Chapter 9 The Slap He Let Happen

Chapter 9 Kiss
The tapping had stopped, but the silence that replaced it was worse. It was a heavy, expectant silence, like a lung holding its breath before a scream.

I stood in the center of the guest room, clutching a heavy brass ruler I had pulled from my drafting kit. Outside, the promised storm had finally broken. Thunder rattled the windowpanes, vibrating against the glass like a fist demanding entry. Lightning flashed, illuminating the room in stark, strobe-light bursts of blue-white, casting long, jumping shadows against the damask wallpaper.

There it was again.

I walked to the built-in bookcase. It was an imposing structure of dark cherry wood, filled with dusty encyclopedias that probably hadn't been opened since the Reagan administration.

"I know you're there," I whispered, pressing my ear to the wood.

No one answered. I pulled back. I wasn't the terrified girl who used to hide under the covers when the house groaned. I was an architect. I knew how buildings were made. I knew that in estates of this age, space was often stolen.

I grabbed the edge of the bookcase. It was heavy, anchored to the wall. I put my shoulder against it and shoved.

It didn't budge.

I stepped back, frustration burning in my chest. I scanned the wood. If this was an access point, there had to be a trigger.

I ran my fingers along the molding. Dust coated my skin. I felt nothing.

Then, I looked at the floor.

The hardwood was scarred. Faint, semicircular scratches curved out from the base of the bookcase. Someone had moved this recently.

I knelt down, inspecting the baseboard. There, hidden in the intricate carving of a rosette, was a small, depressed button.

I pushed it.

The sound was loud in the quiet room.

I stood up and pulled the bookcase again. This time, it swung outward on silent, well-oiled hinges, revealing a dark, gaping mouth in the wall.

A draft hit me. Cold, smelling of mildew, rot, and stale perfume.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and turned on the flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating a narrow corridor. It was unfinished space. Raw studs, exposed wiring, and insulation batting hanging like Spanish moss.

It was a service passage.

And on the floor, in the layer of gray dust, were footprints. Small. Sneaker-sized.

"Hello?" I called out.

My voice died in the insulation.

I shouldn't go in there. I should call Tristan. I should call the police.

But something was singing in my blood. I stepped through the opening.

The air inside was suffocating. I swept the flashlight beam around. The corridor ran parallel to the guest wing hallway. I walked slowly, counting my steps. One. Two. Three.

I stopped.

To my left, nailed to a stud, was a small wooden shelf. On the shelf sat a bottle of water, half-empty, and a wrapper for a protein bar.

And a chair. A simple, metal folding chair.

It was positioned directly in front of the drywall.

I moved the light to the wall. There was a small hole drilled through the plaster, no bigger than a dime.

My stomach dropped.

I stepped closer, bringing my eye to the hole.

I saw my room.

The angle was perfect. It looked directly at the bed and the desk where I had been working. I could see the messy sheets where I had sat earlier. I could see my laptop.

Someone had been sitting here. Watching me.

Get out before she kills you, the voice had whispered.

Who?

I backed away from the peephole, bile rising in my throat.

I turned the beam down the corridor. It continued into the darkness, winding deeper into the house.

I followed it.

The footprints continued. The passage narrowed, forcing me to turn my shoulders sideways to squeeze between a bundle of conduit pipes. The thunder outside was muffled here, a dull, rhythmic thudding that matched the beating of my heart.

The corridor turned sharp left. I recognized the layout. I was moving toward the center of the house. Toward the Master Wing.

I found another chair.

This one was more comfortable, a cushioned stool.

There were two holes here.

I looked through the first one.

It looked into the Master Bathroom. Specifically, the shower.

I recoiled, wiping my face as if the mere act of looking had dirtied me.

I looked through the second hole.

The Master Bedroom.

Tristan was there.

He was pacing. He had stripped off his shirt, his chest bare and gleaming with sweat in the dim light of the bedroom lamps. He was on the phone, pacing back and forth in front of the window. He looked agitated, running a hand through his hair.

I watched him. It felt perverse. It felt illegal.

Suddenly, Tristan stopped pacing. He froze. He turned his head slowly, looking directly at the wall. Directly at me.

He couldn't see me. I knew that. The hole would be invisible from his side, hidden in the pattern of the wallpaper or a painting.

But he sensed it.

He hung up the phone. He walked toward the wall.

I held my breath. He got closer. Closer. His face filled the small circle of my vision. I could see the dark stubble on his jaw. I could see the exhaustion in his eyes.

He reached out and touched the wall.

Then, he frowned.

He turned and walked out of the bedroom door.

I exhaled.

I needed to get out. I needed to leave this tunnel and bleach my brain.

I turned around to head back to my room.

A light blinded me.

I gasped, throwing my hand up to shield my eyes. A beam of light was shining directly in my face from the end of the corridor.

"Who’s there?" a voice boomed.

Tristan.

He had found the entrance.

"Lower the light!" I shouted.

"Minerva?"

The light dipped instantly. Tristan stood at the junction of the passage, wearing only his jeans, his chest heaving. He looked like a demon rising from the underworld.

He squeezed through the studs, closing the distance between us in seconds.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" he demanded, grabbing my shoulders. His grip was bruising. "I saw the bookcase open in your room. I thought—"

"You thought what?" I pushed his hands away.

"I thought someone had taken you," he admitted, his voice ragged. "I heard a noise. I came to check on you, and the room was empty and the wall was open."

"Look," I said, pointing the flashlight at the stool and the wall.

Tristan frowned, looking at the setup. "What is this?"

"Look through the hole, Tristan."

He hesitated. Then, he bent down. He peered through the hole.

I watched his back muscles tense. I watched his spine go rigid.

He pulled back as if he had been burned.

"That’s my room," he whispered. "That’s... that’s my bed."

"And the other one is the shower," I added cruelly. "Someone has front-row seats to your life."

Tristan stared at the wall. The horror on his face was absolute. He looked like a man who had just realized he had been living in a glass cage.

"How long?" he asked. "How long has this been here?"

"Based on the dust? Years. Maybe always."

"Ida," he choked out.

"Maybe? Who else?"

Tristan turned around, and for a second, I thought he was going to punch the wall. He raised his fist, his entire body trembling with a violent, contained rage. Then, he let out a sound and slammed his fist into a wooden stud.

"Damn it!" he screamed. "Damn her!"

The sound echoed in the tight space, deafening.

"Tristan, stop," I said, stepping toward him. "You’ll break your hand."

"She watched me," he panted, turning to face me. His eyes were wild, wet with tears of humiliation. "She watched me sleep. She watched me shower. Did she watch us, Mina? Did she watch us when we were married?"

The question hung in the stale air.

I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I hadn't let myself think about that.

"Probably," I whispered.

Tristan slid down the wall until he was sitting in the dirt, his head in his hands. The mighty Tristan Johnston, reduced to a shivering boy in a crawlspace.

"I feel sick," he groaned.

I looked down at him. I should leave him here. I should go back to my room and let him drown in the consequences of his blind loyalty.

I sighed. I sat down in the dirt next to him.

"You should feel sick," I said. "It’s disgusting."

He looked at me sideways. "Why aren't you gloating? This proves everything. This proves she’s insane."

"I don't gloat about violation, Tristan. I’m not a monster."

He let out a dry, humorless laugh. "No. You’re just the victim."

He shifted, turning his body toward me. The space was so narrow our knees were touching. I could feel the heat radiating off his bare skin. It was suffocating and magnetic all at once.

"I’m sorry," he said. "I know you hate hearing it. But I am so sorry."

"Stop apologizing."

"I can't. It’s the only thing I have left."

He reached out, his hand hovering near my knee. He didn't touch me. He remembered the rule.

"Someone warned me," I said quietly.

"What?"

"Earlier. Before I found the button. I heard a voice behind the wall. A woman. She said, 'Get out before she kills you.'"

Tristan frowned. "A woman? Ida?"

"No. It sounded older. Frail."

"There’s no one else living here, Mina. Just the staff, and they sleep in the carriage house."

"Then you have a squatter living in your walls," I said. "And she knows about Ida."

Tristan rubbed his face. "I’ll have security sweep the house. Tonight. I’ll tear these walls down with my bare hands if I have to."

"Good. It’s part of the renovation plan anyway."

He looked at me. In the harsh beam of the flashlight, his face was stripped of all pretenses. He looked vulnerable.

"You were right," he whispered. "At dinner. When you said I killed the girl you used to be."

I looked away, focusing on a rusted nail in the wall. "Tristan..."

"I did kill her," he continued, his voice thick with emotion. "But the woman who replaced her... she is terrifying. And beautiful."

He leaned closer. The air between us crackled.

"I shouldn't want you right now," he murmured. "We’re sitting in the dirt, surrounded by my sister’s madness. But all I can think about is how you looked at dinner. How you looked holding that knife."

"Tristan, don't."

"Why?" He moved his hand, his fingers brushing the fabric of my sweatpants at my knee. "Because of the rules? Or because you’re scared?"

"Because I despise you," I lied.

"Do you?"

He moved fast. Before I could react, he reached out and cupped the back of my neck, pulling me toward him.

He didn't kiss me. He stopped an inch from my lips.

"Tell me to stop," he breathed, his eyes searching mine. "Tell me you feel nothing. Tell me your heart isn't hammering just as hard as mine."

I stared at him. I could smell the sweat on his skin, the dust, the man. My heart was hammering. My body was screaming at me to close the gap, to taste him, to let the anger and the desire collide.

But I saw the peephole over his shoulder. The black eye of the wall watching us.

"We’re being watched," I whispered.

Tristan didn't flinch. "Let them watch."

He closed the gap.

His lips crashed onto mine.

It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was desperate. It tasted of five years of starvation. His stubble grazed my chin, burning my skin. His hand tangled in my hair, holding me in place, demanding a response.

And God help me, I responded.

I opened my mouth, letting him in. My hands found his bare shoulders, gripping the muscle, digging my nails in.

He groaned into my mouth, pushing me back against the rough wall. The wood dug into my spine, but I didn't care. I wanted the pain. I wanted to feel something other than the cold emptiness of the last five years.

He kissed me like he was trying to breathe for the first time. He kissed me like an apology and a curse.

Then, just as quickly, I snapped back to reality.

I shoved him.

"No!"

I pushed him hard, breaking the seal of our mouths. We were both gasping, chests heaving in the cramped darkness.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, staring at him with wide eyes.

"No," I repeated, my voice shaking. "We don't do this. Not here. Not ever."

Tristan looked wrecked. His lips were swollen, his eyes blown wide. He reached for me again.

"Mina—"

"Don't touch me!" I scrambled up, hitting my head on a low beam but ignoring the pain. "This changes nothing, Tristan! This is just... this is just trauma bonding in a dirty tunnel! It’s not real!"

"It felt real to me," he rasped.

"That’s because you’re desperate!" I aimed the flashlight at his face, blinding him momentarily so he couldn't see my tears. "Get out of my way."

"Mina, wait—"

"Move!"

I squeezed past him, ignoring the way my body burned where it brushed against his. I ran back down the corridor, stumbling over the uneven floor.

I reached the opening to my room and spilled out onto the carpet.

I slammed the bookcase shut. I fumbled for the button, engaging the lock.

Then, I collapsed against the wood, sliding down to the floor.

The room was quiet again, save for the thunder rattling the glass.

I touched my lips. They were throbbing.