would only harden him. Instead, she tilted her head slightly, her voice polite. "Is reputation all that matters?"
Richard's jaw shifted, but his tone stayed cool. "Reputation is survival. Empires don't fall because of steel or stone. They fall because someone's name loses its weight."
Claire sipped her own coffee, though it tasted bitter on her tongue. She could hear the subtext—he was fishing, as he always did. He didn't say Michael's name, but she felt it hovering like smoke between them.
"I see," she said softly. "So survival is all we live for."
---
Clash Beneath the Mask
Richard leaned back, eyes narrowing. "Do not mistake survival for cowardice. The man you saw—the one you insist on defending—he's not strength. He's recklessness wearing desperation like armor."
The words stung, though she kept her expression smooth. Her father had always spoken this way, cloaking judgment in cool reason. But Michael's image rose in her mind—the trembling hands, the haunted eyes, the relentless chalk marks sprawling into the night. Reckless, yes. Desperate, yes. But there had been something else too.
Something Richard couldn't see.
Claire placed her cup down quietly. "And yet sometimes, Father, desperation is what drives men to do what others won't."
A flicker passed through Richard's eyes, quickly buried. He folded the newspaper again, setting it aside as though their conversation carried more weight than numbers.
---
Eleanor's Absence
The clock chimed softly, and Claire's gaze slid to the empty chair at the end of the table. Her mother's chair. Her throat tightened.
She remembered mornings filled with laughter, Eleanor teasing Richard for his stiffness, slipping an extra spoonful of sugar into Claire's tea when he wasn't looking. That warmth was gone now. Richard never allowed anyone to take that seat, as if preserving its emptiness preserved Eleanor herself.
But to Claire, it was a wound reopened every morning. A reminder that love could vanish and leave only stone in its place.
---
Richard's Warning
Richard noticed her glance but didn't acknowledge it. Instead, he said quietly, "If you walk into his chaos, you'll drag our name into it. I won't allow it."
The words struck like iron bars slamming shut. Claire lifted her chin, masking the storm behind her eyes. She gave him the smile she had perfected in the military—the one that revealed nothing, the one that said yes, sir while meaning nothing at all.
"As you say," she murmured.
But inside, her vow only hardened. She would see Michael Rivers again. Not to rebel against Richard, not to prove him wrong, but because she needed to understand. Michael was a question mark she couldn't erase, a wound in the order her father demanded.
And Claire had never been able to leave a wound untended.