Chapter 35
Crimson
THE MAESTRO | Past
Idon’t even make it to the master wing before the first scream tears through the corridor.
Selene.
My blood runs cold.
I round the corner to my study, my hand already tearing the Beretta from my waistband, expecting a breach, an assassin, a physical threat I can put a bullet through. Instead, I find the doors thrown shut and the brass lock jammed tightly from the inside.
“Selene!” I roar, throwing my shoulder against the wood.
The framework groans, but the deadbolts hold. Behind the thick panels, her shrieks turn frantic, followed by a violent thrashing that sounds like she’s fighting a goddamn ghost.
Fucking move.
I don’t waste another second. I back up, driving the heel of my combat boot directly beside the handle.
BANG.
The wood splinters.
BANG.
The frame cracks as the iron mechanism inside bends under the brutal force.
BANG.
The double doors burst inward, the influx of hallway light cutting through the pitch-black, suffocating gloom of the study.
My heart, a muscle I usually keep under lock and key, stops dead in my chest.
She is standing on the narrow stone ledge of the open window, her bare feet balancing on the precipice, the breeze whipping her simple cotton robe around her trembling thighs.
Her eyes are wide, dilated into two hollow black inkwells, staring down into the sheer drop of the sea below. She is leaning forward.
No. No, you don’t. Not after everything.
“Zagreus…” she chokes out into the void.
“Selene!”
Her foot loses balance, and a broken scream rips from her throat as her body weight tips backward. I lunge, catching her by the fabric of her robe and the meat of her forearm, yanking her back over with force that sends us both crashing hard onto the rug.
She hits my chest and I wrap my arms around her waist, pinning her small frame against me, my own breath coming in gasps as I stare at the open window. There is nothing there. Just the wind. Just the black water.
What the fuck was she doing there?
“I’ve got you,” I growl against her hair, my fingers digging into her spine as if I can hold her soul inside her body. “I’ve got you, Dolcezza. Look at me.”
Her head rolls back against my shoulder, her eyelids fluttering frantically before her chin drops. Darkness swallows her whole, right in my arms.
“Get the doctor up here. Now,” I bark over my shoulder, not even looking back at Judas as I lift Selene’s frail weight into my arms.
“He’s already in the foyer, Vitale,” Judas replies. “He was on standby for your return from the operation.”
I don’t wait for him to finish; instead, I stride down the corridor, carrying my ruined wife back to our bedroom, kicking the door shut behind me.
I lay her on the mattress. She looks so fucking tiny.
Broken. The red scratch marks on her forearms are fresh, some leaking tiny beads of blood where her own fingernails dug into the flesh.
Rage, hot and blinding, coats the back of my throat.
When the doctor steps in, his leather bag in hand, I don’t step back. I stand at the foot of the bed, my arms crossed over my chest, the dried blood of Vane Davenport’s men still flaking off my knuckles.
It takes twenty minutes of agonizing silence. The doctor checks her vitals, shines a penlight into her unresponsive pupils, and dresses the self-inflicted claw marks on her arms. I am losing my fucking mind watching. Just as he prepares a sedative drip, Selene’s chest hitches.
A sharp, ragged gasp leaves her lips as her eyes snap open.
Her head jerks toward the curtains, her small hands clawing at the duvet as she tries to scramble backward against the headboard.
“Where is she?” Selene whispers, her eyes darting to the bedroom door, then back to the glass. “Where did she go? She was right there… she had her hands on my ankles…”
I step into her line of sight, blocking her view of the window, and sit heavily on the edge of the mattress. I reach out, cupping her face, forcing her chin up so she has no choice but to look at me.
“Selene. Breathe,” I command softly, my thumb sweeping over her trembling bottom lip. “There is no one here. Just you, me, and the doctor.”
“No! No, you don’t understand!” She snaps her face away from my touch.
Her nails dig straight into my blazer. “Crystella… she was in your study. She’s not dead.
Her neck… it was bent backward, Zagreus.
Her dress was covered in blood. She told me I should have died with them. She tried to push me out the window!”
My chest tightens.
Crystella. Fucking impossible.
Crystella has been dead for months. Her body is buried under six feet of dirt. My mind races, trying to find a physical enemy to crush, but there is nothing but the shadows in her mind.
“Selene, listen to my voice,” I say, keeping my tone perfectly level, fighting like hell to hide the panic clawing at my own gut. “You’re experiencing a waking dream. You are hallucinating. The stress of the past few weeks—”
“I am not insane!” she shrieks, her voice cracking as tears spill over her flushed cheeks. She pushes against my chest.
“Don’t look at me like that! Don’t use that calm, patronizing voice with me! I know what I saw! She was real!”
“Mrs. Vitale.” The doctor steps forward. “Your heart rate is dangerously high. Your pupils are completely unresponsive to light changes. Your body is reacting to something internal, not external.”
Selene ignores him, her wild eyes locking back onto mine, her expression shifting from defensive fury to a desperate, hollow pleading. She looks small again, her lower lip quivering as she curls her knees tightly to her chest.
“I just… I need my medicine,” she whispers. “Please, Zagreus. Just give me the medicine. It makes the noise stop. It makes her go away.”
My eyes narrow.
What the fuck is she talking about? I haven’t prescribed her anything. “What medicine?”
She freezes and looks at me, her pupils flickering, before she averts her eyes, staring down at the bandaged skin of her forearms.
“Nothing,” she mutters, her fingers twisting defensively in the bedsheets. “Just… something for the headaches. Leave me alone.”
“Look at me,” I growl, my hand reaching out to grasp her chin again, tilting her face up until she can’t hide from my gaze. “Everything was fine when I left this house last night. You were soft in my arms. You were safe. What the fuck changed? What medicine did you take, Selene?”
“I said leave it alone!” she cries out. “You left me! You left me alone in this fucking house! Just let me sleep!”
I let out a long sigh through my nose. I look at the doctor, who gives me a subtle, warning shake of his head.
Don’t press her now.
Fucking hell.
“Fine,” I murmur, leaning forward until my forehead rests against hers. “We’ll leave it for now.”
I shift my weight, climbing onto the mattress and pulling her shivering body directly into my chest. I engulf her completely, my arms wrapping around her waist and shoulders, pinning her against my heavy heartbeat.
She fights me for a second, her small fists thumping weakly against my chest, before she collapses against me, burying her face in the crook of my neck, weeping silently as her body trembles.
“You know what you have to do, Romanovski,” I say quietly over her head, my eyes locked dead on the door.
“Have the IT team pull every second of the digital security footage from the master wing from the moment my car cleared the gates last night. I want to know exactly who walked these fucking halls.”
“And since when did I start working part-time for you, Vitale?” Judas murmurs, looking at the trembling woman in my arms. “I think you should call for a psychiatrist rather than footage.”
I glare at him for even suggesting that my wife is insane. My jaw hardens. “No.”
Judas raises an eyebrow. “No?” he repeats.
“No.”
Selene’s fingers clutch the front of my shirt so tightly the fabric wrinkles beneath her grip. She is shaking.
“She said someone was in my study.”
“She said a dead woman was in your study,” Judas counters evenly.
My eyes drift toward the open window, and the curtains flutter softly in the morning breeze.
The broken lock. The overturned chair. The blood smeared across the floor where Selene had torn her knuckles apart trying to get out. None of it sits right with me. I have seen panic attacks. I’ve seen mental breakdowns. This feels different.
Judas and I exchange a look, and we both know these aren’t ghosts. “Just look at the security, I’ll contact you.”
He shrugs. “Debatable. I have a wife of my own to please.”
The wife he forced.
The doctor clears his throat and gives her a sedative. “Let her rest, Mr. Vitale. Her nervous system has suffered a catastrophic shock. Do not leave her side tonight. If she wakes up in that state again, her heart might not take the strain.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, my jaw tightening as I smooth my hand over my wife’s damp hair.
I hold her tight against me. Something is rotting inside the walls of my estate, and if I have to tear the whole goddamn world down brick by brick to find out what is poisoning my wife, I will do it gladly.