6. Keira
KEIRA
T he cell is cold. Stone and silence and stale air pressing in on all sides. But I’m colder.
It sinks into my bones, this chill—more than just the lack of heat. It creeps under your skin and stays there. It’s the kind that isn’t just about the room—it’s about what brought you here. What’s been taken. What’s been done.
No windows. No clock. Just the steady tick of time bleeding out, and the weight of not knowing what your future looks like.
The blanket around my shoulders does nothing to stop the shivering, but there’s no-one to complain to. I sit curled on the narrow bench against the wall, staring at the rusted bars like they’re some ancient artifact instead of my current reality.
It smells like damp earth down here—like the foundation itself is soaked in stories dying to be told. The dark feels alive. Heavy. Watching. Waiting. The walls sweat with it. The floor breathes with it.
Secrets don’t just hide here—they settle.
Curl into the stone like veins. And whatever’s been buried down here?
It’s been down so long, it doesn’t even bother clawing to the surface anymore.
But I can feel them. The ghosts. Not the kind that rattle chains or slam doors—but the quiet ones.
The kind that just watch , waiting for someone else to join them.
And right now, they’re looking at me like I might be next.
A soft shuffle echoes down the hall—barely there, but enough to drag me back to alertness. My head lifts, slow and cautious, every muscle on edge.
She moves slow, like time has finally caught up to her bones—but there’s nothing weak about the way the old lady carries herself.
Her spine is straight despite the walking stick.
Her eyes are sharp. She appears to be the kind of woman who once ruled a room with a whisper and still could, if she felt like it.
She stops just short of the bars and studies me. No words. Just a long, patient look that makes me feel like I’ve already said too much without so much as uttering a word.
Her silver hair is pulled into a perfect twist at the back of her head. Her clothes are simple but elegant—tailored slacks, a silk blouse, and a heavy black shawl. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she’s on her way to hosting a high tea, but instead, she’s looming over a basement prison.
She lifts her cane and slides a plastic bottle of water through the gap between two bars. It clunks against the floor at my feet.
“I assume you’re thirsty,” she says, voice low and calm. “You’ve been down here a while.”
I hesitate. But my throat is fire. Every swallow scrapes like glass. I reach down, crack open the bottle, and drink. The water scalds on the way down, even though I know it’s cold. My body may have forgotten how to accept anything kind.
She pulls a chair close and eases into it with slow grace, setting the cane across her knees. Her hands fold over the handle like it’s a throne she rules from. And then she waits. Like this is some kind of game she always wins.
“Who are you?” she asks at last, her voice low, measured. “And how do you know my grandson? ”
“Grandson?”
“Jayson.”
The name stills me— Jayson.
I hadn’t known it until now. But somehow, it fits. Sharp. Quiet. Final. Like a blade sliding into place.
I don’t answer.
He hasn’t killed me. Not yet. That has to mean something. Doesn’t it?
I don’t know the rules of this place—of him—and I’m not about to hand this woman ammunition that might shift the balance. Maybe she’s kind. Maybe she’s not. Maybe she’s another mask this house wears to keep me docile before it swallows me whole.
My pulse is still erratic, my skin cold, my hands curled in tight, useless fists.
I don’t speak. Not out of defiance, but out of survival. Because I don’t know how any of this ends.
The silence between us stretches thin as wire. The old woman doesn’t fidget or clear her throat—she simply waits, cane planted like a sceptre, gaze tuned to every tremor in my hands. The cell’s low light leaks across her pearls, igniting small, cold stars against her throat.
I’m not ready to die with the wrong words in my mouth.
At my silence, she tips her head, a bird of prey measuring distance.
“You’re younger than I expected.”
“And you’re nosier than I expected.”
A thin smile curves her painted lips—graceful, precise, utterly devoid of warmth. “I’m old, child. I earned the right to be nosy, back when men still thought curiosity was a sin in women.”
She isn’t wrong. Her posture alone could shame granite. High cheekbones, perfectly drawn lipstick, pearl earrings that catch the dim light like frost. She looks forged, not born—tempered by decades of storms that never quite broke her.
“I suppose you have,” I concede, softer now. Argue with steel, you’ll just dull your blade.
Her eyes narrow a fraction. That minuscule shift feels like a door locking behind me.
Silence folds around us, taut as a wire under slow tension. Somewhere in the bones of the house a pipe knocks, like the mansion is clearing its throat.
The old woman lifts a finger and traces a line along the rusted bar—testing the strength, maybe deciding if the cage is for me or for the monster who put me here. “He hasn’t told you who he is, has he?”
I shake my head, unsure if it’s safer to appear ignorant or perceptive.
“He would call that prudence,” she murmurs, mostly to herself. “I call it cowardice.”
Something flickers across her face—pride, regret, it’s hard to tell—before she smooths it away. “My grandson was raised in this house. I left for Italy when he was sixteen, but came back a year later.”
Her words turn over in my mind like heavy stones. “You came back for him?”
“No.” Her gaze hardens. “I came back for the family. And he left a few years later.”
I study her closer. She might be seventy, eighty—yet there’s a violent elegance in the way she speaks, like she once brokered peace treaties with a smile and started wars with a nod. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because,” she says, tapping the cane once— crack —against the cell floor, “if you truly don’t know him, you’d better learn quickly. Men like Jayson Caluna will bend you into the shape they need—or break you trying. ”
My breath stumbles. “Is that supposed to be advice?”
“It’s a warning.” Her eyes flick across my muddy clothes, taking in the tremor in my hands. Something like pity ghosts across her features, then vanishes. “And a kindness.”
I almost laugh. “Kidnapping and kindness—never thought I’d hear them in the same sentence.”
She exhales through her nose, amused but not mocking.
“Child, this family makes saints look wicked and devils look tame. Believe it or not, you’re safer under this roof than out there.
” A tilt of her head toward the distant forest. “I don’t know why you’re here.
But it looks like you’re in for a long stay.
Best you make yourself comfortable, child. ”
“How long will I be here?” My voice cracks.
“Well, that’s entirely up to my grandson. You are his guest, after all.” She shrugs, graceful, lethal.
Ice licks down my spine. “Will he kill me?”
“If he does, I’ll bury you next to the others.” Delivered so softly, it feels like a lullaby. Like a mercy.
She turns to leave. Her cane taps once—twice—through the hall, steady as a clock counting down. The sound echoes against the stone like a slow heartbeat, fading into the dark as if the house itself is listening.
At the threshold, she pauses, half in shadow.
“Ask for painkillers if the foot worsens,” she says without turning. Her voice is clipped, almost dismissive—yet there’s something tucked inside it. A quiet softness; the ghost of a woman who still remembers how to care, even if it shames her to show it.
A beat passes.
“And don’t provoke him. Jayson may seem grounded,” she adds, quieter now, “but anger wears itself well on him. Too well.”
The words lodge deep—like she’s not warning me for my sake, but because she’s seen what happens when he loses control.
Then she’s gone.
Her footsteps dissolve into silence, swallowed by the long, hollow throat of the mansion. I don’t breathe for a moment.
And somewhere above me, the house exhales again. Not out of relief or comfort. But from recognition. Like it already knows what’s coming. And it’s hungry for it.