Chapter 85 SECRETS DOWN THE STAIRCASE
I felt a little better after taking a deep breath, letting the cool night air brush against my skin. It helped ease the slight dizziness from the alcohol, and for a moment, I wished it could clear the chaos swirling inside my mind as well.
Turning to face the large building behind me, I couldn’t help but ask myself the same question again.
What exactly brought me here tonight?
I could have just let Jaxon leave earlier when he wanted to.
But I didn’t.
I stopped him.
And now I was here—standing outside a party filled with people who had done nothing but cause pain to others, yet they were living their lives so freely, as if they had never destroyed anyone’s world… as if they had never ruined anyone at all.
Regret twisted painfully in my chest.
Coming here tonight might have been a huge mistake.
Approaching Ravyn Vale earlier… that hadn’t been planned.
That was anger.
Pure frustration.
The kind that comes from feeling powerless.
From watching someone like him walk around so carefree, like he could do whatever he wanted and simply get away with it.
A deep sigh slipped from my lips.
My heart somehow felt even heavier than it had earlier.
All I wanted—all I have ever wanted—was to see these people behind bars.
To see them finally pay for the crimes they had committed.
But every turn…
Every effort…
Every attempt to uncover the truth only led to the same thing.
Nothing.
A dead end.
A dead body.
A missing person.
Endless mysteries with no answers.
I was done for the night.
If I pushed myself any further, I might actually break down.
What was I even thinking?
That Jaxon being the same little boy I used to know was somehow going to change anything?
I must have been kidding myself.
But just as I was about to turn and head for the gate, something caught the corner of my eye.
A shadow.
Someone was walking out through another door—one far from the entrance that led to the main hall.
The figure moved quietly along the side of the building.
Seeing him wasn’t strange.
What was strange… was the way he moved.
Carefully.
Almost secretly.
Like he didn’t want anyone to see him.
The figure quickly disappeared around the side of the building, and before I could even think about it, I found myself following him.
I tried my best to stay hidden, not wanting to announce my presence to the person ahead of me, who was still moving quickly along the side of the building.
But keeping up with him was becoming harder by the second—especially with these heels slowing me down.
Frustration flared inside me.
Without hesitation, I angrily kicked off my heels.
Just in time to see him slip through another door that had “Private” written clearly on the sign.
Approaching the door cautiously, I expected it to be locked behind him.
But when I pushed it slightly, it surprisingly swung open.
I paused for a moment.
Then, with one last glance behind me, I stepped into the quiet hallway.
It led straight toward a staircase.
The man’s footsteps echoed through the building as he continued descending further down.
I followed after him, carefully stepping down the eerie staircase as the dim lighting barely illuminated the path ahead.
Slowly, I heard his footsteps begin to fade the farther I went down. I kept moving, my heart beating a little faster with each step, until I finally reached the bottom of the stairs.
Another hallway stretched out before me.
It ran a long distance, with several doors lined along the left side of the corridor. The place was almost completely dark, with only a single light bulb at the far end barely casting enough light to keep the hallway visible.
But the hallway was empty.
The figure had disappeared.
Most likely behind one of those doors.
Carefully, I began moving forward—one slow step at a time. I leaned slightly toward each door as I tiptoed past them, straining to hear any sound at all.
At the first door… nothing.
The second… silence.
The third… still nothing.
Then I reached the fourth door.
It was slightly open.
And this time… I heard voices.
A woman’s voice.
Quickly pulling back, I pressed my back against the wall and took a steady breath before slowly leaning forward to peek inside.
And that’s when I saw her.
Mrs. Lennox.
She stood facing the door, a glass of wine resting in her hand. Two men stood in front of her.
I immediately recognized Ravyn Vale.
But the other man—taller and broader—was someone I didn’t recognize.
Mrs. Lennox looked furious.
Her hair was slightly disheveled, like she had been running her fingers through it repeatedly over the last few minutes.
“Why aren’t you two talking?” she demanded, her voice trembling with anger.
Neither of them answered.
The silence seemed to fuel her rage even more.
“Why aren’t you two answering me?!” she shouted.
Her voice echoed sharply through the room as she suddenly hurled the glass of wine across the room.
The sound of the glass shattering against the floor rang out loudly.
“I mean why?! Why is it so hard for the both of you to kill one fucking boy? I don’t want him alive. I want him dead. Yet somehow, the both of you manage to fail every single time!” she lashed out angrily, roughly running a hand through her hair as she began pacing around the room.
“Killing him isn’t going to be easy, and you know that,” the man standing beside Ravyn Vale replied. I still couldn’t see his face clearly. “We can’t just walk up to him and put a gun to his head. Besides, he’s no longer the boy you used to know. And he’s not completely useless yet. You still need him. You need to wait a little longer.”
But those words only seemed to push Mrs. Lennox further into rage.
A sharp, almost psychotic laugh escaped her lips almost immediately.
“Wait?” she repeated slowly.
“Did you just say I have to wait?”
Her voice rose again, trembling with fury.
“Do you know how long I have been waiting? Do you know what was stolen from me because I waited?”
Her pacing became more frantic as her voice grew colder.
“I have come so far. And if you’re not going to get Jaxon out of my way, then I will do it myself. And when that happens…” she paused, her tone turning dangerously quiet, “the two of you will be completely useless to me.”
She let out another bitter laugh.
“And you both know what that means.”
Her expression twisted with something darker—something almost unhinged.
“I will not have another life stolen from me. I will not watch her win this time. She can’t win!”
Her voice cracked with raw hatred.
“Having to see my dead sister is already torture enough… but seeing her walking around with that smile all the time?” She clenched her fists. “That pisses me off.”
Her breathing grew heavier as she continued.
“I want to look her right in the face the next time she appears and let her see how well I’m living the life she stole from me… and how I took it back.”
Her eyes darkened.
“And I also want to give her a forever after with her son.”
Her words turned chilling.
“So the two of you better come up with a way to make it happen… or I might as well drag you both back to the pit I took you out of.”
Her words rang loudly in my head, leaving me frozen just outside the door.
My mouth hung half open in shock.
What did I just hear?
Mrs. Lennox…
The fake Mrs. Lennox…
She stole her sister’s life?
Which means…
She is Jaxon’s aunt.
What the fuck.