“You are healing so well, Grace,” he says, his voice cutting through my fugue state. The sound is like a stone dropped into still water; the ripples reach me whether I want them to or not.
I don’t answer. I stare at a particular thistle on the ceiling, imagining it cracking.
Why the fuck does he say my actual name now?Why does he try to pretend that he cares? I was his dog, his pet, his whore to fuck and share. All of this, all this farce is just that and I know what he plans, what his intentions are. He wants to lure me back, wants to turn me back into that naïve, stupid little girl that believed he was different, that believed I could change him. Well, that’s not going to happen.
He doesn’t seem to mind my silence anymore. He has grown accustomed to it, perhaps he even prefers this quiet, broken version of me. I’m easier to manage. Easier to wash, dress, and display.
He lifts me from the water as if I weigh nothing. My limbs are boneless, my strength siphoned away by the needles and the hopelessness. He wraps me in the towel like it’s a shroud, his hands rubbing warmth into my arms, my back. Each stroke is a violation. This false care, this performance of devotion is more degrading than any act of hatred.
It rewrites my reality, painting me as a cherished wife instead of the condemned prisoner I really am.
He carries me to the bed and dresses me in a silk nightgown, another expensive shackle. As he buttons the front, his knuckles brush against my skin. A tremor, tiny and involuntary, runs through me. He feels it. A slow smile touches his lips. He mistakes it for a response, for the flicker of something he can nurture into submission. He either doesn’t know or refuses to believe it is actually pure, undiluted revulsion.
He tucks me under the duvet just as a nurse appears at the connecting door to the nursery. She nods once. “He’s taken his bottle and is sleeping soundly, Mr Macrae.”
“Thank you, Agnes,” Antonio says, his voice warm with paternal pride. The performance is for everyone.
He climbs into bed beside me, shifting close, his body heat an oppressive force. His arm snakes around me, pulling my back against his chest. I am a spoon in his drawer. I lie there, trapped in his embrace and stare at the canopy above.
All the while, beneath the chemical calm a single thought beats, steady and sharp.
When?
It’s not a question ofif. The ‘if’ was decided the first time he locked a door behind me. The ‘if’ was cemented when I saw the look in his eyes as he held our son for the first time, not as a child but as a new, unbreakable chain to bind me.
Whenam I going to get the chance?
The nurses are always there. Antonio is almost always here. The windows don’t open, the doors are locked. My body is still weak, but the countdown in my head has two timelines.
The first is his: twenty-eight days until he can resume ownership of my body.
The second, mine: an unknown number of days, hours, minutes until I find a moment of true solitude. A moment where the watchful eyes are averted, where the drugs have worn off just enough for my hands to be steady.
I need something sharp.
A shard of glass from a broken picture frame. A knife from the kitchen, if I could ever get down there alone. Or maybe just a handful of the pills he forces down my throat. A whole handful, swallowed dry would do it. A final act of defiance. You cannot wash a corpse. You cannot hold a rotting body.
He nuzzles my hair, his breathing evening out into sleep. His hold on me tightens, a final, unconscious clutch of possession.
I keep my eye open, staring into the darkness.
I am counting. I am waiting.
The sponge has been put away, but the stone inside me is gathering its weight, and it is only a matter of time before it falls.
The weight of my child is a miracle in my arms.
Caspian is so small, a warm, breathing bundle of flannel and milk-scented sleep. His head, covered in a dark fuzz that is so like my own, rests in the crook of my elbow. His tiny rosebud mouth is slack, his breaths coming in soft, rhythmic puffs against my shirt.
The Brethren have reformed, have regrouped. Our Grand Master revealed to everyone the truth of his assassination, and we have never been stronger.Ihave never been stronger.
As I hold my son with a reverence I never knew I possessed, I know my future, my family’s future, my entire bloodline is secure.
I pace the soft carpets of the nursery, a room I designed to be a fortress of peace, of domestic bliss. Filled with white furniture, soft grey walls, mobiles of spun silver turning lazily in the draft from the climate control. I lean down, my lips brushing the shell of his perfect ear, and I whisper stories. Fairytales. Stories fit for an infant’s ears. I tell him about dragons, monsters, and princesses in high towers.
This son of mine, this sole heir to the Macrae empire. I will teach him everything. I will mould him, I will protect him the only way I can, by ensuring he becomes a carbon copy of me; ruthless, meticulous, deadly.
I glance towards the doorway. Grace was standing there a moment ago, leaning against the frame, watching us. Her arms were crossed, but her posture wasn’t defensive. It was… contemplative. The hard, glittering anger in her eyes has been absent for days, replaced by a deep, weary exhaustion that I chose to interpret as surrender.
