Chapter 4 Whispering walls

Zara's POV

Sleep was a stranger that night.

The Martins' mansion felt wrong in the dark-too pristine, too polished, as though its silence was carefully staged. It wasn't the kind of quiet that comforted. It was the kind that listened.

I turned in bed for what felt like the hundredth time, my body restless, my mind louder than the night itself. The memory of Leon's hand still lingered on my skin, a phantom touch I couldn't shake. Protective. Possessive. Calculated. I knew better than to mistake it for affection... Leon Martins wasn't built for tenderness. But there had been a flicker in his eyes, a fleeting second where I felt seen.

And that was the most dangerous thing of all.

I couldn't stay in the bed another moment. Sliding out, I padded barefoot across the marble, my robe trailing like a whisper behind me. The chill that kissed my skin wasn't from the air but from the house itself, as though the walls exhaled secrets.

Since the wedding, unease had been growing inside me like a thorned vine.

Leon's warning about the west wing.

His voice on the phone.

She won't last the year.

The words replayed in my head, sharp and merciless. Last. Gone. Forgotten.

They wouldn't let me rest.

The hallway stretched ahead, drenched in muted gold from the chandeliers. Shadows clung to every corner, stretching long and dark as if they wanted to swallow me whole. My pulse quickened with each step, but my feet carried me forward anyway, curiosity stronger than fear.

The west wing came into view like a forbidden forest. Its double doors were heavier, darker, carved with strange, curling patterns that looked less like decoration and more like warnings. I pressed my ear to the wood. Silence.

That silence dared me.

And I pushed it open.

The air that met me was colder, tinged with cedar and something metallic that clung to the back of my throat. The hallway beyond stretched endlessly, lined with portraits. But they weren't of the Martins family. These were strangers-men in suits, women veiled, children with hollow eyes. Some faces had blurred with age, but others had been deliberately ruined, the eyes scratched out as though someone had tried to erase them from existence.

A shiver crawled down my spine.

Then I heard it. A soft click. Footsteps.

I froze.

Leon's voice cut through the silence, low, controlled, lethal in its calm. He was on the phone.

"...No, it's handled. The senator is in no position to fight back. His daughter is nothing but leverage. A cover."

Leverage. Cover.

My father.

Me.

The words hit me like ice water, chilling me from the inside out. I clamped a hand over my mouth before the sound of my breath betrayed me. This marriage wasn't just cold. It was calculated. I wasn't a wife. I was a pawn.

My body trembled as I slipped behind a column, hidden in shadow. Every instinct screamed at me to run back, to pretend I hadn't heard. But another part of me-reckless, furious-wanted to step out, to confront him, to demand the truth.

The footsteps grew closer.

"Who's there?"

His voice was sharper now, dangerous. The kind of voice that could end things with a word.

I didn't move. Didn't breathe.

The phone buzzed again. After a long pause, Leon cursed under his breath and answered, his tone clipped, shifting back into command. His footsteps receded, swallowed by the hall.

Only when the silence returned did I let myself collapse against the wall, my chest heaving. My world tilted, spinning out of control. Leon hadn't just married me to bury a secret. He was the secret.

And I had just stumbled into the center of it.

I slipped back toward my room, silent as the shadows, my mind racing with everything I'd heard.

Leon Martins wasn't hiding only a west wing.

He was hiding the truth behind my family's destruction.

And if I wasn't careful, he would bury me with it.