Chapter 3 HOUSE OF TWO FACES
CHAPTER THREE
THE HOUSE OF TWO FACES
The car stopped, but I didn’t know where.
My eyes were still covered.
The blindfold was tied so tight around my head that each heartbeat echoed behind my eyelids. I could only hear the low voices of guards, the click of weapons, the heaviness of silence that warned me I was somewhere far away from anything familiar.
“We don’t want you knowing the route to the house,” one of the guards said. “If you don’t know the way, you won’t think of escaping.”
Escape.
The word almost made me laugh. As if I had anywhere to go.
They switched me into another car at some point, but I didn’t ask why. I didn’t speak at all. My throat felt glued shut with fear.
Time moved in strange shapes.
Sometimes fast.
Sometimes painfully slow.
When the blindfold finally came off, my lungs forgot how to work.
A mansion stood in front of me.
No. Not a mansion.A kingdom made of stone and silence.
It was breathtaking in a way that made my stomach twist. Gothic towers reached into the night sky, the walls carved with monstrous statues and ancient-looking symbols. The windows on one side glowed a deep red, as if holding fire inside.
That entire half was covered in darkness and shadows.
But the other half…The other half looked like a dream from a children’s storybook.
Soft pink paint.
Warm golden lights.Flowers hanging from balconies.Bright curtains.
Two worlds breathing under one roof.
Two souls living in one monster.
I didn’t know whether to step closer or run.
“Come,” the guard said, snapping me out of my horror. “Don’t keep Master waiting.”
I followed him inside because I had no choice. The air grew colder the moment we stepped through the door, like the house itself inhaled and held its breath.
“Kneel here,” the guard ordered.
I dropped to my knees so fast they scraped the marble. Pain shot up my legs but I stayed still, head bowed, hands shaking in my lap. I didn’t want to die. Not like the girl earlier. Not like anyone else who crossed him.
I stayed there in the suffocating silence, listening to my heartbeat trying to escape my chest.
Then I heard it.
Footsteps.
Slow, calm, almost bored.
Coming down the wide staircase like a king approaching his throne.
The sound alone made me tremble.
“Nanny,” his voice rolled through the room, deep and steady.
“Yes, Master,” an older woman replied, her voice shaking.
“Where is the caregiver who made Micky cry?” he asked, as if discussing the weather.
I kept my head bowed, too afraid to breathe too loudly.
Two guards dragged a young woman forward. She was whimpering, her hands bound behind her.
“I am sorry, Master,” she cried. “I didn’t know Micky hated being yelled at. I only tried to help. I swear… I didn’t….”
The gunshot tore the air apart.
My scream ripped out of me before I even understood what happened. I jerked backward, slipping on the marble.
Her body lay crumpled a few feet away.
One clean bullet hole in the center of her forehead.
Blood pooling.
Her eyes still open.
I slapped a hand over my mouth as a sob tore through me. I crawled away from her lifeless body, shaking so hard my teeth rattled.
The guards dragged her away like she was nothing more than trash.
My breath broke.
My chest felt tight.
I felt the room tilt around me.
I cried openly now, loud and uncontrollable.
I didn’t care.
Then I felt it.A stare.A presence.
And I looked up.
He was nothing like what I imagined.
Nothing like the rumors described.
Nothing like the monster I expected.
Kane Draven was young. Maybe early thirties.
Tall. Broad shoulders.
Dark hair falling over his forehead.Eyes cold and sharp, the color of a storm at sea.
He was too handsome, too clean, too impossibly put together for someone who had just killed a girl without blinking.
He stared at me like I was a puzzle that offended him.
Then he smirked.
He walked toward me slowly, each step measured, controlled. When he reached me, he crouched and gripped my chin, tilting my face up to his.
His touch was warm.
His stare was lethal.
“You look so much like her,” he whispered.
My stomach twisted.
Her.
Who was her?
“But you are nothing like her.”
His thumb brushed my cheek.
My skin burned where he touched.
“You are scared.”
His voice was almost amused.
“You should be. I didn’t pay seven hundred million to keep you relaxed.”
“Samantha Veil,” he continued, tasting my name like it belonged to him. “Twenty three. Orphan. Raised by your grandmother until she died. And then you married a man who married you for your house.”
My eyes burned with shame and pain.
“You murdered him,” Kane added casually, like it was a fact in a book he was summarizing.
“I didn’t kill Liam,” I whispered, voice choking. “I didn’t.”
His hand moved so fast I didn’t even see it coming.
The back of his knuckles struck my cheek, not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to shock me.
“You only speak when I permit you,” he said quietly.
The humiliation stung more than the slap.
“You are a mutate,” he continued. “And the only reason you are breathing is because I need someone to take my anger out on. Someone who won’t break too easily.”
My stomach dropped.
His anger.
On me???
I swallowed the scream rising in my throat.
He stood up and turned toward the stairs.
“Nanny will brief you on my likes and dislikes,” he said, his voice echoing off the marble walls. “You will learn fast. Or you won’t last.”
He took three steps up before stopping again.
His head turned slightly.
“Oh. And one more thing.”
I froze.
“The other mansion,” he said, nodding toward the pink half of the estate. “That wing is forbidden. You will never enter it.”
The air shifted with something sharp and deadly.
“If you cross it…”
He paused, letting the silence crawl over my skin.
“You will lose a limb.”
My lips parted in horror.
He meant it.
He wasn’t threatening.
He was promising.
Kane turned and walked up the stairs, disappearing into the shadows above.
The nanny rushed to my side, gripping my arm with gentle urgency.
“Come quickly,” she whispered. “Before he remembers you again.”
I didn’t resist.
I didn’t look back.
I let her pull me up and guide me away from the bloodstains on the marble.
Because this was my life now.
This house.
This monster.
This nightmare.
And I wasn’t even sure I would survive the night.