Chapter 26
Céline
The first call came while Miss Astoria was trying to drown herself in my water glass.
She had shoved her whole face into the glass on my nightstand and was pawing at it with the offended determination of a widow discovering betrayal in a will. I pulled the glass away before she could tip it over.
“Stop that,” I muttered.
Miss Astoria glared at me, water dripping from her whiskers.
“You have a bowl.”
She sneezed once, loudly, as if the suggestion itself insulted her.
I was lying on my bed with my laptop balanced against my thighs, Katherine’s proposal open on one side of the screen and my own scattered notes on the other.
The document looked slightly less humiliating now.
Still messy, still full of questions I hated needing to ask, but less like evidence of fraud.
The question I had typed at the top stared back at me.
Why did Katherine write this?
“Cells do not merely endure stress; under repeated pressure, they learn to organize survival around it.”
The sentence followed me everywhere. Into the shower.
Into the lab. Into the quiet moments before sleep, when my mind refused to settle.
For the first time, I wondered if Katherine had been trying to explain herself all along, and I had been too busy stealing from her to listen properly.
Or maybe she had been trying to explain me.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I stared at the screen until it went dark. Miss Astoria jumped onto my stomach with the full weight of her tiny, expensive body, and I made a small, undignified sound.
“You are not petite; stop doing that,” I told her.
She ignored me and settled in like she owned the place.
The phone rang again. Same number.
This time, something cold moved under my skin, slow and heavy.
I picked up the phone and let it ring twice more before I answered.
“Hello?”
For a second, there was only static. Then a man breathed into the line. My hand tightened around the phone until the edges bit into my palm.
“Selena?”
The room disappeared. It simply moved farther away, as if someone had pulled me backwards from my own body and left me sitting somewhere behind my ribs, watching myself remain perfectly still. Miss Astoria stopped purring. The man laughed softly, but there was nothing warm in it.
“Look at that. Still know your old name, don’t you?”
I could not speak. I knew that voice. Older now, rougher, damaged by cigarettes and alcohol and years of believing the world owed him something for surviving badly.
But beneath all of that, I knew the rhythm.
The slow pull around certain words. The faint accusation that turned even my name into something I had done wrong.
My father had found me.
“Who is this?” I asked.
The lie came out steady.
Another laugh.
“Oh, don’t do that. Don’t go all fancy on me now.”
My mouth had gone dry. Miss Astoria pressed one paw against my thigh, claws catching lightly through my pajama pants. I sat up slowly, careful not to make the bed creak.
“How did you get this number?”
“That’s what you want to ask your father after all these years?”
I closed my eyes.
Father.
The word did not belong to him anymore, if it ever had.
Fathers were supposed to be something solid.
Something that stood between you and the dark.
Daniel Martin had been the dark. He had been the slammed door, the sour smell of beer, the hole punched through drywall that my mother covered with a calendar because we could not afford repairs.
I opened my eyes again.
“What do you want?”
He made a disappointed sound.
“That’s cold.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“No, you’re not.”
My fingers froze over the screen. His voice softened then, which was worse.
“I heard you’re doing well.”
My pulse moved once, hard. “Who told you that?”
“People talk.”
“What people?”
“Rich town like Blackwater, girl like you pretending she was born into it.” He laughed again. “Wasn’t hard.”
A chill slid down my spine. Blackwater. He knew I was in Blackwater.
He knew enough. My thoughts moved too quickly after that, sharp and useless.
My mother. The Montgomery estate. The staff cottage.
The dorm. Sophia in the living room. Anya in the kitchen.
Miss Astoria on my bed. Every place I had told myself was safe began rearranging itself in my mind: doors, hallways, windows, locks.
“Do not come here,” I said. The words were quiet.
His silence lasted half a second too long.
Then he said, “Now why would you assume that?”
Because I know you. Because men like you do not call unless they already have a hand on the door. Because I was five years old, the first time I learned to sleep without fully sleeping.
“I mean it,” I said.
“You always did have your mother’s mouth.”
My stomach turned.
“Don’t talk about her.”
“Still protective.” His voice sharpened slightly. “That’s sweet. She protect you too? Or did she just run off with you and let some rich family turn you into a little liar?”
I stood up immediately. Miss Astoria jumped down from the bed with an offended chirp. “I’m hanging up.”
“You got money now?”
The question landed exactly where he intended. I went still.
“There it is,” he said softly. “There’s my girl.”
I almost threw the phone. Instead, I held it tighter.
“I don’t have anything for you.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“You heard wrong.”
“I heard you got rich friends. Rich boyfriend too.” A pause. “Or maybe not anymore.”
My blood went cold. “What did you say?”
“People really do talk.” He laughed under his breath.
No. Not people. Someone. The thought came so quickly it felt almost paranoid. Vincent’s name rose in my mind like a blade. Then I pushed it away because even he would not do this. Not this.
Daniel continued, his voice turning casual in the way I remembered too well. “I don’t need much. Just enough to get back on my feet.”
I nearly laughed. Back on his feet. Men like Daniel Martin were always getting back on their feet. That was what they called reaching into someone else’s pocket from the floor.
“I said I don’t have anything.”
“Then ask one of your rich friends.”
“No.”
“Ask your boyfriend.”
“No.”
“Ask your mother.”
My hand went numb. The room seemed to sharpen around me. The lamp on my desk. The open laptop. Katherine’s proposal glowing quietly on the screen. Miss Astoria standing by the door, tail low now, watching me with wide blue eyes.
“You stay away from my mother,” I said.
“There she is.”
The phrase made bile rise in my throat. Vincent had said it too. Not like this. Not with the same ugly satisfaction. But close enough that something inside me recoiled from both of them at once.
“I’m serious,” I whispered.
“So am I.”
The line crackled faintly. Then his voice lowered. “You’ve done real good for yourself, Selena. Fancy school. Fancy name. Fancy people. Would be a shame if everyone found out where you came from.”
My chest tightened. For one wild second, I thought of Katherine at the Harbour Club, telling Sophia and Anya the truth while I danced with Thad, convinced revelation would make them leave me.
It hadn’t. But Daniel was not Katherine.
Daniel would not stop at truth. Men like him did not reveal secrets because they believed in honesty.
They revealed them to make the room smell like smoke and then charged you for water.
“Do not call me again,” I said.
“You’ll call me.”
“No.”
“You will.” His voice turned almost gentle. “You were always a smart girl.”
Then the call ended.
I stood in the middle of my room with the phone still pressed to my ear long after the line went dead.
For several seconds, I could not move. Then my body remembered itself all at once.
I locked my door. Then checked it. Then checked it again.
I walked to the window and looked down at the wet courtyard below.
Students crossed beneath umbrellas, heads lowered against the rain, ordinary and faceless in the dark.
No one looked up. No one stood still too long.
No one waited beneath the dorm lights with a cigarette and an old grudge.
My hands were shaking badly now. I set the phone on my desk because I no longer trusted myself to hold it.
Miss Astoria cried softly near my feet. That sound broke something.
I crouched and reached for her, and she came immediately, climbing into my lap with none of her usual arrogance, pressing her warm body against my chest as if she understood the danger.
“It’s fine,” I whispered into her fur. The lie sounded exactly like Katherine.
My phone buzzed on the desk. I flinched so hard Miss Astoria had been startled. For one second, I thought it was him again. It was Vincent.
Vincent: Did you get home?
I stared at the message. Of course, he would appear at the exact moment my life tilted. Of course, the man who had spent weeks making himself unavoidable would now sit inside my phone like an answer.
I picked it up with cold fingers.
Céline: Did you give my father my number?
The message was sent before I could decide whether it was insane.
For almost a full minute, I got nothing back. Then the dots appeared.
Vincent: What happened?
I stared at those two words until rage steadied me.
Céline: Answer the question.
The dots appeared again. Disappeared.
Vincent: No.
I wanted to believe him. That was humiliating.
Céline: He called me. We don’t… have a good relationship.
This time, Vincent answered immediately.
Vincent: Where are you?
Céline: Dorm.
Vincent: Lock your door, my love.
I looked at the lock. Already done. The fact that he knew what I would do, what I should do, made something hot and furious rise behind my eyes.
Céline: Don’t tell me what to do.
Vincent: Lock it anyway.
I almost threw the phone again. Then another message came.
Vincent: Is Sophia there?
I looked toward the wall. From the living room, I could hear faint music and Anya’s voice saying something about the ethics of oat milk.
Sophia laughed softly in reply. They were ten feet away.
Safe. Mine. And somehow impossible to reach.
Because if I told them, this became real.
If I said my father’s name aloud, he entered the apartment fully.
He became part of the air. Part of the furniture.
Part of the lives I had tried so hard to keep separate from him.
Céline: Yes.
Vincent: Tell her.
Céline: No.
Vincent: Céline.
Céline: Don’t. Please.
The word looked small on the screen. Not enough for everything I meant. Do not order me. Do not make this yours. Do not turn my fear into another room where you are waiting.
His reply took longer this time.
Vincent: Then come here.
I closed my eyes. There it was. The door.
The one he had been trying to open since before I knew it existed.
For one second, I imagined it. His apartment above the cliffs.
Tall windows. Heavy locks. Quiet rooms. A man more dangerous than the one I feared.
Miss Astoria sitting in the window like an offended duchess.
My laptop open on his table. Vincent watching me with that terrible calm as if my panic were something he could hold still simply by willing it. Safety with teeth. A prettier cage.
No.
I opened my eyes.
Céline: I’m not coming to you.
Vincent: Then I’m coming there.
My heart lurched.
Céline: Absolutely not.
Vincent: You can be furious when I arrive.
Céline: I said no.
Vincent: I heard you.
Céline: Then listen.
For a moment, nothing happened. My phone buzzed again.
Vincent: Send me the number he called from.
I stared at the message. I copied the number with stiff fingers and sent it before I could change my mind. Vincent did not reply immediately. Then another message appeared.
Vincent: Do not answer if he calls again.
Céline: I know that.
Vincent: Good girl.
I put the phone facedown on the bed. Then I stayed on the floor with Miss Astoria pressed against me until my breathing steadied enough to stand.
When I opened my bedroom door, Sophia looked up from the sofa immediately. Her expression changed before I said anything. Anya paused mid-sentence, oat milk apparently forgotten.
“What happened?” Sophia asked.
I leaned against the doorframe. For one second, I saw us years ago at the Harbour Club without being there for it.
Sophia and Anya learning the worst of me and choosing silence.
I probably didn’t deserve it, but Katherine had tried to use truth like a weapon, and they hated the hand that held it.
They had chosen me before I knew they had a choice.
My throat burned.
“My father called,” I said.
Anya went completely still. “Your father,” she repeated.
I nodded once. The room shifted around the name. Miss Astoria pressed against my ankle, warm and solid. They knew what it meant. I had confessed it to them the night they told me about Katherine.
Sophia crossed the room and took my phone from the bed without asking. I let her.
Anya got up and locked the suite door, then checked the chain.
No questions yet. No panic. Just movement. Practical love.
It undid me more than the fear had.
Sophia returned and placed the phone on the coffee table.
“Sit down,” she said, and I obeyed without thought.