Chapter 25
The Softness of Shadows
The maid quietly guides Tessa down the hallway toward Emily and Olivia’s room, her hand resting lightly on her shoulder as if she fears the girl might suddenly break apart if she lets go.
The mansion is unusually silent at that hour.
Only the faint ticking of the grandfather clock echoes through the long corridor, while the soft golden lights along the walls cast long, trembling shadows across the polished marble floor.
But none of the sprawling luxury holds Tessa's attention tonight. Her mind remains entirely trapped inside Lucius’s room.
“You’re safe here.”
His voice keeps replaying inside her head over and over again—calm, steady, and unyielding—sinking deeper into her chest with every passing second.
Tessa does not know why those words affect her so profoundly.
Perhaps it is because nobody ever says them to her and actually means them.
In her experience, people always promise things they lack the power to protect.
Safety. Loyalty. Love. In the end, they all disappear anyway, leaving nothing but ruin behind.
But somehow, when Lucius speaks those words, she believes him.
The maid pushes open the heavy bedroom door softly.
The moment Emily and Olivia look up and see Tessa standing on the threshold, both of them instantly understand she has been crying.
Emily stands up almost immediately, walking toward her without a shred of hesitation.
Her hand wraps around Tessa’s gently, offering a warm, comforting pressure that makes Tessa's chest ache unexpectedly.
Across the room, Olivia adjusts the pillows on the massive bed before she looks up, offering a soft, welcoming smile.
There is no pity in their expressions. No invasive curiosity. Just absolute acceptance.
For the first time since her world turned to ash, Tessa feels as though she belongs somewhere. Like she is not an unwanted burden forced upon this house.
The moment Emily pulls her into a quiet hug, something deep inside Tessa finally cracks.
She does not realize just how exhausted she truly is from trying to stay strong all the time.
She is tired of pretending everything is fine when her life is clearly in pieces.
Her body slowly relaxes against Emily’s warmth before she catches herself, stepping back slightly as a wave of embarrassment washes over her for showing such weakness.
Emily does not draw attention to it. She simply looks at Tessa quietly before stating in a soft, fierce voice that they already know what happened to her that night. She promises her that nobody will ever lay a hand on her like that again.
Tessa lowers her eyes instantly; the familiar defines mechanisms flaring up. She hates sympathy. She despises the way people usually look at broken girls—as if they are fragile sheets of glass waiting to shatter at the slightest touch. It makes her feel disgusting. Weak. Pathetic.
But when she forces herself to look back at Emily, there is no condescension or pity in her eyes. There is only anger, masked tightly beneath pure, genuine care.
Emily gently touches Tessa's cheek, whispering that she does not need to carry that fear inside this house. She assures her that nobody in this mansion is judging her past, and that to them, she is no longer an outsider.
“You’re like my little sister already,” Emily says, a small, genuine smile gracing her lips.
The words hit Tessa harder than they should. Family. That particular word never feels warm or inviting in her life. To her, family always means distance, suffocating silence, pain, and ultimate abandonment.
Tessa quietly sits down on the edge of the king-sized bed while Olivia moves to sit beside her.
Olivia's expression remains perfectly calm, but a visible, dangerous rage hides deep inside her eyes.
It is the distinct kind of fury that only appears when someone dares to hurt a person you consider your own.
And strangely enough, realizing that these people are furious on her behalf makes Tessa's chest tighten painfully. Nobody ever does that for her before. Nobody ever makes her pain feel important enough to fight for.
She looks down at her fingers, twisting them together nervously in her lap, and without her meaning to, Lucius’s face appears in her mind again.
She remembers his cold, unreadable eyes, his calm voice, and the steady way he holds her hand.
He looks at her as if he already knows exactly how terrified she is, even before she finds the courage to admit it aloud.
Her breathing becomes uneven at the memory. She realizes then that she does not want to cry in front of him. Weak people are destroyed easily in a world like this, and Lucius Blackwood is definitely not a weak man.
Emily brushes a stray lock of hair away from Tessa's face, quietly reminding her that none of what happens in that alley is her fault. Tessa does not answer. Somewhere deep inside her, the shame still exists—ugly, suffocating, and heavy.
Then Olivia speaks for the first time, her voice low and completely controlled. “Lucius already finds the men responsible.”
Tessa looks up at her immediately. For a single second, her heartbeat stops entirely.
A strange, cold sensation spreads through her chest as the fragmented thoughts begin connecting one after another inside her mind.
She thinks of Lucius’s terrifying calmness, Victor’s volatile temper, Alex’s quiet, lethal control, and the way Teajun acts as if blood and street violence are merely normal, everyday things.
She swallows hard, her voice barely a whisper. “Lucius… he’s not just a lawyer, is he?”
Olivia exchanges a brief, knowing glance with Emily before a faint, dark smirk appears on her lips. “Something much worse,” she answers softly.
A sharp chill runs down Tessa's spine. But strangely, as the realization settles into her bones, she is not scared.
Perhaps she should be. Perhaps any normal, ordinary girl flees the estate immediately after realizing she lives inside a fortress filled with dangerous men tightly woven into the criminal underworld.
But instead of fear, all she feels radiating from the walls of the mansion is a profound sense of safety.
And that realization terrifies her more than anything else.
Eventually, the three of them lie down on the massive bed together as the night deepens outside the grand windows. The room smells faintly of expensive perfume and scented candles, and for the first time in days, the atmosphere around Tessa feels soft instead of suffocating heavy.
Breaking the comfortable silence, Emily lets out a quiet laugh before looking at Tessa.
"Victor and I didn't exactly have the most romantic first meeting," she says, a faint smile appearing on her lips.
"Back then, I used to organize luxury events for powerful businessmen, politicians, and... people from the underworld."
She shrugs lightly. "Five-star hotels, private clubs, grand halls... everything looked glamorous from the outside, but behind those expensive decorations, there were people capable of turning someone's life into a nightmare."
Tessa listens without interrupting, noticing how Emily's smile slowly begins to disappear. Her eyes lose their warmth, and her fingers instinctively tighten around the blanket resting on her lap.
Emily takes a slow breath before continuing.
"There was one night..." Her voice grows noticeably quieter.
"I honestly believed my life was over." She stares down at her hands for several long seconds as if debating whether she should continue at all.
Finally, she forces out a small, bitter smile.
"When everyone else looked away... when I thought no one was coming... Victor was the one who stood beside me."
She falls silent.
Tessa waits patiently, sensing there is far more to the story than Emily is willing to reveal. The unspoken words seem heavier than any explanation could ever be.
Emily eventually shakes her head with a faint smile. "Maybe... I'll tell you the whole story another day."
Without saying a word, Victor simply looks away, his expression unreadable. The subtle tension in his jaw is enough to tell Tessa that whatever had happened that night wasn't just Emily's painful memory. It was his as well.
A soft smile touches Emily's lips as she returns to the present, leaning forward to press a gentle kiss against Tessa’s forehead. “Look at me now, sweetie.”
Tessa stares at her in silence. While a shadow of that past still lingers in Emily’s eyes, an undeniable peace exists there too. She is living proof that one can survive the darkness and find a protective, enduring love on the other side.
At some point, Olivia falls asleep beside them. A few minutes later, Emily does too.
But sleep refuses to find Tessa. She lies there staring at the ceiling, her thoughts consumed by Lucius.
He takes over every corner of her mind—his voice, his eyes, and his touch.
And especially the memory of the night he first comes into her shop with a bullet wound hidden beneath his clothes.
That kiss. She kisses him first that night.
It is completely impulsive and reckless.
And now, everything between them feels dangerously different.
She does not know when she finally falls asleep, but suddenly she wakes up again. The room is dark, and instantly she realizes someone is there.
Tessa slowly sits up before her breathing stops completely. Lucius sits silently in the chair across the room. He wears dark clothes, marked by bloodstains. Dried blood stretches across his knuckles, and those terrifyingly calm eyes are fixed directly on her.
She immediately looks around the room in a panic and realizes Emily and Olivia are gone. Her heartbeat slams violently against her chest as she stands up.
Lucius looks at her quietly before giving her the faintest smile. “There’s nothing to fear anymore,” he says softly. “I clean every bad thing out of your life.”
Something inside Tessa shatters completely after hearing that. Without thinking, she runs toward him and wraps her arms around him tightly.
Lucius instantly tries stopping her. “Don’t touch me right now,” he mutters quietly. “Their blood is still on me.”
But she shakes her head against his chest.
No. She does not care anymore. She is accepting him exactly the way he is.
His darkness. His violence. His blood-stained hands.
Everything. She holds him tighter because slowly, day by day, he has been rebuilding something inside her that she thinks died long ago.
Trust. A dried, dying tree somehow blooming again after an endless rain. That is what Lucius is doing to her.
His arms slowly wrap around her before he presses her head gently against his chest. His heartbeat is steady. Strong. Safe. Then, in a low voice, he whispers that he wants to become the safest place in her entire world.
Tessa's eyes fill instantly with tears. She lifts her face toward him.
And then he kisses her. Softly. Gently. There is no desperation in the kiss. No hunger. Only safety. Only trust. Only something dangerously closes to love.
And in that moment, only one thought exists inside her mind. Lucius can be mafia. A criminal. A monster. And she will still stand beside him.
~