Chapter Thirty-Nine
Leona
I wake slowly. Not all at once, not with the sharp, instant awareness I’ve grown used to over the past days. This comes in layers instead. Breath first. Then weight. Then the quiet realization that my body doesn’t hurt the way it did before.
That alone makes me pause.
I stay still, eyes closed, breathing even while I take inventory of myself.
The soreness is still there, but it has dulled into something manageable, something that doesn’t demand my attention the way it had before.
It doesn’t feel like something I have to fight through just to exist inside my own body.
Something has shifted.
Not just physically.
My eyes open.
The room is quiet, light spilling in softer than I expected, later than I expected. It feels settled. Undisturbed. Too undisturbed.
My gaze drifts to the other side of the bed.
Empty.
Marius is gone.
I don’t know why that lands the way it does, but it does.
I push myself up slowly, more out of habit than necessity, but my body answers differently this time.
Steadier. More fluid. Without the hesitation I’ve gotten used to.
The sheet slips from me as I move, and for a second I freeze.
Not from modesty. Not from discomfort. From memory.
Not the cabin. Not fear. The other kind.
The kind I still don’t know what to do with.
My jaw tightens immediately, my body reacting before my thoughts fully form. I push it away and force my focus somewhere else before it can settle too deeply. I don’t have time to sit in that.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand. My weight settles evenly beneath me. No stumble. No delay. That is new.
I cross the room, gathering my clothes and pulling them on piece by piece, grounding myself in something familiar. The motions are automatic, practiced, but my mind isn’t quiet. It hasn’t been since yesterday. Since the conversation. Since the look on Marius’s face.
This is because you came to my farm.
I hadn’t been guessing. I had been right. And that changes everything.
I move to the door and step into the hallway, my senses already stretching outward. The house isn’t silent. It just isn’t loud. There’s a difference. A presence under everything. Something controlled enough that even quiet feels deliberate.
I head toward the main living area, my steps slow, careful, my attention catching on small things as I go. The chair isn’t where I remember it being. Not by much. Enough. My gaze shifts to the counter. The glass. Half-empty. Definitely not mine.
I stop.
That doesn’t sit right.
Marius doesn’t leave things like that. Willem doesn’t either. And I hadn’t heard anyone come or go.
My chest tightens slightly, something cold settling beneath my ribs as my eyes move across the room again, searching for something else out of place.
There isn’t anything obvious. Which somehow makes it worse.
This house has become so controlled that anything even slightly wrong now feels intentional.
Then I hear voices. Low. Somewhere down the hall.
I turn immediately, already moving before I’ve fully decided to. The door at the end of the corridor is partly closed, just enough to blunt the conversation without blocking it entirely. I slow as I get closer, my breathing quieting instinctively.
“…not sustainable,” Willem is saying.
I stop just outside the door, my pulse picking up as I angle myself enough to hear more clearly.
“She’s already pushing back,” he continues. “You can’t lock her down without it turning into something else.”
A pause.
Then Marius.
“She’s not leaving.”
Final. Flat. Unmovable.
My jaw tightens.
Of course.
“She’s not the problem,” Willem says. “You are.”
The silence after that is heavier than the words. I lean closer.
“She’s leverage because of you,” Willem continues. “That doesn’t change because you want it to.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
Then Marius, quieter now.
“I know.”
That unsettles me more than if he had argued.
“She’s already in it,” he says. “So we adjust.”
“How.”
A beat.
“We make them come to us.”
I don’t think.
I push the door open.
The conversation dies instantly.
Willem turns first. Marius doesn’t. Not right away.
I step inside, my gaze moving between them, then past them to the screens lining the walls. The house. The land. Every angle watched. Every approach held under surveillance.
My chest tightens.
“You’re using me.”
The words come out clean. No hesitation.
Marius turns then. Slowly. His expression doesn’t change. That makes it worse.
Willem’s does, just slightly.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” he says.
I ignore him.
My focus stays on Marius.
“You made me visible,” I say. “You came to my farm. You asked questions. You started something you didn’t finish, and now I’m here, and people are watching this house.”
Marius doesn’t deny it.
“Yes.”
The word hits like impact.
Something in me cracks.
“What am I to you?” I demand, my voice breaking as emotion pushes through faster than I can contain it. “Say it. Say it out loud.”
He doesn’t answer.
That is the wrong move.
“No,” I snap, shaking my head as tears come hard and immediate. “No, you do not get to do that. Not after everything.”
My breath hitches, my chest tightening painfully.
“After what we just did…” My voice breaks, but I push through it anyway, stepping closer, my hands catching in his shirt and anchoring myself there. “You do not get to act like that meant nothing.”
Marius exhales sharply.
“You don’t want that answer.”
“Yes, I do,” I shoot back. “I need it.”
The room goes still.
Then—
“You weren’t supposed to matter,” he says.
I flinch. I don’t let go.
“Then why do you look at me like that?” I demand. “Why do you touch me like that?”
Something in him gives. Not loudly. Not dramatically. But completely.
“Because you do,” he says, rough and sharp. “You weren’t supposed to, but you do.”
The room goes quiet in a different way.
“You were supposed to be a lead,” he continues. “A place to start. Something I could walk away from.”
His jaw tightens.
“But now…” He exhales once, hard. “Now you’re all I think about.”
Silence.
Behind me, Willem shifts.
“You said that out loud,” he says, calm but sharpened.
Marius doesn’t look away from me.
“I did.”
“That complicates things.”
I turn slightly, anger flaring again.
“Complicates things?”
“Yes,” Willem says, and his tone stays exactly what makes it worst. Not cruel. Not mocking. Exact. “Because if she matters, she isn’t leverage anymore. She’s a liability.”
The word lands hard enough that I actually recoil.
“Don’t,” I say sharply.
“I’m not letting him do anything,” Marius cuts in.
“You already did,” Willem says. “You just admitted it.”
Silence drops again. Heavy.
“This is not a discussion about me like I’m not standing here,” I snap, my voice rising. “I’m not leverage. I’m not a liability.”
“You’re the reason they’re watching this house,” Willem says.
I go still.
Marius steps forward slightly.
“That’s not on you.”
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” Willem replies. “It matters what it means.”
I look back at Marius, breathing unevenly now, my chest still tight.
“You said I matter,” I say quietly. “So act like it.”
He doesn’t hesitate.
“I already am.”
That silences Willem. Not because he agrees. Because that isn’t strategy anymore. That is something else.
And then the door behind me opens.
No knock. No warning.
The sound slices through the room so sharply all three of us turn at once.
Daan stands in the doorway.
Still. Too comfortable.
Watching us like he already knows enough to use it.
There is nothing readable in his face at first glance, but that makes it worse, not better. His gaze moves over the room once, taking in the screens, Willem, Marius, then me, and lingers half a beat too long.
No smile this time.
That would have been easier.
Only that look. That sense of having stepped into the room at exactly the moment he meant to.
And suddenly the whole house feels watched in a way the screens can’t fix.