“If you don’t stop digging…”

CAMILA

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I sat stiffly on the tall wooden stool, trying not to fidget under the heavy gaze of the man in the room.

King.

The studio was cold, the kind of cold that settled into your bones and made you feel like you were sitting naked even though I had a thin robe wrapped around me.

I shifted my shoulders awkwardly, but his voice came fast, low and commanding. “Don’t move.”

I froze instantly, swallowing down the shiver creeping up my spine.

“Chin slightly higher,” he said, circling me like a predator sizing up its prey. “Relax your fingers. Tilt your head.”

His commands were sharp and emotionless. Like I wasn’t a person at all, like I was just a shape to be captured on canvas.

I watched him for a moment, the way his brow furrowed as he painted. His hands moved fast, like an expert, as if he’d done this a thousand times.

Maybe he had.

The silence stretched so long it became unbearable.

“King,” I said carefully, “what happened to the girl before me?”

He didn’t answer, only dragged the brush harder across the canvas.

I bit my lip and tried again. “Did she finish her contract?”

Nothing.

I shifted slightly on the stool. “Did she leave? Did she break the rules?”

Still no answer.

Frustrated, I sat up straighter. “Was it bad? Did something happen to her?”

This time, his hand paused mid-stroke, but he didn’t look up. “You’re not here to ask questions, Camila.” The coldness in his voice was like a slap. But I was tired of the fog around everything in this place.

I leaned forward a little. “But how can I not ask? How am I supposed to trust this, or trust you, if I don’t know what I’m walking into?”

He finally looked up then, his sharp blue eyes cutting straight through me that a shiver went down my spine.

“You don’t need to trust me.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I muttered under my breath, feeling heat rush to my cheeks. “You’re not the one being kept in the dark.”

He set the brush down on the stool next to him slowly. “Camila,” he said in a tone that suggested he was holding onto his patience by a single loose thread. “Drop it.”

I should have. I knew I should have. But something in me pushed harder.

“King, please,” I said, voice rising. “I deserve to know! Did she leave because she wanted to, or because she was scared? Was she—”

“Enough!” he roared, the sound of it making me flinch so hard I almost toppled off the stool.

The canvas rattled against its stand from the force of his voice.

“You want to know so badly?” he snarled, stepping closer, towering over me. “She left because she couldn’t handle it. The rules, the expectations, the fucking truth! The things she wasn’t supposed to see.” His breathing was heavily sharp, like he had been holding until this for a long time.

“And if you don’t stop digging,” he said, voice lowering to something far more terrifying than shouting, “you’ll find things you wish you never uncovered.”

I couldn’t move. Could barely breathe. For the first time since entering his world, I realized…

King wasn’t just cold.

He was dangerous.

Without another word, he grabbed his brush again and turned his back to me, dismissing me like I was nothing more than a mistake he couldn’t erase.

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I didn’t see him again after that.

Not at dinner. Not even when I tiptoed past his room later that night, half-hoping and half-fearing he’d call me inside.

The house felt different now. Less lively, more intense.

I wandered aimlessly, ending up on the back patio where the cold night air wrapped around me tighter than the robe I was still wearing. And that was when I heard the familiar high-pitched giggle.

Katherine.

She was stretched lazily across one of the patio sofas, a glass of wine dangling carelessly from her fingers. The moment she saw me, her smile widened into something sinister.

“Trouble in paradise?” she sang out sweetly.

I didn’t answer, just dropped into the seat across from her, feeling too exhausted to pretend.

She tsked under her breath and sipped from her glass. “Let me guess,” she said. “You asked him about the girl before you.”

I blinked. “How do you—?”

“Because they always do,” she said with a shrug. “And he always reacts the same way.”

I studied her carefully. She was too pleased, too entertained by my confusion. “You know what happened to her,” I said.

She grinned like a cat who caught a particularly stupid mouse. “Maybe,” she said lightly. “Maybe not.”

“Katherine, please,” I said, leaning forward. “You have to tell me. I need to know what I’m getting into.”

She stretched luxuriously, like a queen on her throne, before lowering her voice to a whisper. “There’s a reason he doesn’t want you snooping around, Camila,” she said. “A reason he keeps certain doors in the house locked.”

My heart twisted.

“The room on the third floor,” I whispered.

She clinked her glass against an invisible one in the air. “Bingo.”

“But he told me never to go there,” I said, hesitating.

“And you always listen to what men tell you?” she asked, tilting her head in mock innocence.

I said nothing, feeling the war inside me mount higher.

“You want the truth, little Camila?” Katherine asked, rising from her seat and stalking toward me slowly. “You’ll find it there. Not in his words. Not in his stupid rules.”

Her hand brushed against my shoulder as she passed me, her voice soft and wicked in my ear. “But once you open that door,” she whispered, “there’s no going back.”

I turned quickly, wanting to ask more, but she was already walking away, her laugh trailing behind her.

I sat there for a long moment, frozen. My eyes lifted toward the height of the mansion. Toward the third floor, towards the door I wasn’t supposed to touch.

And in that moment, despite every voice of reason screaming at me, I knew.

I was going to open it.

I had to.

No matter what waited for me on the other side.