Chapter 83 : Tangled Lies

Chapter 83 : Tangled Lies
Celeste’s POV
I pace the length of my room, fury clawing at my chest like an animal desperate to escape. My heels click against the polished wood with each turn, a rhythm as sharp as my thoughts. Every sound in this cursed house grates against my nerves—Silven’s cries echoing down the hall like a mocking lullaby, Samora’s soft laugh carried like smoke from the kitchen, Adrian’s low murmur when he soothes her. He never used to speak like that. Never with me.
He’s slipping. The grip I once had on him—the bond I forced into existence with lies and smoke—is unraveling. Piece by piece, day by day, everything I built is crumbling in my hands. And the sight of him hovering over her, feeding her soup, tucking blankets around her—things I long dreamed he’d do for me—makes bile rise in my throat. My fingers ache with the urge to claw at something, anything, to rip the picture from my mind.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I had mapped every step, rehearsed every smile, every tear. The perfect victim, the perfect lover, the perfect future. All of it designed to bind Adrian to me until he was mine in every way that mattered. And for a while, it worked. He was cold, distant, but compliant. He didn’t look at anyone else. He didn’t laugh with anyone else.
Then Samora came back. And with her, everything shifted.
I stop pacing and brace my palms against the windowsill, staring down at the courtyard below. The moonlight spills across the flagstones, silver and sharp, like the blade at my throat. From this vantage point, I can see the faint glow from Samora’s room across the hall. A shadow moves there—Adrian’s. He lingers by her bedside. Again.
My nails dig into the wood.
The door opens without a knock.
Nathan.
His presence is a storm in itself, always calm on the surface, but sharp underneath. He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, eyes gleaming like a predator who’s already chosen his prey. Even the way he moves irritates me—too smooth, too self-assured. Like the house belongs to him. Like I do.
“You’re sulking again,” he says, voice light, mocking. “Careful, Celeste. Wrinkles don’t serve a woman who lives off deception.”
I whip toward him, teeth clenched, heat rising in my cheeks. “What do you want?”
He steps inside, shutting the door behind him with deliberate care. The soft click of the latch sounds like a lock sliding into place. “What I always want. Progress.”
Progress. The word tastes like ash. I’ve been his pawn for months—feeding him information, planting seeds, weaving lies. And still, Samora thrives. Still, Adrian slips through my fingers like water.
My fingers curl into fists. “Progress? Adrian is drifting toward her more every day. Your schemes aren’t working.”
Nathan chuckles low, the sound curling through the room like smoke. “Patience,” he says, drawing the word out. “You should be happy—he’s unraveling exactly as planned. But Samora…” He tilts his head, his smile faint. “She’s the variable. And I need your help removing her.”
My chest tightens. He’s said this before, but the way he says it now—so casual, so assured—feels dangerous. Like the game has shifted without my consent.
“And why,” I ask slowly, each syllable edged with glass, “should I help you any more than I already have?”
Nathan steps closer, his footsteps soundless on the rug. “Because,” he says, his smile sharpening, “your entire position here hangs on me. You think Adrian will forgive you once he learns the truth? You think he’ll keep you under his roof when the fantasy collapses?”
My throat dries.
He knows.
I try to hold his gaze, but my body betrays me, trembling. My mind races, clawing for a new lie, a new angle, anything to deflect. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, but I do.” His voice is soft now, almost intimate, and somehow that’s worse. He’s in front of me, close enough that I can smell the faint spice of his cologne, close enough that I can see the amusement in his eyes. “The child you claimed to carry? The one you used to keep Adrian tethered? A phantom. Isn’t that right?”
The words slam into me. For a moment, I can’t breathe. My heart thuds painfully against my ribs. He’s stripped me bare with one sentence, peeled away the last layer of protection I had.
I feel the walls closing in. The weight of the lie I’ve carried—the secret that kept me powerful—now suffocates me. I want to deny it. I want to spin another web, to smile and say, You’re mistaken, Nathan. But Nathan’s eyes are knives, and suddenly, I’m too tired to fight.
I turn away from him, staring at the moonlight spilling across the floor, as though it can burn me clean. My voice cracks as I whisper, “I never carried his child.”
The silence that follows is suffocating.
In that silence, the memories come rushing back—Adrian’s rare, startled warmth when I told him the lie, the way his hand hovered over mine but never truly held it. The emptiness in my own belly, the phantom ache of a motherhood that never was. The nights I cried alone, not from guilt, but from the crushing realization that even my deception couldn’t win his heart.
Then, slowly, Nathan smiles. Not kindly. Not with relief. But with the cold, deliberate satisfaction of a man who has just acquired a weapon. His eyes glitter like ice catching fire.
“Good,” he murmurs, leaning so close his breath grazes my ear. “Then your lie is mine now.”
A shiver tears through me, my body going rigid. His voice slides into me like a blade, claiming not just the secret but everything tied to it.
“What are you going to do with it?” I manage, my voice barely a whisper.
Nathan chuckles, low and dark. “What I do best. Control. You’ve played your part well, Celeste, but now the stakes are higher. If you want to survive this house, you’ll play the part I give you next.”
I turn to face him, fury sparking through my fear. “You think you can blackmail me?”
He tilts his head, his smile widening. “No, darling. I already have.”
He steps back, his hand brushing the doorframe, casual as ever. But I can feel it—the shift in the air, the tightening of the noose. Nathan has turned my greatest weapon into my greatest weakness.
And yet, even as panic claws at my throat, another feeling rises beneath it. Rage. Hot, sharp, clean.
I may have lied about the child, but I have other secrets. Other weapons. Nathan thinks he’s holding all the cards, but he doesn’t know everything. Not yet.
I let my lips curve into a small, brittle smile. “We’ll see,” I murmur.
Nathan studies me for a moment, his eyes narrowing. Then, without another word, he opens the door and slips out, closing it softly behind him. The click echoes through the room like the tolling of a bell.
I stand alone in the moonlight, my hands trembling. The truth of my lie is out, and with it, the last illusion I had of control. Nathan has me cornered, but he’s underestimated me before.
I glance toward the window, toward the faint glow of Samora’s room across the courtyard. She’s the reason for all of this—the wedge between me and Adrian, the living reminder of everything I never had.
But Nathan isn’t the only one who can remove obstacles.
I straighten slowly, breathing deep, letting the fury settle into something colder, sharper. My lips curve again, but this time the smile is real.
If Nathan thinks my lie is his to wield, he’s about to learn how dangerous I am when cornered.
The game isn’t over. It’s just beginning.