“The woman I knew would have thrown a drink; you just slit her throat with a flower—who the hell are you?”
The air thickened, heavy with the scent of ozone from the recent rain. Tavira swallowed a sharp gasp that sounded too loud in the quiet foyer. His stare probed every micro-expression she had painstakingly schooled. She wanted to shrink, to disappear into the sleek, dark marble of the wall. Her twin would have laughed in his face, but Tavira stood rigid against the cold pane. The phantom pressure of his hand beside her head was a cage, demanding an answer she could not give.
“I am your guest,” she managed, steadying her tone into an imitation of her sister's cadence. The lie felt like ash on her tongue. “People alter under circumstance, Morvel. This place, this cage—it changes anyone.” She injected a sharp rasp of contempt into her words. “Perhaps being stripped of everything brings out… other survival instincts. Is that so hard to believe, Morvel?”
Darris’s eyes, the color of storm clouds over a winter sea, searched hers. He lingered, a silent, scrutinizing pressure that made her skin prickle. He held her gaze a second longer. “Perhaps,” he conceded, his voice flattening into a low rumble of suspicion. He straightened, breaking the confining proximity. “But I will know.” “Go to your rooms. We will discuss the children’s curriculum arrangements later.”
Tavira slipped past him, retreating down the north corridor toward the reading room, its vaulted ceiling and rows of leather-bound folios offering sanctuary. Ennis sat cross-legged on a plush, emerald rug, his tablet glowing with a complex, swirling nebula background. Pellam was hunched over a heavy tome on ancient Carthenian architecture, his brow furrowed in concentration.
“Anything interesting?” she asked Pellam, settling onto a nearby armchair, its velvet worn smooth by generations of readers. She ran a hand over the intricate floral carving on its arm, a familiar comfort.
“Just how they moved these colossal stones without any lift-tech,” he muttered, not looking up. “It makes no sense. The sheer physics are… impossible.”
Ennis, meanwhile, was humming a tuneless melody, his small fingers flying across the screen. He was mid-game, a global tournament by the looks of the streaming overlay. Tavira watched, mesmerized, as an opponent’s pieces vanished, one by one, under Ennis’s ruthless, elegant strategy.
Without a knock, the heavy brass-inlaid doors swung inward. Darris Morvel stood on the threshold, a striking figure against the polished wood. He held an ornate, antique chess set, the pieces carved from dark onyx and pale ivory, gleaming under the soft, ambient light. He bypassed Tavira entirely, his focus solely on Ennis.
“I hear you have a knack for strategy, young man,” Darris said, his voice surprisingly mild. He placed the heavy board on a low mahogany table, the wood groaning softly under its weight. “Care for a… physical challenge?”
Ennis’s head tilted, his silver-flecked eyes, so like Darris’s own, meeting the billionaire’s with an unnerving intensity. He pushed his tablet aside, a rare act of submission. “Only if you play seriously,” the boy stated, his small voice echoing in the vast room.
Darris let out a short, almost imperceptible huff of amusement. “I assure you, I only play seriously.” He gestured to the board. “White or black?”
“White,” Ennis said, already reaching for a pawn. He moved it forward two squares, his opening move swift and confident. Darris mirrored the move with a black pawn, then paused, his brow slightly furrowed as he considered Ennis’s next calculated advance. The room narrowed to a hush, punctuated only by the crisp click of carved stone pieces on the polished board.
Watching them, Tavira felt a strange mix of apprehension and a flicker of warmth. Darris, stripped of his usual ruthless demeanor, became a different man when facing his son over a chessboard. A quiet respect, a nascent pride, softened the hard lines of his face. Ennis, in turn, seemed to thrive under the focused attention, his usual reticence replaced by a quiet, fierce engagement.
A faint scraping sound near the tall bookshelves made Tavira look up. One of the estate’s maids, a young woman named Cilla, was dusting a collection of ancient astronomical globes. Her movements were careful, but as she reached for a particularly high shelf, her elbow nudged a heavy bronze statue of a Griffin, perched precariously on a pedestal. The statue wobbled.
Time seemed to stretch, elastic and agonizing. The Griffin, weighing at least forty pounds, began its slow, inevitable descent. It was directly above Ennis, who, absorbed in his game, remained oblivious. Tavira’s throat tightened, a silent scream building behind her teeth. She lurched forward, but she was too far.
Darris moved. He moved with a speed that defied his imposing frame, a blur of dark tailored fabric. Before Tavira could even clear the armrest of her chair, he had lunged, sweeping Ennis into his arms and tucking the boy against his chest. The heavy bronze Griffin crashed onto the mahogany table where Ennis had been sitting moments before, shattering the antique chessboard into splintered fragments and gouging a deep crater into the wood. The impact vibrated through the floor, a concussive shockwave.
Cilla gasped, dropping her duster, her face ashen. Pellam dropped his pencil, staring in shock.
But Darris didn’t even glance at the destruction. He held Ennis tight, his body curled protectively around the small boy, a primal shield. His chest heaved, his stare blazing with cold fury directed not at the maid, but at the near-miss itself. Ennis, startled but unharmed, looked up at his father’s face, a flicker of something unreadable in his own gaze.
“Are you alright?” Darris’s voice was a low growl, thick with suppressed terror. He pulled back slightly, checking Ennis for any injury, his hands gentle despite their tremor. “Ennis? Are you hurt?”
Ennis shook his head, his small hand coming up to pat Darris’s cheek. “I’m okay.”
Darris closed his eyes for a moment, a shudder passing through him. He set Ennis gently on his feet, keeping one large hand braced on the boy’s shoulder. The air in the room crackled with the aftermath of his raw protectiveness.
Suddenly, with a sharp *crack*, the opulent chandeliers flickered, then died. The recessed lighting around the shelves vanished. The floor-to-ceiling windows, usually a source of soft, grey light, became dark, reflective panels. A rolling blackout had hit the estate. The cavernous room dropped into total blackness. The soft, distant hum of the estate’s advanced systems ceased, replaced by an unnerving, absolute silence. A low, mournful howl of wind swept against the glass.
A chill tightened across Tavira’s shoulders. The pitch-black stillness dragged her backward five years. To that cheap harbor motel with the failing neon sign and rattling ceiling fan. The power outage that had trapped her, alone and screaming, in the suffocating blackness after… after. Her hands began to tremble, a fine, uncontrollable tremor that quickly intensified. She crossed her arms tight across her ribs, her throat constricting as she choked on shallow air.
“Are you hurt?” Darris’s voice came from just paces away in the dark. “Are you alright?” He couldn’t see her, but he must have heard the ragged edge in her breathing.
She couldn’t answer, a tight knot of fear constricting her throat. Her body convulsed, a full-body shiver.
Then, a warm, solid presence was beside her. Darris’s hand, large and surprisingly gentle, settled on her arm. “It’s just a power failure,” he murmured, his voice low, a soft current against the storm in her mind. “The generators will kick in. It’s temporary.”
His proximity, the warmth of his hand, was both terrifying and oddly comforting. The scent of rain, expensive cologne, and something distinctly his own—sharp, clean, and a little dangerous—filled her senses. She leaned into his touch, an instinctive, desperate need for connection in the overwhelming darkness. Her head tilted, seeking the warmth, and her temple brushed against his shoulder. His other arm wrapped around her, a surprisingly firm embrace that offered a fragile sense of safety.
Her trembling slowed. She could track the measured rise of his chest against her collarbone, anchoring her amid the black void. She felt her face turn towards him, drawn by an invisible current, and she knew, with a certainty that thrummed through her veins, that his head was also lowering. Their foreheads almost touched, the soft brush of his hair against her cheek. Neither moved. The draft from the coastal windows whistled against the glass pane, and then—
Generators groaned in the walls, and the room flooded with cold daylight tubes. The chandeliers hummed, the recessed lights glowed, banishing the shadows. The air conditioning whirred to life. Darris froze inches from her, pupils contracting under the glare. His arm was still around her, her face still tilted towards his, the intimacy of the moment violently exposed.
“Look at this!”
Pellam’s voice, sharp with urgency, ripped through the fragile tension. He stood in the doorway, his chest heaving. In his hand, held aloft like a damning indictment, was a cream-colored envelope, its contents spilling out. A single sheet of paper, embossed with the Morvel Corp insignia, fluttered precariously. “Look what was sitting in his study!” Pellam yelled, waving the paper. “It’s a paternity requisition form—a DNA order!”