Chapter 7 - The Dead WifeIsabella Vale was supposed to be dead.
There had been a funeral.
There had been flowers imported from Paris, a marble headstone, a black veil over Margot Vale’s face, and an obituary that called her “beloved wife, devoted mother, tragic angel.”
Lucian had stood beside the coffin and accepted condolences from governors, judges, investors, and men who hated him but respected his grief.
Rosa had watched from the back.
She remembered thinking the coffin looked too small for so much sorrow.
Now Isabella stood alive in a hidden room beneath the east wing, her wrists thin, her hair streaked with gray though she was only thirty-six. Her beauty had not vanished. It had been starved. Dimmed. Buried.
Lucian took one step toward her.
She recoiled.
That hurt him more than any accusation could have.
“Isabella,” he whispered.
“Don’t,” she said.
Her voice was hoarse from disuse.
Rosa stepped forward gently.
“Mrs. Vale?”
Isabella stared at her.
Recognition moved slowly across her face.
“Rosa?”
Rosa began to cry.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Isabella’s chin trembled.
“You stayed?”
“I didn’t know.”
The answer seemed to crush them both.
Upstairs, Mateo screamed, “Mama!”
Isabella’s entire body changed.
It was as if a dead woman remembered how to live.
She ran.
Lucian reached for her, but Rosa caught his wrist.
“Let her go first.”
The three of them climbed the stairs, but Isabella moved like pain did not exist. She reached the hallway barefoot, pale, shaking.
Mateo stood at the end of the corridor, held back by fear and hope.
For one breath, mother and son stared at each other.
Then Mateo ran.
He hit her so hard she almost fell, wrapping his arms around her waist, burying his face against her.
“I knew,” he sobbed. “I knew you weren’t dead. I told them.”
Isabella sank to the floor and held him.
“My baby,” she whispered. “My brave boy. My beautiful, brave boy.”
The staff cried openly.
Even the guards turned away.
Lucian stood frozen by the hidden door, watching the wife he had buried hold the son he had failed.
Celeste tried to retreat.
Rosa saw her.
“Don’t let her leave,” Rosa said.
The guards blocked the corridor.
Celeste’s face hardened.
“You think this makes you righteous?” she snapped at Lucian. “You signed the papers. You approved the treatments. You believed every word because it was convenient.”
Lucian flinched.
Isabella lifted her head.
Her eyes were no longer weak.
“She’s right about one thing,” Isabella said.
Lucian looked at her.
“What?”
May you like
Isabella held Mateo tighter.
“You didn’t put me in the wall,” she said. “But you let this house teach you not to hear screaming.”
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