Chapter 4 - The Woman in the WallNo one moved for five seconds.
Then Celeste laughed.
It was the wrong laugh. Too sharp. Too quick. Too frightened.
“In the wall?” she said. “You hear him, Lucian? This is madness.”
But Lucian was no longer looking at her.
He was looking at Mateo.
The boy’s whole body shook. His rage had burned itself out, leaving only the child underneath. The child who had been hiding behind broken teacups and screaming fits because no one had bothered to ask what he was trying to survive.
Lucian crouched slowly, lowering himself to Mateo’s eye level.
“Tell me what you mean.”
Mateo looked at Celeste.
Lucian saw it.
The fear.
Not fear of punishment.
Fear of being believed too late.
“Celeste,” Lucian said without turning, “leave us.”
Her face tightened.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Leave.”
“I am your wife.”
“And he is my son.”
The hallway became so quiet that Rosa could hear the chandelier crystals ticking softly above them.
Celeste’s lips pressed into a thin line.
“Fine,” she said. “Indulge him.”
She walked away, but not toward her room.
Rosa noticed.
Celeste turned toward the east wing.
The sealed wing.
The part of the mansion no one cleaned except the oldest housekeeper, Mrs. Bell, who had retired three months earlier with a sudden pension and a face full of fear.
Rosa stepped forward.
“Mr. Vale.”
Lucian’s eyes stayed on Mateo.
“What?”
“She’s going the wrong way.”
Lucian stood.
Celeste had already reached the corridor.
“Stop,” he called.
She froze, hand inches from a hidden panel in the wall.
That was when everyone saw it.
There was a key in her hand.
Not a house key. Not a room key.
An old brass key with a blue ribbon tied around the end.
Mateo made a small choking sound.
Lucian walked toward his wife.
“Give it to me.”
Celeste closed her fist.
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“Give me the key.”
“This is private household management.”
Lucian’s laugh was quiet and terrible.
“In my house?”
Celeste lifted her chin.
“You haven’t known what happens in this house for years.”
The words slipped out before she could catch them.
Rosa saw Lucian absorb the blow.
Mateo suddenly grabbed Rosa’s hand.
His fingers were cold.
“She’s going to hide the pictures,” he whispered.
“What pictures, baby?”
His eyes filled again.
“The ones Mama made.”
Lucian heard him.
The name seemed to cut something open inside him.
Mateo’s mother, Isabella Vale, had died six years earlier in a car accident on a rain-slick road outside the city. That was the official story. Lucian had buried an empty smile beside an expensive coffin and spent the years afterward turning grief into money.
But Mateo had not gone to the funeral.
He had been told he was too young.
Rosa had thought it cruel.
Now she wondered if it had been necessary.
Lucian reached for Celeste’s hand.
She pulled back.
The brass key fell.
It hit the marble with a tiny sound.
Mateo screamed.
May you like
Not because of the key.
Because somewhere inside the wall, a woman began to sing.
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