THE SOUND OF A BROKEN MAN

The house was too quiet.

It wasn't the usual, heavy silence of Moreau Manor—the kind that pressed against your skin like an unspoken warning.

Ravenna had just finished cleaning the east corridor when she noticed it.

The staff were whispering. Some faces tight. Footsteps softer than usual. Even the guards spoke in hushed tones, their usual cold stares replaced with subtle pity.

Something had happened.

It wasn't until she passed the drawing room and saw Luc with red-rimmed eyes that she heard the truth slip from another maid's lips.

"She's gone," the girl whispered. "Madame Moreau passed in her sleep last night."

Adrien's mother. His only family.

Ravenna froze.

Adrien hadn't come out all day.

He hadn't summoned anyone. Not even his right-hand men. His office door stayed shut, and the lights in the west wing remained off.

By evening, Ravenna found herself walking past his hallway again.

She shouldn't care. He was her captor, after all. Her abductor. Her tormentor.

But something tugged at her chest.

She then heard a sound.

Faint. Almost inaudible.

She took a step closer to his door.

Then another.

And that's when she heard it—

A muffled sob.

She froze. Eyes wide.

Another sound followed, the clink of glass against wood. Then silence… and then another sob, this time raw. Guttural. Like something inside him was tearing open.

It didn't sound like Adrien.

It didn't sound like the man who'd barked orders at her or dragged her by the arm or punished her for breathing too loudly.

This was a different man.

A broken one.

Ravenna hesitated, heart hammering. She raised a hand to the door, then stopped. This wasn't her place. She wasn't allowed to knock—wasn't allowed to care.

But she did anyways.

And something about that terrified her.

---

Inside the room, Adrien sat on the floor beside the bed.

His back was against the wall, a half-empty bottle of scotch beside him, and a photograph in his trembling hand. It was an old photo—his mother, smiling softly, sitting in the garden with a young Adrien by her side.

She had been the only one who knew how to reach him. The only one who could look past the scars and the blood on his hands and still call him her son.

Now, she was gone.

And for the first time in years, Adrien Moreau felt like a boy again—lost, angry and alone.

He pressed the photo to his forehead and let another sob escape. No one would hear. No one ever did.

Except someone did.

---

Ravenna sat curled just outside his door, arms wrapped around her knees, her heart in pieces.

The sound of Adrien crying was nothing like she'd imagined. It wasn't violent or dramatic.

It was… haunting.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall, listening.

Every tear he shed, every broken breath—each one stripped something from the cold image she had of him.

He wasn't just a monster.

He was a son.

A man in pain.

And something inside her cracked.

Not pity. Not forgiveness.

But understanding.

For a long time, she stayed there in silence, a silent witness to the unraveling of a man who had only ever shown her dominance and danger.

In that moment, they were no longer captor and captive.

Just two broken souls…

Walled in by pain neither of them asked for.