Chapter 10
I waited three days before confronting Marcus again.
Time stripped performance from him.
He looked tired.
Good.
So was I.
“You built a court inside my house.”
He laughed softly.
“Your house.”
“Yes.”
“Always your house. Your organization. Your mother. Your name.”
There.
The grievance finally appeared without costume.
“What was mine?”
I stared.
“Your choices.”
He looked away.
“No.”
“That’s the answer you don’t like.”
I leaned forward.
“You wanted things that were mine by position and called their absence unfair.”
His jaw tightened.
“I married into a family that never let me forget I married in.”
True.
Romanos could be arrogant.
My mother included.
I knew that.
But humiliation does not justify becoming a jailer.
“You could have left.”
“I loved you.”
“Then you should have spoken.”
“I did.”
“Not enough.”
His face hardened.
Good.
I was not absolving myself.
Maybe I had ignored resentment.
Maybe I had underestimated how isolated he felt.
None of that moved the dresser.
None tied Victoria to the bed.
“What did you plan to do if Mother refused the east residence?”
Marcus went still.
Finally.
“Keep her where she was.”
My hands closed.
“For how long?”
“Until she agreed.”
There.
Indefinite coercion.
No misunderstanding.
No cultural excuse.
I sat back.
“And me?”
Silence.
“What was supposed to happen when I came home?”
“You’d be angry.”
“Then?”
“I’d tell you Victoria had deteriorated.”
“Then?”
“Catherine would already be running the estate.”
“Then?”
“People would tell you how smoothly everything worked.”
He looked at me.
He had expected social proof to overpower instinct.
Everyone saying the same lie.
My mother unstable.
Catherine helpful.
Serena harmless.
Marcus effective.
A house too comfortable in its new arrangement to reverse.
“You thought I’d doubt my own eyes.”
He said nothing.
That was exactly it.
Then I asked:
“Why the belt?”
His face changed.
Shame, finally.
“I panicked.”
May you like
Good.
The first true sentence with no strategy behind it.
