Alana POV
"Stellen."
The name hung in the damp air of the basement, suspended like a guillotine blade waiting to drop.
Austen froze on the stairs.
His arms, which had been anchoring me tight against his chest, turned to stone.
He looked down at me, his eyes wide, the pupils dilating until they swallowed the irises completely.
For a second, the monster was gone.
Only the terrified boy from the crawlspace remained.
"What did you say?" His voice was a jagged whisper, barely audible over the drumming of my own heart.
My head swam.
The pain in my ribs was a dull roar, drowning out my survival instincts.
I had slipped.
I had shown a card I was supposed to keep hidden until the game was over.
"I..." I stammered, my tongue thick and clumsy. "I saw it."
"Saw what?" He shook me, just a little. "Where did you see that name? No one knows that name."
I had to lie.
If I told him the truth now, while I was broken and bleeding in his arms, he wouldn't believe me.
Or worse, Joyce would twist it.
She would say I stole her diary. She would claim I was trying to steal her glory again.
"An old ledger," I wheezed, closing my eyes against the harsh light spilling from the open door. "In your study. It said Stellen."
The tension in his shoulders didn't ease.
"Liar," he breathed, though the conviction was missing from his tone.
"Austen!"
The shriek tore through the moment like shattered glass.
Joyce appeared at the top of the stairs.
She was clutching her cheek, her face contorted in a mask of fake agony.
"She's manipulating you!" Joyce screamed, pointing a manicured finger at us like an accusation from God. "She attacked me! She tried to kill your savior, and now she's playing the victim!"
The doubt in Austen's eyes vanished.
The boy was gone.
The Don returned.
He looked from me to Joyce, his jaw tightening until a muscle ticked violently in his cheek.
"You are too much, Alana," he said coldly.
He didn't drop me, but he might as well have.
The way he held me changed instantly.
It wasn't protective anymore.
It was a captor transporting cargo.
"I didn't touch her," I said, but my voice was too weak to carry the weight of the truth.
"Enough," he growled.
He carried me up the stairs and set me down in the hallway.
Not gently.
My feet hit the floor, and agony shot up my legs like lightning.
"Go to your room," he ordered. "I need to tend to Joyce."
He turned his back on me.
He walked toward her, reaching out to cup the cheek I had slapped.
The cheek that deserved to be bruised.
Something inside me hollowed out.
It wasn't anger.
It was the finality of a door locking.
I didn't go to my room.
I turned and walked toward the front door.
"Alana," Austen barked without looking back. "Bedroom."
I opened the heavy oak door.
Rain lashed against the porch, a torrential downpour that smelled of ozone and freedom.
I stepped out.
"Alana!"
I kept walking.
I stepped off the porch and into the driveway.
The rain soaked my dress instantly, plastering the silk to my battered ribs.
The cold was shocking.
It numbed the throbbing in my hand.
I walked until my legs gave out, collapsing onto the wet asphalt of the driveway.
I didn't try to get up.
I just lay there, letting the water wash away the blood on my arm.
Darkness took me before he did.
I woke up in the infirmary again.
Austen was sleeping in the chair next to the bed.
His hand was resting near mine, but not touching it.
He looked exhausted.
Good.
I hoped he never slept peacefully again.
I didn't speak to him when he woke up.
I didn't speak to him the next day.
Or the day after.
I became a ghost in my own home.
A week later, I was walking in the garden.
My ribs were still taped, my breathing shallow.
I stumbled on an uneven paver near the rose bushes.
A hand caught my elbow.
"Careful, Mrs. Ballard."
It was the new gardener.
A boy, barely twenty.
He had kind eyes and dirt under his fingernails.
"Thank you," I whispered.
It was the first time I had spoken in seven days.
He smiled. "These stones are tricky when they're wet. Let me help you to the bench."
He didn't grip me.
He supported me.
"Get your hands off her."
The voice was a low rumble of thunder.
Austen was standing on the terrace.
He moved faster than a man of his size should be able to move.
He was on us in seconds.
He didn't ask questions.
He didn't look at me.
He grabbed the boy by the throat and slammed him into the trellis.
Wood snapped.
Thorns tore into the boy's skin.
"Austen, stop!" I screamed.
He didn't stop.
He punched the boy in the stomach, then the face.
The sound of fist meeting flesh was wet and sickening.
"She is mine!" Austen roared, his eyes wild. "You do not touch what is mine!"
The boy slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Austen turned to me, his chest heaving, his knuckles bloody.
He reached for me.
"Did he hurt you?" he asked, his voice trembling with adrenaline.
I didn't flinch.
I stepped forward and slapped him.
It was weak-my hand was still healing-but the impact was enough to snap his head to the side.
"I am not a thing," I hissed. "I am not a possession you can guard with your fists while you sleep with the woman who destroys me."
He stared at me, shock replacing the rage.
"Alana-"
"Don't."
I turned to leave.
Joyce was standing by the fountain.
She had watched the whole thing.
She was smiling.
As I passed her, she leaned in close.
Her perfume was cloying, suffocating.
"He knows," she whispered.
I stopped.
"He knows I lie," she purred, her voice dripping with venom. "He knows I didn't save him. But he chooses me anyway. Because he owes me a life debt, and in his twisted head, paying that debt means destroying you."
She laughed softly.
"You're just the collateral damage, sister."
