Chapter 5: The House that Watches

I woke to the sound of something shifting. Not loud. Not sharp. Just enough to pull me out of sleep and make my heart start sprinting before my mind caught up.

The red folder was still next to me, under the pillow where I’d shoved it last night like some kind of talisman. But no one was in the room. The door was still closed. Locked from the inside.

Still, something felt… off.

I sat up slowly, brushing hair from my face, the silence pressing against my ears again like it had weight. The kind that makes your ribs feel too tight and the air feel too thick.

I wasn’t alone.

Not in this house. Not even in this room.

I turned toward the mirror.

Nothing.

But I swear something moved just at the corner of it. A shimmer. A breath. Something just out of reach.

I forced myself up. Pulled on the thick robe someone had left folded at the end of my bed. Opened the door with steady hands that didn’t feel like mine.

The hallway was still.

Too still.

I walked barefoot, each step a whisper against the polished floor. The deeper into the west wing I went, the colder it got. Like the house itself didn’t want me here.

That’s when I saw it.

A single white rose.

Placed at the center of the hallway rug. No vase. No note. Just lying there, too perfect. Too intentional.

I bent down to touch it, then stopped.

Something about the way it was arranged, petals facing me like a pair of open eyes, made my skin crawl.

And the scent…

Not floral. Not soft.

Smoke.

I turned around and realized the faintest wisp of it was curling out from under a door halfway down the hall.

I ran.

Didn’t think. Didn’t breathe.

Just reached the door and threw it open.

Smoke billowed out, thick and gray. But it wasn’t a fire. It was incense. Dozens of sticks burning all at once inside a small library I’d never seen before. The windows were shut. Curtains drawn. It looked like a shrine.

A shrine to death.

Photos lined the shelves. Men and women in black-and-white frames. Burnt candles. Stacks of folded notes, many with the same name written across the top: Rafael Aragon.

I moved closer.

This time, there was no mistake.

It was him. The man from the photo. The one with the scar on his lip and the ghost in his eyes.

And below his picture, in careful script, someone had written: The one who dared to betray blood.

My hands curled into fists.

He wasn’t dead.

He wasn’t even hiding.

He was being remembered. Worshipped. Feared.

I took a step back, suddenly aware of how quiet it had gotten.

No smoke.

No footsteps.

Just a soft, slow clap.

I turned fast.

There was a woman standing in the doorway.

Not older than thirty. Tall. Elegant. Wearing all black and heels that didn’t make a sound. Her eyes were a storm I didn’t recognize.

“You must be Amara,” she said, voice smooth like cold wine.

“Who are you?” I asked, heart already in my throat.

“I live here. For now.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Matteo didn’t tell you about me?”

I didn’t answer.

She walked closer, hands clasped behind her back like she was trying not to look threatening. Or like she didn’t care if she was.

“I’m his cousin. Natalia.”

Still, I said nothing.

She tilted her head. “You have her eyes, you know. Elena’s.”

I flinched.

“You knew my mother?”

“I met her once,” Natalia replied, scanning the room like she wasn’t impressed. “She was softer than I expected. Strong, in a quiet way. Dangerous, but not loud about it.”

“She saved Matteo,” I said before I could stop myself.

“I know.”

“So why this?” I gestured at the shrine.

Natalia's face changed. Barely. But I saw it.

“Because Rafael wasn’t the villain your mother made him out to be. And some of us still remember the things he did for this family before he vanished.”

“I thought he betrayed the Valerios.”

Natalia gave a small shrug. “Betrayal’s just loyalty seen from the wrong angle.”

I stared at her.

She was trying to tell me something.

But I didn’t know what.

Or why.

Then she stepped closer, close enough that I caught a trace of her perfume—jasmine and gunpowder.

“Whatever you think you know,” she whispered, “you’re only scratching the surface.”

I didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

She smiled again. “Careful where you dig, Amara. Truth has a way of burying people alive.”

Then she walked out.

No sound. No farewell.

Just silence.

Again.

I left the room without touching anything else.

And this time, I ran.

Back to my wing. Back to the folder. Back to the one person who might actually give me answers without twisting the knife deeper.

Except when I got there, Matteo was already waiting for me.

Sitting in the chair by the window like he’d been there for hours.

“You met Natalia,” he said.

“Why didn’t you tell me she was here?”

“Would it have changed anything?”

I stared at him.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Just watched me like he was waiting for a storm to hit.

“She has a shrine for Rafael,” I said. “Like he was a hero.”

“He was, once.”

“Was he your friend?”

Matteo looked down. “He was more than that.”

I felt something in my chest crack.

“You loved him.”

He nodded once. “Like a brother.”

“But he betrayed you.”

Matteo’s jaw tightened. “That depends on whose version of the story you believe.”

“Then tell me yours.”

He stood.

Walked to the window.

“I was twenty when it happened,” he said. “Rafael was older. Smarter. More careful. He taught me everything I knew. And then one day, he disappeared.”

I waited.

“He left behind chaos. Enemies. Holes in our security. People we trusted turned on us overnight. And when the smoke cleared, three of my uncles were dead.”

I swallowed hard.

“And my mother.”

That stopped me cold.

“He got her killed?”

“He didn’t pull the trigger,” Matteo said quietly. “But he might as well have.”

He turned to face me, and for once, he didn’t look powerful.

He looked like a boy who lost everything.

“So when he showed up at that meeting two weeks ago, alive… I wanted to kill him.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because of you.”

His words hit like thunder.

“What does that mean?”

“It means he didn’t come for me. He came for you.”

I felt my breath hitch.

“He wants you to believe he was the victim. That we’re the monsters. That your mother was the liar.”

“Was she?”

Matteo walked closer.

“I don’t know.”

Silence stretched.

Thick.

Heavy.

Real.

“I don’t know anymore,” he said again. “And maybe that’s the worst part.”

I didn’t speak.

Didn’t trust myself to.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. Not close. Not far. Just near enough that I could feel the heat of him.

“He asked to meet you,” Matteo said.

My heart stopped.

“When?”

“Soon.”

I clenched the red folder in my hands.

“Will you let me go?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because if I don’t, you’ll go anyway.”

I blinked.

He wasn’t wrong.

“I need the truth,” I whispered.

“And you’ll get it,” he said. “But don’t forget who started lying first.”

I looked at him.

Hard.

“Was it you?”

“No,” he said.

His voice didn’t waver.

“It was all of us.”

And that… was somehow worse.

Later that night, I found myself back at the mirror. Staring. Waiting.

The house didn’t sleep. Not really.

It just pretended.

I looked at myself and tried to find the girl I was three weeks ago.

The one who believed in graduation parties and freedom and the idea that a last name didn’t define you.

But she was gone.

All that was left was a daughter caught between legends.

A pawn in a war that didn’t start with her but would very much end through her.

And maybe that was the scariest part.

Not the guns.

Not the secrets.

Not even Rafael Aragon.

Just the truth.

Because the truth has no mercy.

It just waits for you to find it… and fall apart in its hands.

End of Chapter 5