Chapter 12 Sterling
Sterling
The next morning
I hate still being here, but I need to watch over Elle.
Thank fuck, the house is quieter today. I notice it the second the usual strum of voices is absent.
Clo is gone. Stanley too. Clo’s probably out cleaning up the mess I made, or whatever’s left of her empire still smoldering.
I step out of the shadows, letting the hallway light strike the edge of my mask.
The corridor stretches ahead like a memory I’ve tried and failed to erase.
And then I see her. Elle’s drifting, her blue eyes fluttering like a violin strung mid-note. Something in me aches to tune her back to herself.
But right now, she can hardly keep her eyes open.
She fights it and fights it. Stands in the grand hall like she’s waiting for something or someone.
She forces her eyes to stay open, even if it’s only enough to see.
Just so her glance can roam around the space surrounding us.
Her fingers twitch. I know who she’s looking for.
She’s looking for him. A sick, sinking feeling twists inside me.
I want her to ache for herself, for the girl whose life was stolen from her. But instead, she’s aching for him. Her fingers clench tighter. Her lips part just enough for me to hear his name, falling from her mouth like a plea.
Stan. That’s what she calls him. The sound of it sears me from the inside, all fire and fury. My own trembling hands close into fists at my sides.
She’s slipping. Faster and further than I thought. And worse, she’s slipped into someone else’s arms. Someone Clo trained her to lean on. Someone who fits into this dream world Clo built for her. He’s easy. He’s everything I’m not. And she wants him.
My jaw tightens. I hate that it matters.
I hate that I feel it like a blade between my ribs, sinking deeper and deeper.
It shouldn’t matter. I’m used to being alone.
I was raised in isolation, not because I was forgotten, but because Clo made sure I knew what I was.
A mistake. A thorn on her side. A reminder.
Kai Smith never saw me that way. He cared for me in the ways he knew how.
He favored me, gave me everything a father should.
But he never had power over Clo. She’s always been shrewd, always scheming, too calculating for a man like Kai, who lived for indulgence while she ran his empire behind the scenes.
Even as a child, I knew Clo wasn’t just the wife of a powerful man.
She was the power. And she hated me for existing.
All because I wasn’t hers. I was someone else’s, from the woman Kai truly loved.
When I was old enough, I found out the truth. An affair. The woman. The result of it all—me.
I always wondered why there was ire in Clo’s eyes whenever she looked at me, the careful distance Kai kept even when he tried to be a father. I wasn’t just an accident. I was living, breathing proof of betrayal.
I was never meant to be part of this family. So I left. I became someone else. A mercenary. A ghost. A boy who didn’t need anyone. I became the dokkaebi Clo used to call me. I embraced the identity she cursed me with, since I was still small enough to dodge whatever she threw at me.
But I snap back to the present when I hear Elle’s voice tremble. The first time she murmurs his name, I nearly dismiss it. But then it happens again. And again.
I’ve watched her for hours now from the shadows, still not able to sleep.
My eyes need to stay on her at all times.
I move closer and closer to her. I can’t stop myself, not even when her brows knit together, her lips parting like she’s about to say his name again.
Her hands shakily grip the silk shawl around her shoulders.
The urgent need to comfort her surges through me, so I decide to show myself.
Whatever she was about to say into the empty hall dies the moment I step out into the light.
She turns. Her wide eyes land on me.
My voice cuts the air between us. “He’s not here.”
She blinks, brows still knitted. “What?”
“Stanley,” I say. “He’s gone.”
She winces. Then she looks up at me, and the feeling in my chest gets worse. Because there’s so much confusion in her eyes. Hurt and longing, all for someone else. It makes me want to tear the world apart.
“I have to find him,” she says.
“You don’t.”
“He needs me.”
I want to scream. To shake her. To fall at her feet and beg her to remember who she is. Who I am. Who we were supposed to be before all this.
But I don’t. Instead, I close the space between us.
I stop just short of touching her. She smells like tea.
Sweet and floral. But underneath that, I catch something else.
Something warm. Something that reminds me why I still have blood on my gloves.
Why I haven’t slept. Why my hands won’t stop shaking around her.
I shouldn’t care this much, not when I’ve spent my life being no one’s, needing no one.
But I do. And it’s killing me. Because she isn’t looking at me the way I need her to.
Not yet, but I’ll wait. Until it’s my name on her lips instead of his.
Until she sees me. Until she remembers that it was always me. Not Stanley. Me.
Elle turns to me, more confusion flickering behind her eyes, and beneath that, aching for him.
It’s unbearable. But I can use this. Stanley is her weakness.
A vulnerability Clo carefully constructed within Elle.
I hate that it’s there, but I’ll twist it until it fractures, and use it to break Clo’s hold, even if Elle resents me afterward.
It’s worth it. It has to be. So I soften my voice, forcing my fingers to relax at my sides as I angle my head down toward her. “You’re worried about him, right?”
Elle hesitates, searching my mask, uncertainty etched into every delicate line of her expression. “I just… I can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong.”
Of course she can’t. Clo’s poisoned her so carefully, conditioned her into believing she needs Stanley.
Still, the ache in her voice stirs the jealous, possessive hunger inside me that demands to be the only one Elle looks for.
But I have to keep this trick going, even if it’s a lie at first. Even if I have to manipulate her for her own good.
Because unlike Clo, I won’t keep her trapped.
Unlike Clo, my lies are temporary. They’re tools.
Necessary tools. If it saves Elle from this place of ruin, then I’ll become whatever I have to be.
“Alright,” I murmur, stepping even closer. The heat from her body brushes against mine, warm through the thin silk over her. “If it’s important to you, I’ll help you find him.”
Surprise lights her eyes. “You will?”
I shouldn’t feel satisfaction at that, but I do. The eager trust she offers to me settles heavily inside my chest, bittersweet and intoxicating.
I nod. “Right now. I’ll get you out of here, and we’ll find him together.”
She exhales softly, relief loosening the tension in her shoulders. “Thank you.” Her voice is barely a whisper, but it slices into me, each word another splinter embedding deep beneath my ribs.
I can’t afford weakness right now, not when I’m about to betray the trust she’s given me. Even if it’s for her own good. Even if it’s the only way to free her.
I lean toward her slightly, enough for her breath to hitch, enough for her wide eyes to find mine and stay there, fixed in place.
“Then get ready. We’ll leave as soon as we can,” I tell her.
She nods slowly, eyes never leaving me, even as the air between us grows thick. I’ll betray this trust soon. Hell, I already am. And I’ll live with it. I’ll lie, manipulate, and pretend to be everything I despise. But unlike Clo, I’ll keep my promise in the end. I’ll save Elle.
I’ll take her away from here, and she’ll finally understand the only truth that matters, that she’s mine.
She turns, and it takes every bit of self-control not to reach out, not to pull her back toward me.
My fingers twitch, longing to feel her skin beneath them again.
Soon, I promise myself silently. Once I’ve gotten her out, I’ll explain everything. She’ll see the truth clearly then.
I watch her walk away down the hall, toward her room. And when she disappears around the corner, I finally exhale.
She trusts me now. But it’s borrowed trust, built on deceit, soon to be shattered. I glance at the shadows encasing the estate, already counting down the seconds until we finally leave.
Elle might hate me for this. For deceiving her, for taking away what she thinks she needs. But in the end, I’ll have her. And that’s all that matters.
***
The Valkyrie cuts through the silence, its engine a low growl. The road behind us is empty now. That haunted mansion further and further away from us.
Elle sits beside me, quiet. Her hands folded in her lap, knuckles pale. Her eyes stay on the window, watching the world fall away as I take us deeper into the forgotten corners of the city. The streets grow darker, narrower. Every mile takes us further from her cage.
The last turn brings us into a dead patch of the city. Empty buildings sag under the weight of time. Glass shattered. Steel rusted. Asphalt cracked. No sound. No one. But the two of us. Me and Elle, right where we belong, beside each other.
I guide the Valkyrie over broken gravel until we stop outside a structure that could pass for nothing, a forgotten warehouse gutted by years of storms and silence. It’s only a shell. Until you step inside.
Elle’s voice breaks the stillness. “Where are we?”
I don’t answer right away. I sit with the sound of her voice, clinging to it like the sweet song it is. Then I kill the engine and glance over at her. My hand stays loose on the gearshift. Her gaze goes to me. I gaze back, my mask still hiding me.
“Somewhere safe,” I say.