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Chapter 13: The Price of Her Silence
Last Updated:
2025-04-18 17:13:44
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Leya departed in silence from her mother's flat. The Roman streets slumbered half-awake, the sky bruised by the heaviness of a sun yet to rise. Her boots created soft reverberations on the pavement as she walked—no direction, no destination.She needed to think.To breathe.Her father had given his life to protect something. Someone. A woman, a fund, a secret so explosive that it had pushed a man like Samuel Blackwood, a man with the power to kill with words, to fake his own death and conceal the evidence in a wax-sealed document.And now it was hers.Her mother's words reverberated in her mind:"He said to her if the truth came out… it would destroy everything."She looked at the letter again. The burned edges. The cut-off sentence.".If they find out who you are—"Who was she?Not just a wife.Not just a daughter.There was something in her blood—something buried in her family tree—that made everyone either wanting to control her… or murder her.Her hands shook.She needed that miss
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Leya did not utter a single word when she walked out of that banquet hall. No victory speech. No "I told you so." No drama in asserting her throne. She left them simmering in their silence—the most lethal poison in the room. For what was more poisonous than a woman getting a grip? A woman who could get a grip… but did not. Not yet. The room reconfigured itself the moment she left it. Vivian had been holding the rim of her wineglass so hard it had broken in her hand. "She thinks she's above the law," she despised. Eleanor didn't jump, her eyes moving from the folder on the coffee table to Harrison—who didn't jump either. "She has everything, Mother." "No," Vivian despised. "She has power. They're not the same things." "To come and tell. Officially tell. It will kill us—" "She hasn't said a word outside these walls," Vivian sat up on the couch, her voice resentful. "And until then, she's bluffing. But before that." Eleanor leaned to one side and tipped her head bac
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Nathaniel looked down at the burner phone his fingers held.The text cut through him.> "It's time to talk."Leya.He breathed slowly, shoving back from the edge of the bar, pulling on his hair with his fingers. City lights late at night glow in front of the penthouse windows of the high-end club, but he was already lost in his head.She was not afraid.He had once appreciated that. Respect had boundaries, and Leya had gone beyond all of them.He weighed his options.> Don't pull me into this. I warned you once.I owe my family.Deleted the last two lines.Typed them back in.> You're no victim, Leya. You're a gold digger who would put glory on ashes. Your word means nothing to anyone where the Blackwoods hold court.Sent it.Cold. Done.He pushed the phone into his pocket and finished the remainder of his scotch.---Later That Night – Blackwood MansionTentative knock on Leya's apartment door. No.Not tentative at all.Barbaric.She leaped, stood up, and pinched her heart.Not Vivia
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The door was shut. Leya hadn't left her bed for hours. She stayed, at first, because it hurt. Bruises take their slow journeys along her ribs, down her arms, and the numbness of her cheekbone where Harrison's ring sliced into her. But in the morning, something else it was. Hunger. No food tray gets pushed in by the maids. No water glass. No knock. No sound. Nothing but silence. And that cursed lock. She tried to talk—to scream. Her throat was dry and withered, her voice parched within it, and she let the effort fall away. Not because anyone would hear. Because they knew they wouldn't arrive. They were abandoning her to die. Not overtly. Not knives and gore. But like this—silently, dishonorably, where no one would even notice. --- Day One She had lost all sense of time. Only the pale arc of the sun and the cerulean hue of the moon's light filtering between the curtains permitted her to even guess. Aching with every little movement lay her body. But it wasn't the bru
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The second night was colder than the first.Leya didn't know if it was cold or not, or if her body had just decided to quit trying to manage anything. She was mounded under blankets on the wooden floorboards, her scarf tightened around her, armory-fashion, but it wasn't even in the running for warm enough.Her lips were parched. Her skin was damp.And in the middle of her stomach—nothing.Even the pain had started to fade away.And maybe that was the most lethal splinter of all.Not the hunger. Not the punching. Not the exhaustion.But the numbness.She had started losing herself. The silence, the coldness, the knife, cutting, numbing stinging sharpness in the bones—it had started peeling off layers of self. No longer could she keep track of the days. Hadn't laughed in years. Hadn't felt sunlight on skin. Hadn't wrapped fingers around one that didn't throb to hurt her.There was only a repetition of her name in her head—Leya. Leya. Leya.She'd remind herself every now and then, just t
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Day ThreeSilence fell over her like a second skin, drawn tight and stretched wide across her breast, and tauter with every cringing second. Second by miserable second, time retreated, dragging her consciousness of it with it.No longer hunger.The waiting.Waiting for the inevitable.Waiting for the next faint spurt of hope.Waiting for the door to open, to find it wouldn't.Her belly had quit pleading, asking for food. It had given up the need, the place where dwelt. No meal—no way to move, to stand up and see. She had tried once to creep, her hands trembling for every inch, but her legs went out from her, and she lay on the hardness of the ground.The pain was another kind.It didn't belong to her. Not all hers.The weight of being left behind, and seeds of doubt that had planted themselves in her. How it had led her to doubt everything she'd ever known and been of Harrison, of herself. The soft-whispered man at the door today, who had her contained in this cold room.She knew what
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The mansion fell softly again. Tonight, silence did not frighten Leya. Tonight, permission was the formality. She dressed with purpose—not out of fear, but because she knew details were essential. Black pants. Pullover pushed high. Topcoat light for the part of the night but precisely what the message required. Not hiding. Not running. Walking proudly as if this world belonged to her at her feet. The burner phone rang again. Nathaniel: Back gate to the yard. Ten minutes. Nobody in sight. Leya stuffed the phone into her jacket pocket, smoothed her hair again, and stood before the mirror. "Back" just managed to squeeze out the word. She didn't look like the captive girl Harrison had held. She looked like something born of agony. The bruises remained—the pale yellow and blue smudges across the curve of her ribs, her collarbone, and jaw. No longer embarrassed. They were proof. Proof. She survived. She floated. Down. The. Hall. Bare feet silent. The east wing. Empty. Even
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The whisper had stopped. But the silence that followed wasn't silence. It was charged. With purpose. With intent. Leya did not lie well once the voice had stopped—her body outstretched on the bed, back tense against the headboard, every hair on her arms bristling not due to fear, but due to awareness. Not every step is a threat. But there are warnings. And the one that had named her tonight. It hadn't been trying to scare her. It had been trying to communicate something. That she was still being watched. And perhaps—perhaps—that someone still cared that she was worth at least something. That cut deeper at her chest than splintered ribs. She wrapped the blanket tighter around herself, seething an angry glare at where the door had existed once in the darkness. Someone had whispered her name as if it still held meaning. And that was what disturbed her most. Because it meant there was someone in this house who still thought she was worth whispering about. And that? That m
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The voice continued. Soft. Tuned. Familiar—and otherwise. "Leya…" A breath—neither cold nor warm. Did not command, did not scold. Was. Like a stretched bowstring pulled taut behind her at her back. She blinked, sight blurring through fever and weariness, but her backbone firmed—beneath, a little. Her fingers clenched into a blanket on her lap, fine cloth now armor, her foothold in the world. > Who was it? They didn't knock the second time. Didn't stir. I just stood there long enough for her to regain her breath. Long enough for her to realize this hadn't been a mistake. And then, nothing. A withdrawal in silence. The steps light. Stealthy. Commanding. No squeak of the door. No sound of retreating feet. But the tension beyond had changed. As if something had looked at her. Listened to her. Comprehended her. And that had scared her. Not because it had threatened. But because it hadn't. Because for the first time in what had seemed like forever… Someone had said her
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The alley reeked of desperation and stale beer. Leya's shift had run past closing time—again. The night had crawled, but Reed had stayed with her an hour past closing to clean up a spilled drink and split tips. She didn't mind. The more hours she worked, the less she was herself. As if she were somebody else. Somebody free. Somebody who didn't owe the Blackwoods. And then the bar door slammed shut behind her and she was alone in the dark. Zipper up as far as it would go around her neck, purse on her shoulder, and still buzzing hands against sock lining—where tip envelope folded back warm along her ankle. One block down. Just one. Then— A scrape. Heavy feet, too heavy to be mistaken. She shook her head over it, looking back over her shoulder. Two black figures. Too close. Too close by design. Her heartbeat came a little quicker. Muttered voice in the distance. "Hey now… what's a fine-looking girl like you doing way out here by herself?" She stood for military attenti
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The voice remained on.Low. Controlled. Familiar—and not."Leya…"A murmur—icy or gentle, neither. A sound that did not request requested not. It remained just so without her leave. Like a thread pulling at her beyond the door just so.Her own eyes dim with fever and exhaustion, she blinked, but sat up a little more in her backroom bed—a little.Her fists clenched in the blanket spread over her lap, thin blanket now buckler, a lifeline to something sacrosanct.> Who was it?They did not knock again.Didn't move.Stand there, long enough for her to catch her breath. Long enough for her to get a grip on this wasn't an accident.And then, nothing.Silent retreat.The footsteps were careful. Light. Measured.No creak of any door. No patter of feet.But tension at the table had changed.As if whatever had been listening to her.Had seen her.Had known her.-----And that was scaring her.Not by threat of harm which it had seemed to do before.But because it wasn't there.Because for the fi
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The house slept. That deep, heavy sleep money buys. No bedlam. No alarms. But only endless corridors with silent sconces and floors that shone without a creak. Leya was rigid in the center of her bedroom. She spent there once a minute or two—or so—rigid, inaccessible, just staring at the spread on her bed. Same hoodie. Same jeans. The same black sneakers that never creaked on marble. Her ritual. Her uniform for the other existence. The one she had. --- Getting Ready Slid out of her silk nightgown and into jeans with the knees worn soft at the frayed hems. Pulled the hoodie over her battered shoulders. Tied back her hair in a tight braid. Stuffed the crumpled money into her sock—never her purse. The purse got grabbed. She'd learned that. And she looked in the mirror. No makeup. No perfume. No hint of the woman Harrison used to know. A face carved out of determination. Eyes that wouldn't blink. She stuffed the pocket knife into her sleeve and closed the drawer. Just in c
