Chapter 18
Eighteen
BEATRICE O'brIEN
A door slammed somewhere above, jolting me from a fitful sleep. Footsteps moved across the foyer, then faded.
I waited with newfound patience as darkness fell completely over the estate.
The house gradually quieted—security guards changing shifts, night staff completing final tasks, doors locking.
Through a small opening on the side , I watched the main hall fall into shadow, illuminated only by security lights casting eerie blue glows across marble floors.
When the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed midnight, I eased the cupboard door open. My muscles screamed in protest after th prolonged confinement, but the pain felt distant, unimportant. I moved with deliberate care, each step calculated to avoid noise such as creaking floorboards.
The servants' staircase—a narrow passage hidden behind a panelled wall—provided the perfect route. I knew this house intimately, had explored every hidden corner over the years here. The knowledge served me well now as I ascended, placing each foot with precision, pausing at the slightest sound.
The kitchen lay dark and still when I emerged, illuminated only by the digital numbers on the oven clock.
My stomach clenched painfully, reminding me how long it had been since I'd eaten.
I moved to the bread box, retrieving a sliced half-loaf and tearing into it with animal hunger.
The taste—simple, bland sourdough—exploded across my palate like the finest delicacy.
I devoured three thick slices, barely pausing to breathe.
When the edge of hunger dulled, I moved with renewed purpose to the knife block. My fingers trailed lovingly across the handles before selecting a carving knife with a long, tapered blade. I tested its weight, its balance, nodding in satisfaction. A proper tool for delicate work.
"Just a little longer," I whispered to the blade, watching how the dim light played along its edge. "Just a little longer, and everything will be as it should be."
The main staircase creaked treacherously beneath my careful tread, but the sound was swallowed by the vastness of the house. I paused at Alexander's door, pressing my ear against the polished wood. Silence. Was he asleep? Or perhaps not even there?
I hesitated, fingers hovering over the handle. What if Aoife was with him? What if they were together, right now, their bodies entwined in the bed where he should have been with me?
The image sent a wave of molten rage through my veins. I bit my lip until I tasted blood, forcing myself to think clearly. No—I couldn't risk confronting them together. Alexander was too strong, too big a threat, formidable. I needed to catch Aoife alone.
Moving down the hallway, I came to my old bedroom—I knew she was using this room after hearing the sounds of doors opening and closing above me.
The door opened with a whisper, revealing a space both familiar and alien.
Nothing had changed since I'd last been here—the same damask wallpaper, the same antique vanity where I’d applied my makeup while dreaming of a true life of luxury and power.
I perched on the edge of the mattress, running my hand over the embroidered duvet. It was the exact replica of my mother’s. I’d try too hard to be like Eleanor Ashford, a woman just as deprived as I was, or more.
The Beatrice she knew no longer existed. In her place stood someone I was still getting to know. Somebody I liked though…
I rose, leaving the ghosts of my past behind. Only one more room to check—my mother's old chamber at the end of the hall, the place where Eleanor Ashford had plotted marriages for her daughters, arranging our lives like pieces on a chessboard.
The door opened silently beneath my touch. Moonlight streamed through partially opened curtains, illuminating a form beneath the covers. My breath caught. There she was—Aoife O'Malley, auburn hair spread across the pillow like spilled blood, her breathing deep and even in slumber.
I closed the door with painstaking care, my eyes never leaving her sleeping form. Each soundless step across floor brought me closer to my objective. The knife felt alive in my hand, eager for its purpose.
Standing over her, I could see her face relaxed in sleep—the aristocratic features, the long lashes, the full lips slightly parted. In another life, we might have been allies, two powerful women carving our places in a man's world.
But she had taken what was mine. That alone deserved a death sentence.
I raised the knife, moonlight catching its edge as I positioned it over her heart. One clean thrust. That's all it would take. One moment of pain, and then everything would be as it should.
"For us," I whispered, drawing my arm back for the killing blow.
My hip bumped against a small side table, sending a delicate porcelain figurine wobbling. I gasped, lunging instinctively to catch it with my free hand, a whimper escaping my lips as my fingers closed around empty air. The figurine crashed to the floor with a sound like breaking bones.
Aoife's eyes flew open, instantly alert. Even in the darkness, I could see the moment comprehension dawned—the intruder standing over her bed, the knife gleaming in the moonlight.
"What—" she began, voice rough with sleep.
I didn't give her time to finish. With a strangled cry, I drove the knife downward, aiming for her chest. But she was faster than I expected, rolling away with startling grace. The blade struck the mattress, sinking deep into plush bedding as Aoife tumbled to the floor on the opposite side.
"You bitch!" I snarled, yanking the knife free and lunging after her. "He's mine! MINE!"
Aoife scrambled to her feet with a fighter's agility, her eyes darting around the room for a weapon. "Beatrice," she said, her voice measured despite her obvious alarm. "This won't end well for you."
I laughed, a high, wild sound that barely resembled humour. "It's already over for you. You're just too stupid to realize it."
I feinted left, then slashed right, the blade whistling through air as Aoife dodged with maddening ease. Dammit.
But I had something she didn't right in that moment: absolute purpose. I pressed forward, driving her back against the wall with relentless attacks. Her breath came in short gasps, her eyes never leaving the knife as she evaded each strike by narrowing margins.
"He doesn't want you," Aoife said, trying to negotiate even as she retreated. "You saw us. You know the truth."
"SHUT UP!" I screamed, slashing wildly. The tip of the blade caught her forearm, drawing a thin line of blood. "You've turned him against me! You've poisoned his mind!"
Her eyes widened fractionally—not with fear, but with understanding. "This isn't about me," she said softly. "This is about you not being able to accept that he made his choice."
Something snapped inside me at her words. With an inhuman howl, I threw myself at her, knife extended. We crashed to the floor together, my weight pinning her smaller frame as I drove the blade toward her throat.
Her hand shot up, catching my wrist in a grip of surprising strength. We struggled, trembling with effort, the knife suspended inches from her jugular. Her other hand clawed at my face, nails raking across my cheek in desperate defence.
"You're insane," she gasped, muscles straining as she fought to keep the blade at bay. "You need help, Beatrice."
"I need Alexander," I snarled, pressing harder, watching the knife edge inch closer to her flesh. "And you're in the way."
She bucked beneath me, trying to throw me off, but I clung to her like a parasite, using my greater weight to maintain advantage. With my free hand, I covered her mouth, muffling her cries for help.
But I'd underestimated her again. Even with one hand restraining my knife arm and her mouth covered, Aoife managed to draw enough breath to scream—not just any cry, but a name:
"ALEXANDER!" The sound tore from her throat, echoing through the moonlit bedroom with shocking volume despite my restraining hand.
I slammed her head against the floor with one hand, desperate to silence her. "Shut up! SHUT UP!"
The knife trembled between us as her eyes burned into mine, green fire against my blue ice.
Footsteps thundered in the hallway, growing louder. The bedroom door crashed open, and light from the hallway spilled across our tangled forms.
"Beatrice." Alexander's voice was cool and even, but with an undercurrent of lethal promise. "Let her go."
I didn't look up, couldn't tear my gaze from Aoife's face, couldn't relax my grip on the knife still hovering above her throat. "She took you from me," I whispered, tears blurring my vision. "She doesn't understand you like I do. She doesn't know what you need."
Alexander stepped closer, his movements deliberate, measured. "Put down the knife, Beatrice."
"We were perfect together," I insisted, ignoring the weapon in his hand, focused only on making him understand. "In the maze. You remember, don't you? How you made me beg? How you found the part of me no one else had ever seen?"
Beneath me, Aoife's struggles had stilled, her eyes darting between Alexander and me. She was listening, calculating, waiting for her opportunity. The cunning bitch.
"I remember," Alexander said, his voice softer now, almost gentle. "I remember all of it."
Hope bloomed in my chest, sweet and painful. "Then you know. You know we belong together. She's nothing—just an obstacle. Once she's gone—"
"If you hurt her," Alexander interrupted, steel beneath the quiet words, "there is nowhere on this earth you could hide from me."
The tenderness in his voice when he spoke of her shattered something fundamental inside me.
I looked up at last, meeting his gaze, searching for any hint of the connection we'd shared.
But his eyes, when they met mine, held nothing but cold determination—and beyond that, concern for the woman beneath me.
He had chosen her. Truly chosen her.
The realization hit me with physical force, driving the air from my lungs. "No," I whispered, the knife suddenly heavy in my hand. "No, no, no..."
I looked down at Aoife, at the knife still suspended above her throat, at my fingers digging into her skin. What was I doing? What had I become?
The clarity that had guided me shattered into a thousand fragmented thoughts, each one cutting deeper than the last. I was Beatrice Ashford O'Brien. I had graduated summa cum laude from Oxford. I came from one of the oldest families in England.
And here I was, straddling a woman on the floor, a knife in my hand, ready to commit murder for a man who didn't want me.
"This isn't me," I whispered, but even as the words left my lips, I knew they were a lie. This was exactly who I was—who I had always been beneath the veneer of medication and societal constraints. The truth I'd been running from my entire life.
"Put down the knife," Alexander repeated, moving closer. "It's over, Beatrice."
Something in his tone—finality, perhaps, or pity—rekindled the rage that had driven me this far. If I couldn't have him, if everything I'd suffered had been for nothing, then what was left?
My grip tightened on the knife, a last desperate defiance. "If I can't have you—"
I never finished the sentence. No doubt sensing my distraction, Aoife made her move.
Her knee drove upward into my stomach with brutal force, expelling the air from my lungs in an agonised gasp.
Her hand, still gripping my wrist, twisted sharply.
Pain exploded up my arm as bones ground against each other.
The knife clattered to the floor, and suddenly our positions were reversed—Aoife was now on top, pinning me down with surprising strength for her slender frame.
"It's done," she said, voice hard as she restrained my flailing limbs. "You've lost."
Alexander was beside us now, carefully retrieving the knife. His eyes, when they met mine, held something worse than hatred—indifference mixed with clinical assessment. I was no longer the object of his desire. I was merely a problem to be solved.
"Alexander, please," I whispered, one final, desperate appeal. "Remember what we had. What we could be together."
For a moment—one beautiful, agonizing moment—something flickered in his expression. I wasn’t sure what. But then it was gone, replaced by a cool mask. Much like the raven mask he’d hid behind during the hunt. Had I imagined our connection?
"What we had," he said quietly, "was a night of meaningless sex during a sick game. Nothing more."
The words struck like physical blows, shattering what remained of my composure. A sound escaped me—something between a laugh and a sob—as the last threads of my sanity began to unravel.
"Meaningless?" I repeated, hysteria rising in my voice. "You think what we shared was meaningless? You saw me. You saw me!"
His expression didn't change as he turned to Aoife. "Are you alright?"
She nodded, her eyes never leaving me even as she addressed him. "Fine. Though if you'd arrived a few seconds later, we might be having a very different conversation."
"I heard you call my name," he said simply, as if that explained everything.
And perhaps it did. He had come for her. Would always come for her. The knowledge burned through me like acid, corroding hope, reason, everything but the pain.
As security personnel flooded the room, as I was dragged to my feet and restrained, as Alexander helped Aoife up with gentle hands that had once delivered such exquisite pain to my willing body, one thought crystallized with perfect clarity: This wasn't over. Not while I still drew breath.
I might have lost this battle, but the war for Alexander Moore's soul had only just begun.