“She’s with me.” Kazimir Baris stood at the edge of the terrace, his form a solid, unyielding barrier against the ballroom’s muffled clamor. The harsh words extinguished the warmth between Nara and Stefan, leaving a chill in the humid night air. Stefan’s face, moments ago soft with longing, hardened into a mask of resentment. He pulled back, a faint flush coloring his cheeks, his gaze challenging Kazimir before he turned to Nara, a silent question in his eyes. Nara felt a knot tighten in her gut. She’d allowed herself a fraction of vulnerability, and it had been instantly, brutally, exposed. Kazimir offered no explanation, no apology for his interruption. He simply extended a hand, a silent command for her to join him. Stefan’s jaw worked, but he said nothing, merely stepping back, allowing the space between them to widen into an abyss. Nara hesitated, then placed her hand in Kazimir’s. His touch was firm, not gentle, a stark contrast to Stefan’s artistic caress. He led her away from the terrace, through a service entrance, and down a rarely used corridor. The Glass House’s opulent façade gave way to utilitarian steel and concrete, the hum of unseen machinery replacing the faint orchestral cadence. He didn’t stop until they reached a nondescript vehicle parked in a shadowed alcove outside the estate’s secondary perimeter. It was a common sedan, unadorned, utterly out of place amongst the Kertesz fleet of luxury cruisers. “Get in,” he instructed, his voice low, devoid of emotion. He settled into the driver’s seat, starting the engine without waiting for her reply. The car pulled away from the Kertesz estate, its glass walls receding in the rearview mirror until they were swallowed by the city’s sprawl. Nara remained silent, her mind racing, trying to decipher his intent. Kazimir drove in silence for a long time, the city lights blurring into streaks. He took an unfamiliar route, winding through older districts where the buildings were stone and brick, not glass and steel. He pulled into a narrow alley behind a row of unassuming townhouses, switching off the engine. The sudden quiet was absolute, broken only by traffic rumbling several blocks away. “We need to talk,” he said, turning to her. His profile was etched against the faint glow of a streetlamp, stark and unyielding. “Not here. Not anywhere within their reach.” He opened a small, metal box on the dashboard, extracting a keycard. “This isn’t a Kertesz property. It’s a safehouse I maintain. No cameras, no mics. No one knows about it.” They entered a small, sparsely furnished apartment. A single bed, a worn armchair, a small kitchen table. Nothing opulent, nothing to betray its purpose. He gestured towards the armchair. “Sit.” He walked over to a locked wall cabinet, retrieving a dusty photo album. He didn’t open it immediately, instead running a thumb over the worn cover. His gaze seemed to drift, lost in some old memory. “Her name was the heiress’s name,” he began, his voice softer, touched with an unfamiliar melancholy. “The real granddaughter.” Nara felt a tremor of apprehension. This was it. The truth. Her heart began a slow, heavy thud against her ribs. “I was a new recruit, barely out of the academy. Assigned to her as personal security. She was… difficult. Trapped. The expectations of the Kertesz name were a cage, and she resented it. Every public appearance, every curated smile, it chipped away at her.” He opened the album, flipping through pages of faded photographs: a young girl with bright, defiant eyes, often looking away from the camera, a rebellious streak in her smile. Nara saw a resemblance to the Kertesz portraits she’d studied, but also a wildness she hadn’t expected. One picture showed the girl at a garden party, her arm linked with a younger, almost boyish Kazimir, both of them laughing, a rare moment of unguarded joy. He stopped at a blank page. “The night she went missing, she was restless. She snuck out to the estate’s hidden garden. I found her there, sitting by the old fountain, her face tear-streaked. She was tired of the gilded prison, the endless scrutiny. She wanted to run. Slip away entirely. Become someone else.” Kazimir paused, his gaze fixed on the empty page. “She gave me something that night. Said I was the only one she trusted enough to keep it.” He reached into his jacket, producing a familiar object. It was the same intricately carved locket from the premiere, the one with the almost invisible inscription. “This,” he said, his voice a low rumble, “was hers. She told me to hold onto it. Said if she ever truly got free, if she ever needed me to find her, I’d know what to do with it.” He closed his hand around the cool metal. “And she told me what the inscription meant. A simple phrase from an old children’s rhyme she loved. A promise to find her way home, no matter how far she wandered.” Nara’s breath caught. He knew. All this time, he knew the locket’s meaning, and he had simply let her lie. “I never saw her again after that night,” he continued, oblivious to Nara’s internal turmoil. “The official story was she vanished. But there was always… something else.” He placed the locket and the album on the small table. He retrieved a tablet from his bag, swiping through several screens before showing it to her. It displayed an archived news article, its headline dated days after the heiress vanished. ‘Unidentified Woman Dies in Roadside Crash on Route 27.’ The accompanying photo was grainy, blurred, showing a mangled vehicle on a desolate stretch of road. The text below detailed the discovery of a young woman’s body, too disfigured for immediate identification, no personal effects found at the scene. Nara stared at the screen, a cold dread seeping into her bones. The week the girl vanished. An unidentified young woman. The pieces clicked into a terrifying mosaic. “Matriarch Otylia always maintained she was alive, held captive somewhere, or just in hiding,” Kazimir said, his voice flat, devoid of his usual stoicism. He looked at Nara, a raw vulnerability in his eyes she had never seen before. “But what if she wasn’t? What if this… this was her? And what if Matriarch Otylia isn’t trying to find a missing granddaughter, but trying to smoke out the person who…” His words trailed off, a profound fear darkening his features. “What if she knows her granddaughter is gone for good, and she’s looking for the one responsible for ending her life?” Nara felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. The Matriarch’s earlier confession, her warnings about a killer, suddenly took on a sinister new meaning. Kazimir’s tension showed in the rigid line of his shoulders, a stark contrast to his usual composure. He wasn’t just a loyal bodyguard; he was a man haunted by a personal failure, driven by a ghost. “My greatest fear,” he finally admitted, his voice barely above a whisper, “is that I didn’t just fail to protect her.” He met Nara’s gaze, staring at her with steady intent. “My greatest fear is that Matriarch Otylia knows more about the heiress's vanishing than she has ever let on, and she believes I played a part in it.”

A Flash of Memory