Chapter 33 Planning a Heist
Three hours since breakfast, and I’m tearing through Dom’s room with the fever of someone circling the edge of sanity.
I need leverage. Something I can hurl in Kian’s face if he dares to corner me.
Or proof. Proof that I’m not unraveling, that the wrongness twisting in my gut this morning wasn’t just the leftovers of another nightmare.
My hands sweep over the mahogany dresser again, prying open drawers with increasing force. Silk ties spill to the floor in a cascade of crimson and black, colors that once meant desire, now are a warning.
There has to be something. Anything.
The closet yields more with each violent search.
Dom’s pressed shirts, arranged by gradient, immaculate and obsessive.
The order stabs at my ribs. Hidden compartments crack open beneath my fingertips.
Vials of Pulse. Eclipse Dust. Each one laced with danger, still humming faintly with residual charge.
A ledger rests at the bottom, bound in worn leather and reeking of secrets.
Names, debts, transactions from The Den cataloged with brutal precision.
I skim the pages hungrily. Maybe there’s a name I can use, someone who’d help me escape if I promised to clear their debt.
The numbers smear as my pulse stutters, something foreign coiling in my veins, a deep instinctive revolt telling me that this place, this life, this man, no longer belongs to me.
Then, behind a false panel, my fingers find it, a wooden box, worn smooth by time and use. Inside are photographs. They spill out in a mess of memories. Dom, who claims sentiment is weakness, who mocks anyone who holds on too tightly, has been hoarding pieces of me like contraband.
My breath stalls. One photo from the Winter Solstice Gala—me in that emerald gown, Dom spinning me across marble under chandeliers, eyes locked on mine like I was the only thing left worth wanting.
Another from the Silva masquerade, his hand curved possessively around my waist, face hidden behind a half-mask, but still undeniably him. And then the last.
The one that breaks something essential.
Our first night out as a couple. The Eclipse Lounge, grand opening. I’m in midnight silk, rubies dripping from my throat. Dom stands behind me, looking every inch the dangerous heir in his tailored black suit, fingers are laced through mine. We look drunk on power and desire.
My ruby pulses against my throat, its familiar warmth now foreign. These images should stir affection, even longing. I used to be safe here. Used to know who I was in this room, in his orbit. Dom’s girl. Dom’s love. Dom’s future.
When did that become a sentence instead of a choice?
I grip the photo tighter, but my skin prickles as if rejecting the contact, and my blood shifts again, recoiling.
Every instinct screams this isn’t safety anymore.
It’s decay. Don’t forget, I tell myself.
Remember when his voice calmed you, when his touch meant comfort. There was love here. There was truth.
There had to be.
But now? I’m fractured. One version of me wants to crawl back into his sheets, curl beneath his scent until the questions go silent.
Just stay. He loves you. You’re imagining things.
You’re safe here. The other is already reaching for the door, heart clawing at the inside of my ribs.
Move. Now. Before they lock it and come for you.
The girl in these photos is a stranger. She smiled too easily, trusted too quickly, gave her heart like it wouldn’t cost her anything. I want to shake her. Want to wrap her in my arms and scream until she hears me—run.
What did they do to me?
The question pulses like a wound. When did I stop recognizing my own reflection? When did I become someone I don’t trust?
The floor-to-ceiling windows taunt me with their illusion of freedom. All I find is my own reflection shattered across the surface. Three stories below, the Blackwood gardens stretch out in layered perfection, every inch cultivated into something deadly.
Even from here, I can read the layout like a war map: red roses tangled with moonblossoms engineered to blind, their stored starlight capable of burning through flesh.
The floating archways draped in frozen wisteria shift gently in the breeze, deceptively serene.
I know better. I’ve seen what those suspended petals can do.
How they flay open whatever stumbles beneath them.
A gardener moves through the maze below, his steps unnaturally precise. He skirts the ghost orchids with ritualistic caution. And rightly so. I’ve heard the rumors—those who brush too close have their souls siphoned into the translucent blooms, preserved forever as part of the Blackwood aesthetic.
My fingers twitch across the glass, tracing theoretical routes through the labyrinth below. Every path ends in some elegant death trap. Of course it does. Kian doesn’t build homes, he builds prisons draped in finery. Everything beautiful in this estate was designed to consume.
A breath catches in my chest as a void hound emerges from the shadows, violet eyes scanning the grounds in slow, calculated arcs.
The man below freezes mid-step, waiting.
The creature prowls past a bed of dragon’s breath.
The flowers live up to their name, petals smoldering and exhaling spirals of iridescent vapor.
But it’s the blood roses that draw my gaze, floating weightless, encased in shifting thorns that bristle at the slightest motion. A single perfect bloom releases a single red drop. I remember the last time Dom tried to harvest one for me. He bled from more than the thorns that night.
I lean my forehead against the cool glass, studying my fractured reflection.
The girl staring back looks haunted; wild-eyed, her hair a chaos from running desperate fingers through it.
My ruby flares again, and for a moment my reflection seems to ripple, showing someone else’s features overlaid with mine.
I jolt, heart pounding, but the strange double-image is gone.
Dom’s scent clings to the room. His shirt lies by the shower door, still damp with steam. I want to reach for it, take it, hold on to anything that feels like him. But that’s what they’re counting on, isn’t it? These chains forged from love and memory, binding me tighter than any contract.
For the first time, his phantom touch makes me want to scrub myself raw.
Kian’s voice from breakfast wraps around my neck, along with the unspoken promise of what he’d do to Dom if I ran.
Would he really hurt his own son? The heir he’s spent years perfecting?
But then I remember the daggers, the way they pinned Dom to the chair like an exhibit.
The sound Kian made twisting the metal deeper, the blood choke from Dom’s throat.
Maybe the real question is: when has Kian ever hesitated to hurt his son?
The contract I signed in his office weighs on my mind. What happens to someone who breaks a Founding Family binding? Would they drag me through the courts? Or skip the pageantry and send assassins instead? And even if I ran, where would I go that Kian Blackwood couldn’t reach?
I can’t stay. Not like this. Dom won’t forgive me for leaving. But maybe that’s a mercy. Better his hate than watching his father hollow him out piece by piece, using me as the knife.
Dom’s room offers no answers, just ghosts.
That narrows it to two options: give up, or go deeper. And surrender means accepting whatever fate Kian’s already written for me. I step into the corridor, abandoning the false sanctuary. Each silent footfall against the dark marble leaves me more unmoored.
My heart slams against my ribs as if I’ve swallowed a vial of pure Pulse. But this time, my adversary isn’t flesh and blood; it’s this labyrinthine fortress of opulence and secrets. And perhaps the fracturing pieces of my own mind.
The halls stretch ahead, a gauntlet of curated magnificence.
Crystal fixtures scatter light in disorienting bursts, each glint striking sharp behind my eyes.
Ancient tapestries ripple with embedded enchantments, their threads seeming to reweave themselves when glimpsed from the corner of my eye.
I have to bite back nausea as the images twist into grotesque shapes that shouldn’t exist.
Gilded mirrors line the walls at precise intervals, their surfaces occasionally shimmering with something far more sinister than mere reflections.
I catch fragments of movement that shouldn’t be there, shadows that don’t match their owners.
My magic tightens, wound taut in warning, as if it expects the glass to split open and strike.
Each piece exudes an aura of dark history, as though the very air remembers the tragedies played out before these silent witnesses. Breathing here is like inhaling a century of bloodstained etiquette.
This place isn’t just decorated; it’s armed. Every beautiful object a weapon. Each enchanted surface an eye watching, waiting for me to break.
I catalog each room I dare to breach, ranking them on an internal scale of “suspicious” to “definitely concealing atrocities.” A vaulted library hums with tomes, whose titles reconfigure when I blink, written in scripts that don’t belong to any human tongue.
One salon’s curtains ripple in the still air, whispering phrases meant for no living ear.
The music room houses a grand piano that plays itself with unnatural grace, the melody wrong enough to raise my skin.
The staff vanish the moment they notice me, unwilling to be caught in proximity. I don’t blame them. Not after this morning’s performance of Kian’s casual sadism.
Some doors open at my touch, meant for showcasing wealth.
Others pulse with wardlines that snap to life the moment I draw near.
One burns crimson, magic licking across my skin in a pattern that mimics frostbite.
Another door growls. Not figuratively. It emits a guttural, distinctly alive warning that makes me reconsider my mortality.
I add it to the list of things I’ll investigate later, when I’m not two steps from either a breakdown or a very stupid act of bravery.
Kian’s portrait glares down at me from a hallway intersection, his eyes locked on mine no matter how I move. The painted expression shifts just enough to unsettle. Even rendered in oil, he radiates the kind of authority that makes you check for blades behind your ribs.
I stop where the hall splits in three, all routes equally suffocating in their extravagance. The mansion pulses with a quiet sentience, as if some vast, slumbering beast is simply waiting for its master’s signal to strike.
“Planning a heist?”
Margaux’s voice cuts through the silence, making me whirl.
She’s leaning against an ornate doorframe, looking oddly casual in tailored black pants and a crimson silk blouse.
A stark departure from her usual parade of designer dresses.
Her hair falls in glossy, sculpted waves that curl just beneath her chin.
Even dressed down, she emanates that particular Blackwood brand of dangerous grace—elegant, composed, and always watching.
“Sweet magic, what tragic circumstance led to . . .” Her manicured hand waves dismissively at my entire existence.
“Whatever this ensemble is supposed to be? I realize that boulder on your finger means Dom’s thoroughly trapped, but darling—” She clicks her tongue, her disapproval more theatrical than cruel.
“That doesn’t mean you should start dressing like you raided a Lower Ring donation bin. ”
“There’s nothing wrong with what I’m wearing,” I snap, smoothing my tangled hair on instinct. I glance down at my worn jeans, and Dom’s black T-shirt pulled from his drawer hours ago. “Not all of us need to dress like we’re attending a gala just to wander the halls.”
“In this home, even the servants manage to look more put together than whatever this rebellion against fashion is supposed to be.”
“Thanks for the critique,” I mutter, turning away. “If we’re done with the unsolicited fashion commentary, I have things to do.”
“If you’re actually planning a theft, I can point out all the valuable stuff,” she continues.
“Personally, I’d recommend starting with Mother’s ruby collection.
Much easier to fence than those dusty old paintings.
” Her eyes glint. “Unless you’re looking for something harder to locate.
Like, say . . . an exit that won’t trigger every protective ward in the estate? ”
I keep my expression carefully blank despite my thundering heart. “Just familiarizing myself with my future home.”
“Mhm.” She smirks at me. “Of course. Just like I was ‘studying architectural theory’ when I memorized every escape route by age twelve.” She straightens with feline grace.
“Speaking of forced family participation, Mother insists we join her for tea. Apparently Whispersilk is airing exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of Dom and Father’s interview. ”
“I should really—”
“Oh, Aria.” She loops her arm through mine, her grip delicate and immovable. “That wasn’t actually a request.”
I let her lead me into the heart of the manor, knowing resistance is pointless.