The air vanished from my lungs. My back pressed against the cold, unforgiving wood paneling of the corridor, the intricate carvings digging into my spine. Vincent filled the doorway, a silhouette carved from shadow and blood. The coppery stench of violence mixed sickeningly with the faint, expensive sandalwood of his cologne. The lead-crystal paperweight, dark and wet, hung loosely from his fingers. A single drop of blood detached itself, falling with agonizing slowness to splatter on the polished floorboards at his feet. Plink.
His gaze held mine – grey pits absorbing all light, all hope. No rage. No shouting. Just that terrifying, absolute stillness, broken only by the faint rise and fall of his chest beneath the immaculate, blood-spattered shirt. The ghost of that cold, predatory smile still touched his lips. It wasn't amusement. It was assessment. Calculating the value, the threat, the use of the unexpected witness trembling before him.
"See something you shouldn't have, wife?" he repeated, the word venomous . He took another deliberate step forward, crossing the threshold from the abattoir of his study into the corridor. The distance between us shrank, charged with the static of impending violence. I could see the fine spray of crimson marring the perfect line of his jaw, the dark stain blooming like a morbid flower on the crisp white cuff of his shirt. His knuckles, gripping the paperweight, were white.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird trying to break free. My throat was sandpaper, my limbs leaden weights. Nyx, the observer, screamed uselessly in the back of my terror-frozen mind: Blind spot near the Ming vase! Service stairs twenty paces behind! But my body refused to obey. Flight was impossible. He moved with the lethal grace of a predator, and he was between me and any conceivable escape route.
His eyes swept over me, head to toe, a dispassionate inventory. The cream cashmere sweater suddenly felt flimsy, inadequate armor. He noted my bare feet, the tremor in my hands clenched at my sides, the stark pallor I knew must be leaching the color from my face. He saw the abject terror, and it seemed to deepen that chilling stillness.
"Curiosity," he murmured, the word a low rumble that vibrated in the silence. He tilted his head slightly, the movement unnervingly birdlike. "A dangerous trait in this house, Penelope. Especially when it leads you… places you were explicitly forbidden to go." His gaze flickered pointedly towards the open study door, then back to me. "Rule Four. Privacy. Did you find it… educational?"
The clinical detachment in his voice was worse than any shout. He wasn't angry; he was stating a fact. I had transgressed. I had witnessed. The consequences were now a mathematical equation only he could solve. My mouth opened, but no sound emerged, only a dry, panicked gasp.
He took another step. Now he was close enough that the metallic tang of blood filled my nostrils, overwhelming the cologne. Close enough that I could see the flecks of darker brown in his irises, the faint lines of fatigue or ruthlessness etched beside his eyes. Close enough to kill me before I could blink.
He didn't raise the paperweight. He simply held it, a casual, brutal reminder of what it had just done. His free hand lifted, not towards me aggressively, but slowly, deliberately. He reached for my left hand where it was pressed flat against the paneling. My fingers flinched, curling instinctively, but he was relentless. His grip closed around my wrist. It wasn't painful, not yet. It was cold, firm, unyielding. Like manacles.
He lifted my hand, forcing it upwards. My eyes widened, fixed on his face, expecting the paperweight to descend. Instead, he turned my hand palm up. His thumb, surprisingly smooth and cool, brushed over the cold, heavy diamond of my wedding ring. The symbol of our transaction. The shackle.
"This," he said softly, his eyes locked on the glittering stone, then lifting to meet mine with devastating intensity, "represents a contract. Protection for your family. Erasure of a debt." His thumb pressed down on the diamond, hard enough to make the band bite into my finger. "In exchange for… certain obligations. Including obedience. Including respecting boundaries." His gaze flickered again towards the study. "You broke the contract, Penelope."
The accusation hung in the air, thick and suffocating. He wasn't threatening my father yet. He was stating a fundamental breach. My value as a compliant asset had plummeted. I was now a liability. A witness.
He lowered my hand, but didn't release my wrist. His grip tightened fractionally, a silent warning. His obsidian eyes bored into mine, stripping away any pretense, any hope. "You saw," he stated, flatly. It wasn't a question. "You saw what happens to those who betray me. To those who defy me. To those who… know too much."
The implication slammed into me with physical force. Like you. The silence stretched, taut as a garrote. I could hear the frantic drumming of my own pulse in my ears, the soft, almost imperceptible drip of blood from the paperweight onto the floor. His expression remained impassive, but the intensity in his eyes was terrifying. He was weighing my fate.
Then, the faintest shift. A tightening around his eyes, a minute hardening of his jaw. The predator assessing the prey, deciding whether to kill, to maim, or… something else.
"So," he murmured, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous purr that vibrated through my bones. His thumb moved again, not on the diamond this time, but tracing a slow, chilling circle on the pulse point of my trapped wrist. Feeling the frantic rabbit-beat of my terror. "Now you know the price of disobedience. The cost of prying eyes." He leaned in closer. His breath ghosted over my temple, cold as the grave. "What," he whispered, the sound barely audible yet shattering the silence like glass, "should I do with you, Mrs. de la Rosa?"