This changes everything, but one thing remains constant—I will not lose her. Not to Prescott, her father, or anyone.
Vivianne's eyes find mine one last time. A promise passes between us, unspoken but binding.
This isn't over. Not by a long shot.
THIRTEEN
Vivianne: Brigitte
The mansion sleeps around me,a behemoth of stone and shadow that feels more like a mausoleum than a home. My bare feet whisper against the plush carpet as I navigate halls I've known my entire life, yet tonight they feel foreign. Menacing. Moonlight spills through the towering windows, painting everything in shades of silver and doubt.
My pulse hammers against my ribs. Each step toward the west wing tightens the vise around my chest, makes my breath come shorter, faster. The air feels thick, pressing against my skin like a physical weight. Every creak of the floorboards sends a jolt of adrenaline through my system, and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.
I shouldn't be doing this. Father would?—
No. I push the thought away. I'm done being the obedient daughter who asks permission to breathe.
The west wing looms ahead, its doorway a dark mouth waiting to swallow me whole. Father sealed these rooms the day after Grandmother's funeral, as if grief could be contained behind a locked door, as if memories could be buried along with the dead.
I wasn't allowed to say goodbye to her space, to sit one last time at her vanity, or curl up in her reading chair where she used to read to me. Just like I was too young to say goodbye to Mother when she died, too small to understand that gone meant forever.
Everyone I've ever loved has been taken from me or locked away.
The brass doorknob is cold beneath my trembling fingers. I half-expect it to be locked, half-expect Father to have changed the locks or installed some security measure I don't know about. This house is full of secrets I'm not privy to, after all. Hidden safes. Concealed vaults. Lies stacked upon lies.
But the knob turns. The door yields.
Musty air rushes out to greet me, thick with dust and the ghost of Chanel No. 5—Grandmother's signature scent. It hits me like a physical blow, and for a moment, I can't breathe. Can't move. I'm six years old again, pressing my face into her cardigan, inhaling that smell of lavender and face powder and safety.
Except she wasn't safe, was she? She never stood up to her own son. Never protected me. Never fought.
I slip inside and ease the door shut behind me, my pulse thundering so loud I'm certain someone will hear it. Darkness presses in, oppressive and complete. My fingers fumble along the wall, searching for the switch. When I find it, soft lamplight blooms, and I have to bite back a gasp.
It's exactly as she left it. As if she just stepped out for tea and will return any moment to find me snooping through her things.
The room is frozen in time—her reading glasses folded on the side table, a book still marked with a ribbon at page one hundred and forty-three. Her slippers arranged neatly beside the bed. The throw blanket she crocheted draped over the armchair by the window, the one where she'd sit for hours watching the gardens.
Her gardens. The only place in this entire estate that felt warm.
My throat tightens. Grief wells up, sharp and unexpected, after all these years. I force it down, swallow it back. I'm not here to mourn. I'm here for answers.
I move to her vanity, its ornate mirror reflecting my pale face back at me. My fingers trail across the surface, leaving tracks in the dust. One by one, I ease open drawers, rifling through forgotten treasures that smell of another lifetime. A tarnished silver hairbrush with a few gray hairs still caught in its bristles. Faded ribbons in colors she favored—dusty rose, sage green. A half-empty bottle of Chanel No. 5.
Nothing. Just the detritus of a life lived small. Confined. Silent.
Frustration builds in my chest, hot and tight. There has to be something here. Something that explains why Father reacted so violently to those paintings, why that ruby necklace matters so much, why everything in this family feels like a carefully constructed lie.
A glint of gold catches my eye. Tucked beneath a silk scarf, nearly hidden, is a locket I've never seen before. My breath catches as I lift it. The metal warms in my palm, and my hands shake as I pry it open.
Two photos. One of my grandmother as a young woman—but not the grandmother I knew. This woman is radiant, her eyes bright with mischief, her smile wide and uninhibited. She's beautiful in a way that steals my breath. Alive in a way I never saw her.
The other photo shows a man I don't recognize. Dark hair, intense eyes, a smile that suggests he knows secrets worth keeping. He's devastatingly handsome in that old-fashioned way, and something about the set of his jaw reminds me of?—
No. It can't be.
But the way he looks at the camera, as if seeing right through it to the person holding it... it's the same way Paul looks at me.
My search grows frantic. There has to be more. I run my hands along the underside of the vanity, feeling for anything unusual. My fingers find a slight unevenness, barely perceptible. I press, and?—
