Chapter 10
Nikolai
I woke to warmth pressed against my side and the distant sound of rain against glass.
I stayed completely still, caught somewhere between sleep and consciousness while my brain slowly pieced together where I was.
The fire had burned low during the night, leaving the room wrapped in dim orange light and shifting shadows that moved softly across the walls every time the flames cracked beneath the logs.
Rain tapped steadily against the windows overlooking the garden, the storm outside turning the entire estate unnaturally quiet.
Then something moved against me. My eyes lowered to Emerald asleep across my lap. The sight pulled me fully awake instantly.
She’d somehow shifted during the night until half her body was pressed against mine, one leg folded beneath her while the other rested against the couch cushions beside me.
Her head lay against my thigh, cheek turned slightly inward like she’d unconsciously settled closer searching for warmth in her sleep.
Blonde hair spilled over my lap in soft waves.
The journal rested open beside her hand.
Fuck.
Every trace of exhaustion disappeared from my body immediately. I stared at the worn leather cover for several long seconds while a dark feeling settled heavily inside me. She’d been reading it. Emerald Deveraux could find trouble in an empty room if given enough time.
I should’ve burned the damn thing earlier when she first drifted asleep.
Instead, I’d put the journal back in the box the second she fell asleep, convincing myself it was better that way.
Safer. But part of me still wondered what she would’ve thought if she’d seen the version of Lucien hidden inside those pages.
Not the polished businessman. Not the untouchable leader people feared and admired.
The real Lucien. The manipulative one. The paranoid one. The cruel one.
There was a difference between understanding Lucien’s obsession with control and uncovering the uglier things buried deeper in those entries. That part… That part I never wanted anywhere near her.
My gaze moved back toward Emerald. She was completely asleep, soft breaths parting her lips while one hand remained curled loosely against the journal like she’d been trying to keep reading before exhaustion dragged her under.
Her makeup had smudged faintly beneath her eyes at some point during the night, and there was something strangely vulnerable about seeing her like this after spending every waking second watching her fight the world with sarcasm and sharp teeth.
Awake, Emerald was impossible. She talked back constantly. Pushed every boundary she could find just to see if someone would push back harder. Demanded answers she already knew she shouldn’t ask for. She walked through life like she refused to let anyone see uncertainty touch her for too long.
Even when she was scared, she covered it with attitude. When she was hurt, she bit instead of bled. But asleep? Asleep she looked softer around the edges.
A tiny sound escaped her. I blinked as I looked down at her again. Another soft little snore left her. My mouth almost twitched.
Jesus Christ.
Somewhere along the line I had clearly lost my fucking mind, because the sound should’ve annoyed me. Instead, I found myself sitting there in complete silence listening for it again.
Emerald shifted against my lap, one hand brushing absently against my thigh before settling again. Something strange moved through me watching her sleep there. I wasn’t sure I remembered what peace felt like anymore, but it’s something close to it. The kind of feeling that made a man careless.
I leaned my head back against the couch and stared toward the ceiling for a moment .
What the fuck was happening to me?
Two months ago I would’ve laughed in someone’s face if they told me I’d end up sitting quietly through the night letting Emerald Deveraux sleep against me while I worried whether she was warm enough.
My eyes dropped toward the journal again. The warmth inside me cooled again. That thing should’ve been destroyed the moment I found it. I should’ve burned every page after Lucien died.
Instead, I kept it hidden away like some pathetic reminder that the version of him everyone feared wasn’t exaggerated inside my head.
Proof. That’s what it really was. Proof that I wasn’t insane for hating him. Proof that the monster who raised me had actually existed.
Carefully trying not to wake Emerald, I reached toward the journal and pulled it onto my lap beside her head.
The leather creaked softly beneath my hand.
I hated this fucking thing. Hated the memories attached to it.
Hated how easily it dragged me backward, because Lucien never truly stayed dead.
Not really. Men like him survived in pieces.
In habits. In instincts. In the damage they left behind inside other people.
Sometimes I caught myself saying things in his tone. Sometimes I reacted exactly the way he would’ve. Cold. Detached. Violent; and every single time it happened, it made me want to put my fist through a wall .
I opened the journal slowly. Lucien’s handwriting filled the page in neat black lines. Controlled. Precise. Every letter perfectly formed like the man himself had been terrified of chaos touching even his fucking penmanship.
My eyes scanned over the entry. Business accounts. Names. Shipments. Threats hidden beneath polished wording. Even his personal thoughts sounded manipulative. Nothing in those pages ever read like guilt. That was the disturbing part. Lucien genuinely believed he was justified in everything he did.
Every betrayal became someone else’s fault. Every cruel decision somehow transformed into necessity inside his own mind. Weak people force strong men to become monsters. I could practically hear his voice saying it.
He used to say things like that constantly when I was younger. As if violence was wisdom. As if cruelty made him smarter than everyone else.
I turned the page. More business. More paranoia. More rambling about loyalty and weakness and how fear-controlled people better than affection ever could.
The fire cracked sharply beside me. Emerald stirred against my leg but didn’t wake.
I glanced down automatically. A strand of blonde hair had fallen across her face.
Before thinking too hard about it, I reached down and brushed it away from her eyes carefully.
She made a soft sleepy sound before settling again.
Lucien trained fear into people. Respect built from terror.
Obedience built from punishment, and somewhere along the line I learned how to do the same thing.
I’d spent most of my life believing fear was the only reliable thing another person could feel toward me.
Then Emerald walked into my life and looked directly at the violence in me without backing down.
Sometimes I genuinely didn’t understand her.
My attention shifted back toward the journal. I flipped another page. Then another. A few sheets farther in, something caught my attention immediately. Several pages had been ripped out. My eyes narrowed.
The jagged edges stood out sharply between the remaining entries.
Interesting. Lucien documented everything obsessively.
Every deal. Every threat. Every suspicion.
The idea of him removing pages himself felt wrong somehow.
Unless whatever had been written there mattered enough to hide. A bad feeling settled low inside me.
Carefully, I flipped backward. Then forward again. Three pages missing. Maybe four. Not torn accidentally either. Removed intentionally.
The rain outside grew heavier. Water streaked against the windows while thunder rolled faintly somewhere in the distance. I kept reading.
More mentions of Malrik appeared throughout the entries.
That name alone dragged immediate irritation through me.
Lucien trusted very few people. The fact Malrik had been one of them told me enough about the kind of man he was.
Every memory I had involving him carried the same feeling beneath it.
Slimy. Like standing too close to something rotten pretending to be human .
Lucien mentioned him often in those pages. Business arrangements. Meetings. Conversations. Plans. The two of them together always meant something ugly followed shortly after.
I turned another page. Then stopped. My eyes locked immediately onto the date written across the top. Just over eighteen years ago. Emerald shifted slightly against my lap again, still asleep. I barely noticed. My focus stayed fixed on the page while unease crawled deeper beneath my skin.
Slowly, I started reading. The first paragraph made my entire body go still.
No…
I read the line again slower this time. Then once more. Heat flooded through me so violently it nearly blurred my vision. My fingers tightened against the paper hard enough to wrinkle it.
That sick fucking monster.
I couldn’t stop reading. Every instinct in me screamed to close the journal. Burn it. Throw it into the fire before another word had the chance to exist inside this room, but I kept going. Some part of me needed to know exactly how far Lucien’s sickness went, and maybe another part already knew.
Lucien’s handwriting stayed perfectly controlled across the page. That was the part that made it worse. Nothing about the entry looked frantic or guilty or ashamed. It read calmly and methodically. Like he was documenting a fucking business meeting instead of describing what he had done to Cecilia.
My vision dragged across the words again. How he arranged it. How he had her followed. How Malrik helped drug her. Every line made something darker spread through me. I could feel my pulse pounding harder now.