CHAPTER 27
Seraphina
I couldn’t stand it anymore. It started as a whisper in my chest, a hollow ache I had been carrying for months, missing him, my father.
The way his laugh used to echo through the hallways, the smell of his cologne, the warm grip of his hand when I was scared.
I had tried to bury it beneath control, beneath work, beneath the careful composure I’d built since that night, but it had grown too loud.
Every shadow in the estate, every quiet room, every corridor I walked down reminded me of what I had lost and tonight, it hit me fully.
I stormed down the grand hallway, heels clicking hard against marble, each step pounding my anger into the floor. I didn’t think before I opened the door to Lucien’s office. I didn’t care about protocol or composure or even the calmness he exuded.
“Why?” I shouted before he even turned. My voice ricocheted off the tall windows, echoing through the dark office. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill him?”
They could’ve handled it differently, couldn’t they?
He stood at his desk, calm. Too calm. Hands resting lightly on the polished wood. Eyes locked on mine, unblinking, unshaken.
“He was a liability,” he said quietly, deliberately.
“He was my father!” I screamed, pacing the room in frustration, grief spilling into fury. “Do you even understand what that means? Do you even understand what you took from me?!”
He stepped closer, just a fraction, and I felt the weight of his presence pressing against me. I tried to take a step back, tried to put space between us, but I couldn’t escape the magnetic pull that always drew me to him, even when I wanted to hate him.
“You think shouting changes anything?” he said, voice low, unshakable. “It doesn’t. It won’t.”
I shook my head, fists clenched. “You…You can’t just decide who lives and who dies!”
“I did what had to be done,” he said simply, stepping closer again. His gaze burned into mine. “It was necessary.”
Rage, grief, and something darker, something I didn’t fully understand surged inside me. I could feel it twisting me, dragging me toward him, even as I screamed. My chest heaved, tears pricking my eyes, but I refused to let him see the soft, broken pieces of me. Again.
He moved closer still, and I froze. My hands trembled as his presence filled the room entirely. Then he kissed me.
At first, I stiffened, pushing against him with everything I had. My hands pressed against his chest, trying to shove him away, but I couldn’t. Every rational thought screamed for me to resist, but my body betrayed me, burning with tension I had spent months denying.
He didn’t stop. His lips were firm, commanding, tasting my fury and grief all at once. My knees weakened. My hands clenched against his shoulders, but even as I resisted, my heart raced, and the ache in my chest shifted, mingling grief with something illicit, forbidden, unbearable.
We stood there, frozen for a moment. I stared into his grey eyes, and he stared back, unyielding.
My hands dropped slightly, my chest rising and falling in ragged breaths, and then I let go.
I pressed forward, letting myself kiss him with the same intensity I had shouted at him moments before.
Rage, longing, pain, everything became fire between us.
His hands cradled my head, fingers threading through my hair, holding me with a possessiveness that terrified me.
And then the door opened.
Ronan.
I jerked back immediately, stumbling a step, heart hammering. Lucien’s gaze lingered on me, dark and unreadable. I smoothed my dress, pressed my palms against my trembling legs, and whispered, “I should go.”
I didn’t look back as I left, but I could feel him watching me the entire way down the hallway.