Chapter 6 A Cage With a View

The letter arrived the next morning. No name. No seal. Just a thin, cream-colored envelope slipped under Emilia's door like a whisper.

She stared at it for a long moment before picking it up.

Inside was a single sentence, written in ink that looked too dark to be red.

"Ask him what really happened to your father."

Her fingers trembled.

She read it again. And again.

Then she burned it in the fireplace.

She didn't tell Lucien. Not immediately. Not while her pulse thundered and her mind screamed questions she wasn't ready to ask. Instead, she went about her day like nothing had changed, helping Rosa in the kitchen, reading in the garden, walking the long halls like she belonged in them.

But the words haunted her.

What really happened.

That night, Lucien didn't come to dinner. Again.

He'd been more distant since the night in the greenhouse. She could feel it, how he vanished before she could catch his gaze, how his voice clipped short when she got too close.

As if he was trying to undo something that had already unraveled.

Emilia didn't sleep.

She waited until the house was quiet. Until even the night guards were nothing more than faint shadows at the end of the corridor. Then she went to the study.

The door was unlocked.

Inside, the fireplace crackled low, and Lucien sat in the armchair, one hand curled around a glass of something amber. He didn't look up when she entered.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked without turning.

"No," she said. "You?"

He took a slow sip, then set the glass down. "I don't sleep much."

Emilia stepped closer, her heart pounding. "Lucien?" His jaw flexed. "You only say my name when you want something."

"Is that a problem?"

He looked at her now. "Depends what it is."

She hesitated. Then said, very quietly, "What happened to my father?"

Lucien stilled.

For a heartbeat, two, he said nothing. Then he rose and crossed the room to the bookshelf, his back to her. "Who told you to ask that?"

"No one," she lied. "But I need to know."

Lucien ran a hand through his hair. "He stole from me."

"I know that."

"He betrayed my trust."

"I know that too."

He turned slowly, eyes unreadable. "Then what do you want me to say, Emilia? That I had him killed? That I buried him in a field somewhere like your mother probably feared? Would that satisfy you?"

Her breath caught. "Is that what you did?"

"No," he said.

Relief washed over her, sharp and dizzying. But it didn't last.

"I should have," Lucien added. "But I didn't."

"Then where is he?"

Lucien looked at her with something like pity. "Gone. Prison. Exile. Death. Take your pick. He didn't die by my hand, but he might as well have."

"You left him to die."

"I left him to answer for what he did."

Emilia's voice shook. "You could've helped him."

"And he could've not used his daughter as collateral." The words hit like a slap. She stared at him, stunned. "What are you talking about?"

Lucien stepped forward, slowly, each word weighted. "Your father didn't just run with my money, Emilia. He traded you to buy himself time."

"No," she said. "You're lying."

"I wish I was."

Her knees gave out, and she sank into the nearest chair. Lucien didn't move.

"He thought I wouldn't touch a child," he said. "He was right. But the message it sent, letting him go unpunished, was something I couldn't afford. So I took you. I kept you. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed people to know what happens when you gamble with lives."

Tears burned her eyes. "I was a warning."

Lucien's voice softened. "At first."

A long silence stretched between them.

Then Emilia whispered, "And now?"

He didn't answer.

Couldn't.

Instead, he turned back to the window, the glass in his hand once again.

And this time, when he spoke, his voice was low and broken. "Now I don't know what you are to me."

She left before he could say more. Because she wasn't sure what he was to her anymore, either.