Chapter 7
Eleanor separated Serena and Grant.
Serena laughed.
“What are we, children?”
Eleanor looked at her.
“No.”
“Children usually learn after consequences.”
Serena’s face hardened.
Grant was taken to the library.
Serena to the morning room.
Adrian remained outside with Eleanor.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Finally:
“I’m sorry.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“No.”
Adrian frowned.
“No?”
“Not yet.”
His face tightened.
“You don’t get relief because you found the correct sentence.”
He looked down.
Eleanor continued.
“You watched.”
“I know.”
“She slapped me.”
“I know.”
“Grant shoved me.”
Adrian’s jaw clenched.
“I know.”
“And you waited until I won.”
That landed hardest.
Eleanor turned toward the lawn.
“Why?”
Adrian breathed out.
“Because Serena said if I defended you, everyone would think I was still your boy.”
Eleanor closed her eyes briefly.
Not because it surprised her.
Because it didn’t.
“What else?”
“She said Matteo would be ashamed.”
Eleanor turned.
Adrian’s voice broke slightly.
“She said Dad built something for me, and you took it after he died.”
That was the poison.
Not blue powder.
Not a gun.
Resentment.
Fed slowly.
Repeated until it sounded like his own thought.
“Did Vincent tell you that too?”
Adrian nodded.
“How often did you speak with him?”
“Every week.”
Eleanor stared.
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“About me.”
“Yes.”
She looked away.
Adrian whispered:
“I thought he was helping.”
“Of course.”
Vincent had chosen his method well.
Serena attacked pride.
Vincent supplied legitimacy.
Grant supplied intimidation.
Adrian did the rest to himself.
Eleanor asked:
“What did they promise you at midnight?”
Adrian hesitated.
“The chair.”
“What else?”
“Control of the capos.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Then they didn't tell you the real plan.”
His face tightened.
“How do you know?”
“Because men who plan to put you in power don’t need twelve fake men wearing your family pin.”
Silence.
Adrian looked toward the carriage house.
Eleanor continued.
“Those uniforms aren’t for ceremony.”
“Then what?”
“That is what we find out.”
Inside the morning room, Serena was screaming at a maid.
Eleanor heard it through the open window.
“You useless idiot!”
Then:
“I said ice, not water!”
A pause.
“You people become stupid the second someone stops supervising you.”
Eleanor walked inside.
Adrian followed.
Serena stood over a young maid named Carla.
Carla held a silver bowl.
Her hands were shaking.
Serena looked at Eleanor.
“What?”
Eleanor stared at her.
Serena rolled her eyes.
“She spilled on my dress.”
Carla whispered:
“I didn’t.”
Serena turned.
“Do not contradict me.”
Carla went silent.
Serena smiled.
“There.”
Then to Eleanor:
“You see how easy staff become when they know their place?”
Eleanor’s expression changed.
Serena continued.
“Maybe that's why you have so much trouble controlling anyone.”
Adrian stared at his fiancée.
Serena noticed.
“What?”
He said:
“Stop talking to her like that.”
Serena laughed.
“Now?”
She walked toward him.
“Now you find a spine?”
Then she touched his cheek.
Sweetly.
“Too late, darling.”
Adrian stepped back.
Her smile vanished.
“Don’t embarrass me.”
That phrase.
Eleanor saw his reaction.
He had heard it before too.
Serena wasn’t only manipulating him intellectually.
She punished him emotionally whenever he stepped outside the role she wanted.
Eleanor asked Carla:
“Why were you really called in here?”
Serena snapped:
“She needs ice.”
Carla looked at Eleanor.
Then Serena.
Fear.
Eleanor waited.
Carla whispered:
“Miss Cole asked me where the north tunnel key is.”
Serena’s face went white.
Adrian stared.
“What tunnel?”
Eleanor knew.
An old service route beneath the estate.
Unused for years.
It connected the carriage house to the west road.
Twelve fake Bellini men.
Hidden uniforms.
May you like
And now a tunnel leading outside the gates.
Whatever Vincent planned after midnight needed people to leave unseen.
