The sound of something heavy dragging across the floor. The sound of wood splintering. The sound of someone—or something—hunting.
"Charlène, don't move."
Her mother's voice was a sharp whisper. They were in the kitchen, but it didn't feel like home anymore. It felt like a trap. Charlène was eleven, her fingers locked tight around five-year-old Leo's hand. He was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering.
"What is that? What's that noise?" Charlène asked. She could hear her father shouting in the other room, then a sudden, sickening silence.
Her mother didn't answer. She grabbed a rug on the floor and kicked it aside, revealing a small wooden hatch. She pulled it open.
"Hide here. Take care of your brother. Don't come out," her mother said, her voice trembling but firm.
"Where are you going?"
"Your father is in trouble. I have to go save him."
She ushered them into the dark, cramped hole under the floorboards. It was a tight squeeze, smelling of dust and old earth. As Charlène climbed down, she looked at her mother's face. She looked terrified, but she was reaching into her pocket.
She pulled out the key.
The blackened-gold metal caught the dim light. Charlène stared at it. Her mother was obsessed with that key. She never let Charlène touch it. She never let anyone near it. It was her most precious possession, and now, she was pressing it into Charlène's hand.
"This is a form of help, Charlène. One day, you'll need it," her mother whispered. "I won't be here for a long time. Protect it. Keep it. Do not lose it."
Charlène took the key, her fingers curling around the cold metal. She didn't understand what a key could do against the sounds she was hearing.
"Stay hidden," her mother whispered one last time.
Then, the hatch slammed shut.
Charlène sat in the dark, holding Leo against her chest. She found a small knothole in the wood, a tiny circle of light. She leaned forward, peering through it, watching her mother's back as she stood in the kitchen.
Suddenly, Charlène's breath hitched.
Something was behind her mother. Something huge.
Charlène opened her mouth to scream, to warn her, but her mother's words echoed in her head: Don't make a sound.
She watched through the tiny hole as the thing moved. It was fast. Before her mother could even turn around, there was a sharp, wet crack. Her mother's neck snapped like a twig. Her body slumped to the floor, landing right on top of the hatch where they were hiding.
Charlène felt the impact. She saw her mother's lifeless hand through the crack in the wood.
She didn't scream. She couldn't. She just reached out and clamped her hand over Leo's eyes, pulling him close as the tears ran down her face in the dark.
....
Charlène snapped her eyes open. She was drenched in sweat, her heart thudding against her ribs. She looked around the dark, expensive room, waiting for the beast to jump out of the shadows.
It wasn't a dream. It was the truth. It was the reason she had the key, and the reason she was a phantom.
She looked at her hand, expecting to see the key, but it was empty. Lucien had it.
She sat up, her breath hitching as she realized someone was watching her.
Lucien was leaning against the far wall, his silhouette dark against the window. He didn't say anything at first. He just watched her shake.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Charlène snapped, wiping her face.
"You were crying for your mother, Charlène." He walked toward the bed.
He stopped at the edge of the bed and held it out. The blackened-gold key dangled from his fingers.
"Tell me," Lucien whispered, his hazel eyes locking onto hers. "What happened?"
Charlène stared at the key.
She didn't want to tell him. She wanted to bite back. B...but the sound of the floorboard was still ringing in her ears.
"It was a slaughter," she whispered. Her voice sounded small, like the eleven-year-old girl still hiding in the dark.
She began to talk. The words came out in a rush, stumbling over each other. She told him about the rug, the hidden hatch, and the weight of her mother's body falling directly over her head. She told him about the key—how it was the last thing her mother ever gave her, a gift given seconds before her life was stolen.
As she reached the part about her mother's hand—the hand she could see through the crack in the wood—her voice broke. A sob escaped her, jagged and painful.
To her surprise, the bed shifted.
Lucien began to move towards her. He sat beside her, and before she could pull away, his arms were around her. He pulled her into him, his chest a solid, warm wall against her shaking frame.
Charlène stiffened. Her instinct was to fight, to push him away and remind him that she still hated him for the contract, for taking her freedom. But her body wouldn't listen. She was exhausted, drained by a decade of carrying that secret alone.
She leaned into him, her forehead resting against his shoulder, and she let herself cry. She cried for her mother, for the girl she used to be, and for the brother she was currently losing.
Lucien didn't say "it's okay" or "don't cry." He just held her. His grip was firm, possessive in a way that felt strangely protective rather than restrictive. For a few minutes, he wasn't the De Rossi heir or the man who had blackmailed her; he was just a person holding her together while she fell apart.
She knew this wouldn't last. She knew that as soon as the sun came up, she'd be angry again. She'd remember the ring on her finger and the key in his pocket. They would quarrel, they would fight, and she would go back to looking for a way to break him.
But right now, in the silence of the room, he was the only thing keeping the shadows at bay.
"Why are you doing this?" she choked out against his shirt.
Lucien didn't answer immediately.
His hand stilled against her back.
For a fraction of a second — barely there — his jaw tightened.
Charlène didn't notice.
She was too busy trying to breathe.
But something had shifted.
Lucien looked over her head, toward the dark window, his reflection staring back at him like an accusation. His fingers brushed the back of her neck, almost unconsciously… almost like he was reassuring himself that she was real.
Alive.
Here.
Safe.
If she pulled back right now and looked at him closely, she would have seen it.
Guilt.
A quiet, coiled guilt that sat behind his ribs like a blade he had swallowed years ago.
Because what Charlène didn't know—
What she could never imagine—
Was that Lucien knew.