Chapter 52

Chapter 52
DEREK’S POV

I left the hallway with every step carved into patience as the house smelled like someone had tried to erase a footprint—polish, lemon oil, the faint antiseptic tang of someone who’d wiped down surfaces to remove fingerprints. That kind of thoroughness meant two things to me without doubt: someone is here covering tracks, and they're so nervous about being found. I shrugged off the thoughts and moved on with my calm demeanor.

I moved through the rooms in the pretense of a man who had nothing to fear, smiling at every servant as if the morning were ordinary. My smile was a blade wrapped in silk; it put people at ease and stripped them of their instinct to run. Good. Let them relax. Let them breathe. A tiger does not reveal his teeth until the claws are ready.

I found Luca near the pantry, carefully looking at a thin tray of scones as if that mattered. He greeted me with the same rigid nod he’d given on arrival—curtsy, obedient, like a man who knew how to be useful and also invisible. I let my eyes rest on him for a beat longer than necessary.

“Luca,” I said casually. “Have Matteo’s men changed the rotation?”

He blinked, then forced ease into his shoulders. “Same schedule, sir. Two at the west gate, one by the servants’ entrance, one on patrol.”

I kept the interest like a courtesy. “Good. Make sure they sweep the east wing tonight. Double check the pantry and the maid quarters.”

He swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

As he walked away, I let my gaze slip to the mirror he’d passed. Behind his back, engraved into the glass, was a faint smear—almost unnoticeable. A palm had brushed there recently. Someone had stood in that corridor and watched the study door. Matteo’s message had been true. They were truly watching from inside.

I spent the day pushing myself into an ordinary routine. A meeting with the foreign team foreman was nothing but a pretext to wander through the estate under the sun, to smell the gardens and also monitor the order of hedges and low branches. I sat with Silvia for an afternoon to make it a normal afternoon
of quiet—books, tea, a careful conversation about paint colors—and the world assumed what it wanted to: that the husband loved his wife and that the husband’s whole life was a domestic tangle of trivialities.

If anyone wanted to believe that, let them.

As she dozed off in the chaise with a shawl across her legs, I kept my eyes open. I observed the shape of her lips, the gentle pressure of her hand resting on the pillow. She held a life within her. Matteo’s voice resonated in the silence: Safeguard the girl. Stay composed. Join her now.

The location of the meeting had not been clearly stated. The cipher instructed to go to her immediately and then, with Matteo’s trembling hand, remain calm until I arrive. No location specified. This indicated that the lieutenant was unable to signal openly; his options had been restricted. He instructed me to stay by her side and await his signal—some minor, human gesture that would indicate he hadn’t been defeated. This meant I needed to get ready for any action.

Night fell like a curtain. The staff dimmed the chandeliers and replaced the lamps with low-watt bulbs. Shadows pooled in corners the way memory pools over things we want to forget. The house exhaled; its heartbeat slowed into the rhythm of night. Outside, lights blinked on in the neighboring houses—lone signals against a dark sky.

I called two men I trusted without question—only two. Men who had been at my back since the early days, when loyalty had to be earned in blood rather than contracts. I kept the meeting list short. The fewer who knew, the smaller the risk of a leak.

“Luca will keep routine patrols,” I told them in the library, voice low. “You two take the courtyard and the north wall. Check the lantern posts and the drains. If there are wires, cut them. If there’s anyone in the grounds who shouldn’t be, take them quietly.” In all, keep my parents safe ,don't trouble them .

They nodded. No drama—just the tactics of muscle trained to move in silence.

Before they left, I slid the silver cigarette case back into my pocket. The weight of the ravens against the palm felt like a pact. Matteo had trusted me to translate when his mouth was bound. That trust was not something I would mess up .

I walked through the house again, alone, letting the pretense of calm settle like glass over my expression. I greeted the night-staff with the same smile I’d used all day. I examined the portraits, the way the painted men looked down like hired guards . I checked the phones in the kitchen, pretending to be making calls. I listened for the small noises—pipes, clocks, someone moving a vase—to build a map of the house’s true rhythm.

At eleven, I returned to Sylvia’s room. She read by a lamp, knees tucked beneath her, hair falling in a protective curtain. For a second my chest clenched at the sight. The world could destroy itself around us and she would still be there, holding a book and trying to make order.

“You looked tired today,” I said, folding my hands in my lap and letting my voice hold the practiced gentleness of a husband who notices small things.

She glanced up, eyes narrowed. “You look like you walked through a war,” she teased, but it was only for a breath—her shield. “What are you thinking?”

“Dinner,” I lied. “And a new gardener.”

She laughed softly. I let her. Laughter fills a room and makes it feel like a home. It creates an illusion that makes me feel more human.

I stayed until she fell asleep, and when I stood I placed my hand on the dresser for one heartbeat, feeling the lines of her life in the wood—her nightly perfume, the dent on the drawer where the lock had stuck. I left a note under the lamp: Be still. Don’t speak of anything. If Matteo can’t move, I will come again.

It was compact, useful, and any observer unaware of what to look for would dismiss it as just another household curiosity.

I then headed to the carriage house.

Ancient items hold numerous mysteries. For years, the carriage house served as storage; we transformed it into Matteo’s occasional retreat when he sought privacy away from the city. It had the aroma of oil and aged leather. The lanterns danced as if they concurred with my thoughts.

Matteo stood there, in the dim light, pressing firmly against the workbench. His complexion had faded, no longer giving him a threatening appearance. His jaw remained set like a soldier's, yet his hands shook as he twisted a cigarette between them. He hadn't smoked for years.

"You shouldn't have arrived," he remarked, his voice strained.

"I came because you called for me," I responded. My tone was monotone; there was no blame in it. Merely the detached curiosity of a man who required information.

He laughed once, humorless. “I didn’t send for you. I sent for Sylvia.”

“You sent the case,” I said. “You could’ve sent any one of your men.”

He bowed his head. “Because only you would read what I wrote and not shout.”

“Then why are you compromised?” I asked. There was no rush—only a pulling of threads to see what would unravel.

He met my gaze like a man who had been given a choice between two deaths. “Abigail has leverage. Pictures. A past she staged. I—” He stopped. The rest of the sentence got swallowed by the dust.

“What kind of pictures?” I asked.

“The kind that make a man’s loyalty look bought,” he said. “A scene arranged with a woman who knew how to pretend mercy. She threatened my mother. She threatened Luca’s family. She—” His voice broke.

“You let her threaten them?” My hand tightened into a fist, but my face kept the same calm mask.

“I lied,” he said. “I told her I would make a move for the northern shipments. That I would cut a deal and keep everyone safe while she took what she wanted. I thought I could control it. I lost control.”

“You could have come to me,” I said. “You could have said—”

"I cannot," he cut in abruptly. "I can no longer come close to you." Not in a direct manner. Not since she installed observers within the home. She is aware of who responds to you. She would eliminate anyone who stirred. She would murder my mother right before my eyes. I am—” He gulped. “I am bound.”

He maintained the bond of loyalty strong even during the confession—forever brother, forever soldier. However, the chain was burdensome, and it weighed him down.

“Then what’s the purpose of the code?” I inquired.

He gazed at me as though the answer could be a kindness. "Since the one thing she cannot see is what she cannot hear." You'd visit her. You would maintain your appearance. You would allow me to send a signal when it was safe. "I need to inform you that she’s observing from within."

"And you?" I investigated. “What would you like me to do?”

"To remove her from view," he stated plainly. "Not for an extended period." Just distant enough for her to be certain. Next, we proceed to flush Abigail. "Don't tug on the string until you understand where the knot is."

I could visualize the strategy taking shape in my mind, a finely-tuned mechanism of actions. Remove Sylvia from the house, capitalize on her absence to lure Abigail’s observers into the open, then attack the defenseless core. It was the correct approach. It aligned to the guidelines Matteo had provided. It enabled us to maintain the lieutenant’s head connected to his shoulders.

“And if she refuses?” I asked.

“She will not refuse,” Matteo said, with the stubbornness of a man facing a consequence he’d long accepted. “Abigail wants proof of control, not ruin. She needs a face to point at. If she gets the face, she can keep her own hands off the rope for a while. She’ll likely demand to see Sylvia alone. Do not let her.”

A cold thought settled in me. Abigail’s play was not just about destruction; it was about spectacle. If she wanted a scene—if she wanted to humiliate—then we would deny her the theatre. We would let her hang herself on her own pride.

“We move at dawn,” I said. “You have one hour tonight. Put nothing in your pockets. Do not meet anyone else. I’ll have men at the east stables by midnight. If you can get to them, you move. If not—” I let the threat hang.

Matteo’s jaw ticked. He understood. He would try. He had to try.

We arranged the signal like two boys trading a secret: Matteo would leave one raven feather tucked under the third step of the east stairs—old superstition, old language. Only I would look for it and only I would know what it meant. He would not go near the nursery windows in the house; he would take the back path through the courtyard and the lemon trees. I would have a man posted at the carriage house door in case he arrived late.

We separated with nothing spoken that needed repeating. The weight of the cigarette case in my pocket felt heavier now, because more rested on it than the memory of a night years ago. It carried Matteo’s voice in it—the plea and the plan.

Back at the mansion I found the house quiet as a thing that holds its breath. The staff pretended the night was ordinary, as if they did not know a war had set its sights on the place. I walked the east stairs and found the feather exactly where Matteo promised—a small, ridiculous thing, soft as guilt. I left it there for a minute, a proof that the lieutenant had kept faith.

Then I returned to Sylvia’s room and sat by the window, watching the gardens. I could see the shadow of the carriage house in the moonlight, like a dark tooth at the edge of the estate. Somewhere beyond it, there were men like mine moving in the grass, the sound of their boots eaten by the night.

Sylvia stirred beside me and turned her face toward mine in sleep. I wanted to take her into my arms and keep her, to pull every bad thing into me and crush it against my teeth. Instead, I pressed my forehead against hers gently and promised the world without saying a word.

When I left, I resealed the mask of the man who had nothing to fear. I spoke to the house with calm courtesy and walked the corridors with the indifferent smile men of power wear like armor.

But under that smile, something else burned—an intent as clean and cold as a blade.

We would flush Abigail out of her nest. We would take her pride and use it to bring her into the light. And when she stepped into that light, she would learn how empty her victory had been.

The game had shifted again. Now, it was about trust and timing and patience—the cruel trinity of our world. Matteo could still be loyal. Abigail could still be beaten. And Sylvia—my Sylvia—would be kept safe by the one thing Abigail had forgotten to account for: a man who did not show panic even when the building burned.

At midnight I stood in the carriage house door and watched the path Matteo would take. I counted the seconds until the feather would either appear or not. I felt the house breathe around me and thought of the ravens on the silver case—two wings crossed, a promise that had to be kept.

The night was patient. It waited to see if we were clever enough to win.

And then, out of the shadow of lemon trees, a figure moved—hesitant, exhausted, but moving toward the light. Matteo.

He kept his head down. He had the profile of a man who’d fought too long. There was a moment—just a small one—when our eyes met and the world narrowed to the space between us.

He mouthed one word.

Forgive.

I only nodded.

There would be
time to break and time to forgive later. For now, we had a woman to protect and a queen to overthrow.

We moved, together, into the dark.