The hallway to Leo's room was a tunnel of shadows, the opulent wallpaper feeling like a facade. Jia's heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat echoing the chaos in her mind. David's smug ultimatum, her parents' desperate faces, and Leo's shocking accusation swirled together into a maelstrom.
She stopped before his door, a plain, unadorned slab of wood that seemed to absorb the light. It was the door to a servant's quarters, a constant, humiliating reminder of his place in their home. She raised her hand to knock, her knuckles hovering an inch from the wood.
What would she say? *'Did you embezzle from us?'* No. *'Are you secretly a financial wizard?'* Absurd. The question that burned hottest was simpler, more terrifying: *'Who are you?'*
She knocked. The sound was too soft, swallowed by the thick door. She knocked again, harder.
Silence.
"Leo?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "It's Jia. I… I need to talk to you."
No response. No shuffle of feet, no creak of the cot. A cold dread trickled down her spine. Had he actually left? Had her father's command driven him out into the night for good?
She tried the brass knob. It was locked.
This was new. In two years, his door had never been locked. He had nothing to steal, nothing to hide. The simple, turned lock felt like a declaration. A boundary she had never known existed between them.
Frustration and fear boiled over. She pressed her ear against the cool wood, listening intently. Was that a faint, rhythmic murmur? Almost like… a voice? It was too low to make out words, more a vibration than a sound. It stopped abruptly.
Then, she heard it. A soft, almost inaudible click, like the closing of a small, precise mechanism. A moment later, the faint scent of ozone, clean and metallic, tickled her nostrils before dissipating. It was a smell utterly alien to the musty, old-house scent of the rest of the hallway.
Her breath caught. He was in there. And he was not the helpless, silent man she thought she knew.
"Leo, please," she said, her plea laced with a desperation she couldn't hide. "David was just here. He… he offered to save us. If I divorce you."
This time, a response. A soft footfall on the other side of the door. Then, his voice, calm and close, separated from her only by the thin barrier of wood.
"And what did you tell him?"
The question was level, but it held a weight that surprised her. It wasn't the question of a man fearing for his meal ticket. It was the question of someone assessing a strategic move.
"I told him no," Jia said, leaning her forehead against the door. The wood felt solid, real. "I told him I wouldn't be blackmailed."
There was a long pause. She could almost feel him thinking on the other side.
"That was the right decision," he said finally. His voice was different. It lacked the hesitant, placating tone he used with her parents. It was the same calm, certain voice he had used at the dinner table. The voice that had accused Mr. Ling.
"Was it?" she asked, a hysterical laugh bubbling in her throat. "We're going to lose everything, Leo. Everything. And you're in there… what are you doing in there? Why is the door locked?"
Another silence, heavier than the last. She could sense a battle happening on the other side of the door, a war between secrecy and something else.
"Jia," he said, and her name on his lips sounded different tonight—not a label, but an acknowledgment. "You have to trust me. Just for a little while longer. David Wei is not your savior. He's the reason you need saving."
The statement was so bold, so assured, it stole her breath. "How can you know that?"
"The same way I know about Mr. Ling," he replied, his voice dropping even lower, becoming almost intimate. "The walls of this house have ears, Jia. And not all of them are friendly. Be careful who you trust. Especially your friend, Selina."
*Selina.* He knew about the message. How?
Before she could form another question, he spoke again, his tone final. "Go to bed, Jia. Don't worry about the bank. Things will look different in the morning."
It was a dismissal. Gentle, but firm. The conversation was over.
Jia stood there for a long moment, her mind reeling. He had given her no answers, only more profound, more terrifying questions. He had spoken not like a victim, but like a general assessing a battlefield. The locked door was no longer just a physical barrier; it was a symbol of the vast, hidden world that Leo inhabited.
She finally turned and walked back down the dark hallway, the mansion feeling more alien than ever. The man she had married out of pity was a stranger. And that stranger had just told her to trust him while hiding behind a locked door. The romance she had never expected to feel was now tangled with a thrilling, dangerous mystery. The suspense was a living thing, coiling tight around her heart. The faceslap was coming, she felt it in her bones, and it would be delivered by the last person anyone would suspect.