“You should be in your room, Violet.” His voice is composed, but there’s a roughness at the edges that wasn’t there at dinner.
I cover my shock with sarcasm, the only armor I have left.
“Didn’t peg you for the religious type.”
His jaw flexes. “I have... history with her.”
Her.Not the painting. The Madonna herself. Or someone the Madonna reminds him of.
I should leave, retreat to my room to analyze it. Instead, I hear myself pushing.
“Is this part of the tour? Dining room, solarium, armed guards, private gallery?”
He steps closer. Too close. Always too close. But he doesn’t touch me.
“Do you believe in anything, Violet?”
The question catches me off guard. Not rhetorical. Genuine. “I believe in what I can touch,” I say. “Stone. Pigment. Plaster.”
“And people?”
“People lie.”
Something flickers across his face. Agreement, maybe, or recognition.
“Go to bed,tesoro.” Softer. Dangerous in a different way. “This room isn’t for you.”
I walk away on unsteady legs. My heart pounds for reasons that have nothing to do with fear of violence. Everything to do with the crack I just saw.
Back in my room, I stare at the ceiling. The angels look different at night. Shadows pooling in the hollows of their painted faces, turning serenity into something more ambiguous.
I replay the image of him in front of the Madonna.
The set of his shoulders. The grief in his face. The way he shut it down the second he knew I was watching, like slamming a vault door on something precious.
My hand slides under the pillow, reaching for the caliper.
Gone.
My fingers find nothing but silk. Empty space where cold metal should be.
I tear the pillow off. Check the mattress, the floor, the gap between the bed frame and the wall. Nothing. Nothing.
The scream that rips out of me is muffled by the pillow I shove against my face. I bite down on silk and rage, hating him with every cell in my body for taking this too, this last small weapon, this final shred of control.
Bastard. Fucking bastard.
He saw me reach for it that night at dinner. He knew exactly where I hid it. And he waited, waited until I was comfortable, until I stopped checking every night, to take it away.
Everything I have, he takes. Everything I build, he dismantles. Every wall I construct, he walks right through.
I lie back on the bed. Stare at the angels. My pulse is still racing, but not just from anger anymore.
His face in the gallery. The grief. The shine in his eyes.
The monster has cracks.
12
