Chapter 53
Peighton
Gustav breaks the seal on the envelope with a slow drag of his thumb, like he already knows whatever is inside will hurt.
He pulls out a stack of folded pages tied with an ivory ribbon.
The moment he loosens it, a letter slips free and flutters to the floor between us.
I bend down quickly before he can stop me.
The handwriting makes my stomach lurch. My mother’s.
Her loops. Her little flourishes. I stand there frozen with the page in my hand as Gustav unfolds the one on top of his stack.
He reads fast, eyes racing left to right, then back again, as if he thinks he must be misunderstanding. I glance at the page I picked up. The words are soft. Tender. Aching with a kind of love I have never seen in my mother’s life.
She had so little love for anyone but me. How could she have given this part of herself to Magnus, a man outside the family?
I force myself to look away and glance at Gustav’s page instead. His father’s handwriting. Possessive. Bold. A man declaring devotion that never belonged to his wife. I feel sick.
Because these are the love letters Dad spoke of.
The air thickens around us. Gustav’s chest rises once. Twice. His jaw flexes. His fingers curl around the letter until it is nothing but wrinkled paper in his fist.
He looks at me without moving his head, only his eyes shifting toward mine. “Did you know your mother was a whore?”
The word hits like a slap.
Heat floods my face. My spine straightens. “She was no more a whore than your father was.”
The silence that follows is terrifying.
In one movement he closes the distance between us and wraps his hand around my neck. A firm hold. Controlling. His palm is warm. His grip steady. My pulse thunders against his thumb as he tilts my face up toward his.
“Did you know,” he says slowly, each word precise, “that she was sleeping with another man while she had a husband and a child waiting for her at home?”
My breath shakes. I refuse to look away. If I do, it will seem like shame. Or guilt. Or deceit. And I lived too many years in the shadow of my mother’s silence to repeat that curse.
I nod. Once. “I didn’t know it was this serious. That they were in love.”
His nostrils flare. A muscle jumps beneath his eye. “I knew you were a liar,” he murmurs, voice dropping. “I knew it.”
“No,” I whisper. “The only thing I lied about was to protect you. You were unraveling, Gustav. And I’m not my mother.”
He searches my face, and I see the war there. Betrayal. Recognition. Something wounded under the anger. He releases my neck, but the loss of his hand doesn’t make me feel safer. It just makes the room feel bigger. Emptier. Like he could disappear or explode at any second.
He turns away sharply and goes back to the envelope. His movements are jerky now, no longer controlled. He reaches inside and pulls out the second stack.
Photographs.
A sick dread slithers through me.
He flips through them quickly at first, perhaps bracing himself for more letters, but then something snags. Stops him. His breath stutters. His fingers tremble around the glossy edges. One photo slips from his hand and drifts to the floor.
“Gustav?” My voice comes out too quiet.
He doesn’t answer.
He braces his palm on the desk, shoulders bowing forward, and the rest of the pictures flutter from his hand to the rug in a scattered, damning trail.
I kneel and grab the nearest one.
My heart drops so violently I swear the room tilts.
Me.
And Brutus.
Standing beside the trunk of a car at St. Andrews. The day Keira took that photo. Except in this one, Brutus is leaning in. His mouth on mine. His hand gripping my waist. My fingers tangled in his hair like I’m pulling him closer.
None of it is real. None of it happened. But the image looks real. Rupert’s work, no doubt.
I scramble for the next one. And the next.
All of them the same. Different angles. Different moments.
Me kissing Brutus behind a stone archway.
Me pressed against him beside a greenhouse.
His hand sliding under my shirt. My head thrown back in pleasure that never existed. My throat closes and my eyes burn.
“This isn’t—” My voice cracks. “Gustav, these are fake. AI or something. They’re altered.”
But when I lift my head, ready to plead, the space in front of me is empty.
He is gone.
Shit.
The room feels suddenly colder, as if the shadows grew teeth. A single raven croaks outside the window, loud and sharp. Another joins it. Then another. Their cries build, echoing down the stone corridors and vibrating through the floorboards.
Panic spikes. I lunge to my feet and run.
“Gustav!” My voice bounces off the hallway walls.
No answer.
I sprint down the corridor, clutching the photos in shaking hands, my breath sharp in my throat. “Gustav, wait! Please!”
Another raven screams from somewhere above. Another on the balcony. The air hums with their agitation, like they are warning me.
He must be spiraling. He must be falling back into whatever dark place his mother built inside him, and I put him there. Not because I lied. Not because of Brutus. But because I am the daughter of the woman who destroyed his family.
The voices will be loud.
He will be breaking.
Alone.
I turn the corner and the hallway stretches out before me, empty and echoing, lined with doors I know too well. The castle feels huge, hostile, alive with Sokolov ghosts watching from the rafters. I run faster.
“Gustav!”
No answer.
Only ravens.
And the sickening realization settles in that Rupert has finally landed a blow deep enough to split us apart.
He didn’t just send evidence. He sent a match, and my caution struck it.
I wanted to spare my husband from learning of my mother’s sins, but instead my silence fed his distrust and gave it teeth.
Now Gustav, my dark, broken, beautiful husband, is primed to combust.
I keep running, heart in my throat, terrified not of finding him, but of what he will be when I do.