Chapter 26 The Fish Bowl
The darkness hit the room like a physical blow, sudden and absolute.
I froze on the edge of the bed, clutching my phone like it was the only lifeline I had left.
The screen cast a ghostly blue glow across my legs, the only light in a world that had suddenly gone pitch black.
I held my breath, straining to hear any sound from the hallway, like shouting guards or running footsteps, alarms, but there was nothing.
Just the heavy silence of the house settling and the hum of the air conditioning dying out.
It was a power outage. That was all. The storm season was starting, and the wiring in this ancient fortress was probably as old as the stone itself.
I counted the seconds in the dark, trying to slow my racing heart.
One. Two. Three.
Before I reached five, the overhead lights flickered and buzzed back to life. The sudden brightness made me squint, stinging my eyes.
The room looked the same as it had a minute ago: the door was still locked, the windows were still barred, and the furniture sat heavy and silent.
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. It was just a glitch.
But as the adrenaline from the blackout faded, the cold terror of the video message returned to fill the void.
I looked down at my phone. The video file was paused on the final frame.
Nice form.
The words mocked me. I had thought I was being so clever, preparing for war in secret and sharpening my claws while the house slept. But I wasn't the hunter in this story. I was the entertainment.
Someone had been in the nursery with me. Or worse, someone had planted a camera there long before I arrived, anticipating my movements like a chess master moving a pawn.
I stood up and began to pace, my skin feeling too tight for my body. I felt exposed, violatingly visible, even though I was alone behind a locked door.
I needed to tell Dante.
The thought came instantly, a reflex born of desperation. He was the Don. He controlled the security. He had the men, the guns, and the power to tear the walls down to find a bug.
I walked to the door and raised my hand to knock.
But I stopped. My fist hovered inches from the wood.
If I told Dante, he would know I had been in the nursery. He would ask why I was training to fight, why I was sneaking around the third floor when I was supposed to be in my room.
He would realise I was planning something.
And if he found out about the video, he wouldn't see me as a partner or a victim to be protected. He would see me as a liability.
He would lock me in the cellar for my own safety, or he would tighten the leash until I couldn't breathe.
No. I couldn't tell him.
Dante Caravelli was the enemy I knew. The Ghost was the enemy I didn't.
I had to handle this myself. I was a Rosetti. My father might have sold me like cattle, but my mother raised me to survive.
I turned back to the room, scanning every inch of the luxury suite. If the Ghost had filmed me in the nursery, they were probably watching me here, too.
Suddenly, the room didn't look like a bedroom anymore. It looked like a stage set. The heavy curtains, the ornate mirror, the smoke detector blinking rhythmically on the ceiling, everything felt suspicious.
I dragged the heavy armchair over to the centre of the room, positioning it directly under the smoke detector. My heart hammered against my ribs as I climbed up, my face inches from the white plastic disc.
It looked normal. Just a white casing with a small green light indicating it was active.
But there was a tiny hole next to the sensor. A pinhole.
I leaned closer, squinting against the light.
A glint of glass reflected back at me.
A lens.
My stomach dropped. It wasn't just the nursery. They were watching me here. They had been watching me sleep. They had been watching me dress. They had been watching me cry.
I felt a surge of violation so intense it made me dizzy. I wanted to smash it. I wanted to scream until my throat bled.
But if I smashed it, they would know I found it. They would know the game had changed.
I needed to be smarter. I needed to blind them without showing my hand.
I climbed down and went to the bathroom, grabbing a small towel and a bottle of hairspray from the counter. I climbed back onto the chair, my hands trembling.
I didn't cover the lens. That would be too obvious. Instead, I sprayed a thick coat of lacquer over the tiny glass eye.
It dried instantly, creating a cloudy, blurred film over the lens.
To the watcher, it would look like a smudge or a malfunction. It would look like the camera was losing focus, not like it had been tampered with.
It bought me time.
I climbed down and pushed the chair back to the corner, feeling a tiny bit of control return. I sat on the bed and pulled the knife from my boot, holding the cold steel in my lap to ground myself.
I wasn't safe. I knew that now. The lock on the door was meaningless if the enemy was already inside the walls.
The phone buzzed in my hand, making me jump. I nearly dropped the knife.
It was a new message.
I stared at the screen, terrified to open it. I didn't want to play their game anymore. I didn't want to know.
But I had to.
I unlocked the phone. The message was short.
Smart girl.
I froze. The air left my lungs.
But you can't blur the truth Lilith.
My blood ran cold. They knew. They had seen me spray the camera. They weren't just watching the recordings later; they were watching me live. Right now.
I looked up at the smoke detector. The cloudy lens stared back at me like a blind eye.
Then the phone buzzed again.
Look under the bed.