Chapter 196: Chapter one hundred and ninety-six

Lena’s POV

The heavy electronic deadbolt disengaged with its familiar, metallic clack.

I sat back in the deep armchair near the cold stone hearth, bracing every nerve in my body for Wes’s return.

I had my shoulders set, my jaw clenched, and my mind sharpened for whatever psychological mind games he was going to throw at me next. I had spent the last two hours analyzing the room, measuring the guard intervals, and forcing down food to build my strength. I was ready to face him.

The heavy oak door swung slowly inward.

It wasn't Wes.

Victoria stepped across the threshold, her designer heels clicking softly against the dark hardwood before coming to a sudden, rigid halt.

She was wearing a tailored ivory coat that looked completely out of place in a mountain hideaway, though her silk headscarf was slightly askew and her usually immaculate hair was pulled back into a tight, severe bun.

Her posture was stiff—almost painfully locked—and her pale face was an unreadable mask of cold, controlled fury and hidden terror.

I sat completely frozen, my heart giving an erratic, violent thud against my ribs. I was genuinely, utterly surprised.

Of all the people in the world who could have walked through that heavy door, Victoria Lancaster—Sebastian’s ex-wife, Wes’s devoted mother, and a woman who had treated me with nothing but icy condescension since the day we met—was the absolute last person I expected to see in my prison.

Victoria turned and pushed the heavy door shut behind her until the latch caught with a soft, dull click. The electronic deadbolt didn't engage from the inside; she was here alone, without guards hovering directly behind her shoulder.

Neither of us spoke. No greetings were exchanged. No polite pleasantries masked the sudden, dramatic drop in the room's temperature.

The silence between us was icy, razor-sharp, and heavy enough to choke on.

Victoria stood a few feet away from the closed door, her arms folded tightly across her chest as if she were desperately trying to keep her whole body from shaking apart. Her knuckles were stark white where her manicured fingers dug violently into the soft ivory fabric of her coat sleeves.

For several agonizing seconds, she didn't even look directly at my face. Her sharp, calculating gaze drifted slowly around the space—taking in the high, impact-resistant windows with their thick ballistic glass, the elegant furnishings, the subtle surveillance cameras tucked into the crown molding, and the cleared tray sitting on the table.

She was cataloging the reality of this space, processing the chilling truth that this wasn't a temporary holding cell. It was a permanent cage built with terrifying precision.

Finally, her eyes settled back on me.

"So..."

Her voice was clipped, dry, and tight, stripped completely of the melodic, aristocratic tone she usually deployed when holding court at galas or commanding room service in five-star hotels.

"This is where you've ended up."

I let out a low, humorless laugh, leaning back slightly against the plush leather of the chair, my hands resting flat over my stomach in a defensive, protective instinct.

"Not exactly by choice, Victoria."

Victoria’s lips pressed into a paper-thin line, her nostril flaring slightly as she took a slow, sharp, audible breath through her nose.

"No," she murmured, her voice laced with a dark, bitter edge that sent a chill straight down my spine. "They never are."

I studied her face intently, refusing to break eye contact. The morning light filtering through the tinted window panes showed every fine line around her eyes and mouth.

She was furious. She was visibly shaken, her chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid hitches that betrayed her attempt at composure. She was deeply confused, her mind clearly struggling to process whatever horror she had just witnessed downstairs with her son.

But pity?

I searched her eyes for a single shred of human sympathy—for me, for my situation, or for the unborn life I was carrying inside me.

There wasn't even a trace.

Victoria looked me slowly up and down, her eyes narrowing as she swept her gaze over my rumpled green dress, stopping for a fraction of a second at my lower abdomen before snapping back up to lock onto my eyes.

"I've been asking myself something ever since yesterday when everything began to unravel," she said, her voice dropping into a low, venomous register that echoed softly against the high ceiling.

I didn't answer. I kept my mouth shut, watching her like a hawk, refusing to give her the satisfaction of a panicked reaction or a plea for help.

"How does it feel?" she asked softly.

I frowned slightly, tilting my head, my patience wearing thin. "What are you talking about?"

She took one slow, deliberate step closer to my chair, her heels making a dull, ominous thud against the Persian rug covering the hardwood floor.

"How does it feel knowing Sebastian is probably losing his mind because of you?"

The words hit me like a physical slap, the sheer, unexpected malice behind them making my breath catch in my throat. The words stung bitterly, burning straight through the defensive armor I had spent all morning constructing.

Victoria didn't stop. She saw the instant flash of pain across my features and seized upon it with the ruthless, desperate instinct of a cornered animal.

"You walked into this family, Lena, and everything has fallen apart since the moment you set foot in the building," she spat, her voice trembling with a dark, festering resentment that had clearly been brewing for months. "You dragged your past into our lives. You disrupted our corporate board. You turned my son against his own father, and now you have my ex-husband tearing his entire life to shreds searching for you like a madman."

I stared at her in absolute, stunned disbelief, my jaw tightening as raw, boiling outrage surged through my veins, replacing the initial shock.

"You think this is my fault?" I demanded, my voice rising, sharp and incredulous.

"Look around you, Victoria! I am locked in a fortified room against my will! Your son kidnapped me from a public road! He drugging me, he's keeping me prisoner, and you're standing there blaming me?"

"I think," Victoria said, stepping even closer until she was standing barely three feet away, her voice cutting through mine like a cold razor blade, "that nothing in this family has been the same since my husband decided you were worth destroying his entire relationship with his own son."

My chest tightened so painfully it felt like an iron band was snapping shut around my ribs, stealing the air right out of my lungs.

Even now. Even after standing in this room. Even after seeing the electronic locks, the surveillance cameras, and knowing that her own flesh and blood was keeping a pregnant woman captive in a hidden estate...

She still blamed me. In her twisted, deeply delusional reality, Wes was just a victim of circumstance, a poor boy pushed into a corner by a father who had dared to move on. In her mind, I was the poison that had ruined her perfect, untouchable world, and Wes was merely reacting to the chaos I had caused.

I took a slow, deep breath, forcing the violent rage in my blood to settle into something cold, steady, and lethal. I refused to let this woman see me break. I refused to let her dump her twisted guilt onto my shoulders.

"No," I said, my voice dropping into a low, unshakable register as I met her icy gaze head-on.

Victoria’s brow furrowed slightly, caught off guard by the absolute lack of fear in my tone. "What did you say?"

"Your family started falling apart long before I ever met Sebastian," I said, each word deliberate, clear, and sharp as broken glass.

Her eyes flashed with a sudden, dangerous fire, her fingers curling tightly into her palms. "Don't you dare talk about my family—"

"You spent years pretending Wes could do no wrong," I continued, standing up slowly from the armchair so I was eye-to-eye with her, refusing to let her loom over me for another second.

"You closed your eyes to his cruelty. You enabled his arrogance. You fed his toxic obsession with beating his father at every single turn because your own bitter ego couldn't handle being replaced."

Victoria stiffened, her jaw working silently as if she were trying to swallow glass.

"You sat back and watched him turn into a ruthless, calculating sociopath," I held her gaze with unflinching, burning fury, stepping forward until I was the one pressing the space between us.

"You don't get to stand in this room, looking at a lock on the door, and blame me for the monster he chose to become, Victoria. You helped build him."

For the very first time since she had walked through that door, the sharp, aristocratic armor cracked wide open. Victoria stood completely motionless, her mouth slightly open, her chest heaving violently as she stared at me. She had no immediate reply.

The raw, unvarnished truth had landed like a physical blow, heavy and unyielding, right in the center of her chest.

The silence stretched between us once more, thick, suffocating, and charged with an electric tension.

Victoria slowly broke her gaze, turning her head away toward the high, reinforced window where the grey mountain mist was swirling against the ballistic glass.

The venom in her posture seemed to drain away, replaced by something far more chilling—a hollow, haunting exhaustion that made her look ten years older than she had when she entered.

"You have no idea what you've walked into, Lena," she whispered quietly, her voice stripped of its angry, sharp bite. It was a hollow murmur, filled with a terrifying, heavy dread.

I narrowed my eyes, watching the sudden, drastic shift in her demeanor with deep suspicion.

"Then tell me," I challenged, stepping around the leather chair toward her, keeping my voice low and urgent. "If I'm so ignorant, enlighten me. What am I missing? What could possibly justify keeping me locked in this house?"

Victoria turned her head back to me very slowly. Her skin was ghastly pale, almost translucent under the dim room lights. She opened her mouth, her lips parting as if she were on the absolute precipice of spilling whatever dark, toxic poison was eating her alive from the inside out.

I held my breath, every single nerve in my body screaming for her to speak. I could see the battle waging behind her eyes—the desperate urge to confess, to scream, to unburden herself of a truth that was crushing her soul.

Then, her jaw tightened sharply. She closed her mouth, swallowing hard, the heavy shutters snapping closed behind her eyes once more.

The socialite mask, fractured as it was, settled back into place.

"Some truths destroy families," she murmured, her voice barely audible over the low, ambient hum of the HVAC vent near the ceiling. "Some secrets... there is no coming back from."

I took another step toward her, my hands balling into fists. "Victoria, if you know something that can stop this—"

Before I could demand what she meant—before I could push her past the terrifying edge she was standing on—the heavy electronic deadbolt outside disengaged with a loud, violent clack.

The oak door swung open, and Wes stepped casually into the room.