The house had eyes, and she'd only just noticed.
"How long had she been this blind?
How long has he been watching?"
She caught herself checking corners for cameras, running her fingers along picture frames and bookshelves, searching for that tiny lens that would explain how he always knew. Always.
The file from two nights ago. Her session with Elena yesterday. That moment at the gala when she'd stared too long at Isabella Harrington.
The note was hidden now, tucked inside her passport at the back of her closet….the passport Denise kept in his safe, the combination to which she'd memorized months ago during one of his rare careless moments.
If he checked, he'd know she'd been in the safe.
If he'd planted it there as a test, he already knew.
Ave set down the coffee cup, her hands shaking.
"Stop. You're spiraling."
But how could she stop when everything around her felt like a lie? When her therapist, her safe space, her entire reality had been feeding back to him this whole time?
The note had proven one thing: she couldn't trust what he'd given her. She needed to find something he didn't want her to see.
That left one place. His study. Denise had a 10 AM conference call with Singapore today. Ninety minutes, maybe more if the call ran long.
She waited until his car disappeared down the driveway before moving. Not straight to the study, though. First, she checked the garden window, scanning the grounds. She saw no cars just silence.
But silence with Denise always felt like a trap.
---
The study was cold when she slipped inside, smelling of his cologne and old paper. She started with the desk drawers. They were unlocked, which should've been a relief but only made her more nervous though it was too easy.
Inside, just office supplies and those dense financial journals. She flipped through them anyway. Columns of numbers, wire transfers, entities with bland corporate names. "Kingship Holdings" stamped on every other page like some kind of signature.
It was proof of nothing. Or maybe proof of everything, if only she knew how to read it.
She moved to the bookshelves next, running her fingers along the spines, tapping for hollow sounds. Checked behind the framed maps on the walls. Nothing.
The clock in the hallway ticked louder with each passing minute. Her blouse stuck to her back. Every sound she made felt amplified, like the house itself was listening.
Then a shadow moved outside the French doors.
Ave's heart stopped. She dropped behind the desk, peering through the glass.
Leo stood on the gravel path, his back to the house, eyes scanning the tree line. He lifted his wrist to his mouth, speaking into what looked like a comms unit.
His voice was muffled, but two words cut through the glass clearly enough:
"...asset is contained."
"Asset."
That same word from the file. He wasn't talking about the house. He was talking about her. Ave pressed her hand over her mouth to keep from making a sound. Leo wasn't just a driver. He'd never been just a driver. He was watching and reporting on her.
How far does this go?
The sight of him out there, speaking into that comms unit like she was some kind of package to be monitored, shattered whatever nerve she had left.
She needed to leave. Now. Before he came back inside, before Denise's call ended, before this whole thing unraveled.
With shaking hands, she started putting the last drawer back, sliding it shut, it seemed like nature hated her because the drawer jammed.
The left side caught on to something, resisting. She wiggled it, trying to force it closed. With shaky voice and uneven breathe , it slipped out of her mouth;
"Come on, come on."
She pulled the drawer out completely, flipping it over to see what was blocking it.
The bottom was smooth mahogany. But near the back, her nail caught on something. A seam, barely visible.
Her breath stopped. She grabbed a letter opener from the desk and pried at the seam until a thin panel of wood lifted away. Inside wasn't another file or contract. It was a photograph.
--------------------
Ave lifted it into the light, her hands trembling so badly she almost dropped it.
A woman with wild dark hair and bright, laughing eyes stared back at her. The kind of eyes that crinkled at the corners when she smiled, the kind of eyes Ave saw in the mirror every morning but never with that much life in them.
Seraphina.
Her mother looked so young in the photo—maybe mid-twenties. And standing beside her, arm draped over her shoulders like he owned her, was Denise.
Younger, yes. His hair darker, his face smoother. But the sharpness in his eyes was the same. That calculating coldness she knew too well. They weren't just standing together. They looked... close. Intimate.
Ave's stomach twisted. Scrawled along the white border in faded blue ink:
"S & D. The Beginning. '99.
Twenty years ago."
Her hands went numb. The photograph blurred as her eyes filled with tears she didn't understand.
Denise had known her mother. Not just known her .....been with her. And he'd never said a word. Not when they met. Not when he courted her. Not when he married her.
He'd looked at her across that café table two years ago and smiled like she was a stranger, like her mother's eyes staring back at him meant nothing.
Why?
The question burned in her throat. Why had he hidden this? Why had he never mentioned knowing Seraphina? And what had happened between them that led to... what? To her mother disappearing? To Ave ending up here, trapped in this house with a man who'd been part of her life long before she ever knew his name?
Outside, gravel crunched. Leo was moving.
Ave shoved the photograph into her pocket and slid the drawer back into place, her pulse hammering so loud she could barely hear anything else.
She made it out of the study and halfway up the stairs before the front door opened.
"Mrs. Whitmore?"
Leo's voice echoed through the foyer. Ave froze on the landing, one hand gripping the banister.
"Just needed to grab something from the kitchen," she called down, keeping her voice light. Normal. He appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her with those flat, unreadable eyes.
"Mr. Blanco asked me to check on you. Make sure you had everything you needed.
"I'm fine," Ave said, forcing a smile. "Just a headache. I was going to lie down."
Leo nodded slowly. "Let me know if you need anything."
He didn't move. Just stood there, watching her.
Ave turned and walked to the bedroom, feeling his gaze on her back the entire way.
---------------
She closed the door and leaned against it, pulling the photograph from her pocket with shaking hands.
Her mother's laughing face stared up at her. Young. Beautiful. Trapped in a moment twenty years gone. And beside her, Denise. Already planning something even then. Already calculating. Ave turned the photograph over.
There was writing on the back. Faded, in a different hand than the front.
"If you're reading this, it means he found you too."
Run."
Ave sank to the floor, the photograph clutched in both hands, her mother's warning burning into her vision. Ave's breath came in short, panicked gasps. The photograph shook in her trembling hands.
Downstairs, she heard Leo's footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Moving through the house like he owned it.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was a text from Denise:
"Dinner at 7. Wear the red dress. We have guests.
Guests. He'd never mentioned guests."
Another text followed immediately.
"And Ave? We really need to discuss your visits to my study. I think it's time we had a conversation about boundaries."
Her blood turned to ice.