14. The Threat Beneath the Skin

The estate had never felt less like a home and more like a cage.

Guards had been doubled. Cameras monitored every hallway. And still, Ava didn't feel safe — not because of what Damien might do, but because of what he wouldn't say.

He was keeping something from her again.

And she was getting better at spotting the silence between his words.

It was Lucien who finally broke the surface tension.

They were in the surveillance room, Ava seated at the edge of a leather chair while Lucien clicked through files. His jaw was tight, eyes bloodshot from too little sleep.

"I shouldn't be showing you this," he said. "But Damien… he's not thinking straight."

"What is it?" Ava asked.

He pulled up the security logs from the past 48 hours.

"I noticed a blip in the east wing server. Somebody accessed the archives — Damien's private logs. At first, I thought it was you."

Ava's spine went rigid.

"I did," she admitted. "Just once."

"I know." Lucien clicked again. "But you didn't download anything."

He zoomed in.

The timestamp was two hours after she'd shut the laptop.

The person had copied files. Surveillance. Old archives. Confidential information.

"Who?" she asked.

Lucien's mouth thinned. "Lisette."

Ava reeled. "That's impossible. She raised Damien. She wouldn't—"

"She did."

Lucien pulled up the footage. Lisette entering the office. Plugging in a drive. Moving like she'd done it a thousand times.

"I didn't want to believe it either," he said. "But she's been feeding information to someone. And I'd bet my life it's Helena."

---

Ava found Damien in the courtyard, standing beneath the withered rose trellis where his mother had once planted blood-red blooms.

"She's not just a spy," Damien said without looking at her. "She's family."

"I don't understand," Ava whispered.

"Lisette is my aunt," he said. "My mother's sister. After my father died, she stayed to help raise me. I trusted her."

"And now she's selling you out to Helena?"

He exhaled slowly. "Not for money."

"Then for what?"

"For vengeance," he said. "Because she believes I killed Cecilia."

Ava's stomach turned.

"That's what she told Helena — that my mother didn't die in a car accident. That I… that I lost control. That I was the one who pushed her down the stairs."

Ava's lips parted, breath shallow. "Is it true?"

Damien turned to her, eyes hollow.

"I didn't kill her. But I didn't stop her, either."

A beat of silence.

"She was going to expose Thomas Vale," he said. "She was going to bring down my father, the company — everything. And I begged her not to. I yelled. I said things I can't take back. That night, she left in tears. She slipped. Hit her head. Died on the marble."

He rubbed a hand over his face.

"And Lisette never forgave me."

Ava stepped closer. "You didn't push her."

"No. But I didn't run fast enough to catch her either."

---

That night, Damien confronted Lisette.

Ava watched from the shadows of the hallway as Lisette stood in the center of the library, head bowed like a grieving widow.

"I should hate you," she said. "But I only pity you now. You lost her twice — once in life, and again when you buried the truth."

Damien's voice was low. "You fed Helena everything."

Lisette nodded. "And I'd do it again."

Ava stepped out then.

"And what about me?" she asked. "Did you know Helena would come for me too?"

Lisette's face twisted. "You were never supposed to matter. You were just another pawn. But then you stayed. And now? You're a liability."

Without warning, she reached into her coat — but Damien was faster.

The gun was in his hand, aimed and unwavering.

"No," he said. "You don't get to finish this with blood."

Lisette dropped the knife.

And Damien let her walk out alive.

---

Later, Ava found Damien sitting alone in the room where his mother died.

He didn't cry.

He didn't rage.

He just stared.

When she sat beside him, he looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.

"I don't deserve this," he said softly.

"This?" she asked.

"You. Any of this."

She reached for his hand, linking their fingers. "Maybe not. But you're not the only one here with scars."

He turned to her.

And in that moment, something inside him broke — but quietly, gently, like ice finally cracking after a long winter.

He kissed her like he was starved.

And this time, when he carried her to the bedroom, it wasn't about anger, or guilt, or desperation.

It was about need.

It was about finding something human in the middle of ruin.

Her body arched beneath his, her nails dragging across his back. He murmured her name against her skin like a vow, like an apology, like a man who hadn't believed he could feel anything again until her.

They didn't speak afterward.

They didn't have to.

Some wounds weren't healed with words.

Only with the truth that came in touch, in breath, in shared silence.

---