The ride home was steeped in silence so dense it seemed to thicken the very air. The sleek black car glided through empty roads like a phantom returning to its lair, headlights slicing through the darkness. Inside, tension sat like a coiled serpent.
Elle sat still, spine straight, her hands folded neatly in her lap. But beneath that cold poise was a fury that simmered low and dangerous. Her grey eyes stared blankly out the window, catching glimmers of passing streetlights. The moon hung high above, but it no longer looked like a silent friend. Not tonight.
It looked like a distant, indifferent watcher.
A spectator.
And Elle hated spectators.
Edric drove with the same composure he always carried, but even he could feel the shift. The atmosphere inside the car was heavier than usual, like walking into a room moments after someone had screamed. He didn't dare break the silence—not yet.
He had known Elle since she was small, when her world was still innocent and the weight of grief hadn't turned her eyes so sharp. He'd seen her lash out, break down, and rebuild herself. But tonight, she wasn't angry in the way he was used to. She wasn't fragile or furious.
She was… focused. Cold. Calculated. Dangerous.
"She's not mad at me," Edric told himself silently. "She's mad at them. Whoever's hiding in the shadows. The one who dares to test a Deveraux."
His hands tightened on the wheel. The very idea made something old stir in him—an emotion he hadn't allowed himself to feel in years.
Fear.
Not for himself.
But for what Elle might do.
And for what might be done to her.
This wasn't some love-struck college kid desperate for attention. It wasn't a nosy journalist hoping to uncover hidden family secrets. No, this was something far more precise. Someone trained. Someone patient. Someone who knew the city's back roads as well as Edric did. Perhaps even better.
"Could it be…" The thought crept up uninvited. "Could it be someone related to Sasha?"
The name hit his thoughts like a stone thrown into still water.
Sasha.
The girl who had once tormented Elle relentlessly. The girl who had vanished. The one no one ever spoke of anymore—but whose memory still lingered like smoke.
Elle had never confessed. She'd never told Edric what really happened that day in the garden. But he knew. He had seen the scene, seen Elle's eyes when she returned to the manor—quiet, pale, trembling.
And the garden had been… disturbed.
He had found the shallow grave himself.
He had buried her properly—deeper, hidden far beneath the rosebushes, never telling Martha, never breathing a word to the estate's staff.
And then he'd burned Sasha's school files. Every letter. Every trace.
Because Elle had been a child. Broken, grieving, alone. The cruelty she'd endured had chipped away at her until something inside cracked—and the world had ignored every sign.
"She would never have done it if she wasn't pushed," Edric whispered under his breath.
But Sasha had friends. Maybe even family. People who had never gotten answers.
People who might have started asking questions.
Hatred, after all, was a stubborn seed. It could grow in silence, in shadow, fed by obsession and loss.
His eyes drifted to the rearview mirror, catching Elle's reflection. Her grey eyes glinted faintly in the dim interior light—like steel in moonlight.
"Alaric's eyes," Edric thought. "Exactly like her father."
The memory of Alaric Deveraux came with weight—memories wrapped in blood, power, and fire. He had been a storm in a man's body, both terrifying and brilliant. Where others played games, Alaric dominated entire chessboards.
Until Isabelle Ravenswood.
The one person who made Alaric human.
She'd softened him, anchored him. Edric still remembered the way Alaric looked at her—like a man afraid to blink in case she vanished. She had been the only light in a life otherwise ruled by shadows.
But even love hadn't made him gentle.
Alaric's methods of protection had always been ruthless. Edric had driven with him through dark forests, transported bleeding men, dumped bodies into ravines. They'd taken lives—quietly, efficiently, and without remorse.
Enemies of the Deverauxs did not get warnings. They vanished.
Alaric's message had been simple: "Touch my family, and you disappear."
And disappear they did.
Then Elle was born.
Paranoia consumed Alaric. Security was heightened. Guards were stationed in plainclothes. Entire wings of the estate were reconstructed for safer paths and exit points. Elle never knew.
But all the protection in the world hadn't saved them.
Edric had been ill that night—flu, something harsh that kept him bedridden for days. He hadn't joined them at the charity ball. He should've.
"If I'd been there," he thought bitterly, "maybe I could've stopped it."
He didn't believe the official story. Not for a second.
The car accident that killed Alaric and Isabelle had too many convenient holes. No witnesses. Delayed response time. A location deliberately remote. A hundred details that didn't add up.
"It was a setup," he whispered, barely audible over the engine.
He'd spent years investigating—quietly, slowly. The list of attendees that night was full of powerful names. Names you didn't challenge without concrete proof.
He had none.
Not yet.
Elle didn't know. She'd been told what everyone else believed. But one day… one day, when she was ready, he would tell her everything. Maybe then, she'd understand the legacy she'd inherited.
They arrived at the estate just past midnight.
The iron gates creaked open on their own, responding to the sensor under Edric's car. The courtyard was dark, empty except for the soft glow of garden lanterns and the occasional flicker of fireflies.
Elle stepped out of the car wordlessly. Nyra, her long-furred, snow-white cat, waited for her on the front steps, tail curling like a question mark. The feline trotted forward, weaving between Elle's legs as she walked to the door.
Inside, the manor was dim, warm, and quiet. The fireplace crackled softly in her bedroom, casting dancing shadows on the walls. The room smelled faintly of lavender and woodsmoke.
Elle changed into her nightdress in silence. She brushed Nyra's fur, her fingers moving mechanically through the soft strands. The cat purred, curling up beside her on the bed.
But Elle wasn't relaxing.
Her body may have been still, but her mind raced like a predator in the tall grass. Not with panic—but with planning.
"They want to play?" she whispered into the quiet. "Let them."
Her voice held no fear. Only promise.
"I'll build my web slowly, patiently. Let them circle closer, thinking they've won."
Her eyes drifted to the shadows on her ceiling, eyes unreadable.
"And when I close it… they'll never escape."
She turned to Nyra, stroking her gently. The cat pressed its face into her palm, purring louder.
Elle smiled faintly. But it wasn't the smile of a girl before sleep.
It was the smile of someone preparing for war.
The moonlight slipped through the open curtains, illuminating half her face.
The shadows embraced the rest.
The hunt had only just begun.