Without hesitation, I was ushered inside, into the dim corridors where the air felt suffocated, thick with the ghosts of hidden horrors.
The servant led me through halls I knew well—opulent, draped in finery meant to dazzle, to deceive.
But I knew better.
Every lavish tapestry concealed something.
A scream once stifled.
A body once broken.
A secret waiting to be unburied.
As I walked deeper into the lair of Lord Alexander, I prepared myself for the monster I was about to face.
The door to his study swung open, revealing the inner sanctum where power and depravity coiled together in a macabre embrace.
The hidden passageway to his dungeon loomed in the corner—a silent specter watching over the room, a reminder of its concealed horrors.
Elizabeth had walked down those steps.
Alone.
Armed only with her defiance and the weight of a name that no longer protected her.
My jaw tightened at the memory.She should not have seen what lay below.
She should not have been forced to carry that weight.
I wanted her safe—free from her father’s dark ambitions.And yet, she moved closer to the flame, willingly stepping into the abyss.
And the abyss would swallow her whole.
Unless I stopped it.
The cloying scent of cigar smoke curled through the air, its stench wrapping around me like rot.
I didn’t need to turn to know the source.
Lord Winston.
He fouled the very air, his bloated form spilling over the chair, lips slack around his cigar as if his body had long since given up the effort of holding itself together.
My stomach churned, repulsed by his stench, excess, and decay.
And yet—this was Elizabeth’s world.
This was the lineage she was bound to.
And I would destroy it all before I let it consume her.
I forced my expression into careful neutrality as I turned to Lord Alexander.
“Lord Alexander.”
My voice was cold steel wrapped in civility despite the bile rising in my throat.
His eyes met mine—a predator assessing another.
