"Good trip?" Nathan asked, his voice light. Almost cheerful.
"Productive," Aleksander said.
"Everything resolved?"
"Everything."
Nathan smiled. It was a terrible smile—the kind that made me want to hide under the table. "Good. We wouldn't want any loose ends."
Aleksander's eyes flicked to him. There was something in them I'd never seen before—something cold and assessing. "No," he said. "We wouldn't."
The silence stretched. I could feel the tension coiling around us, thick as smoke. Gabriel cleared his throat.
"Monika, I was thinking—" He started, his voice hesitant. "Maybe we could—"
"Not now," Aleksander said.
Gabriel's mouth snapped shut. He looked at me, confused, hurt, and I couldn't meet his eyes.
I couldn't meet anyone's eyes.
The headboard was discovered that afternoon.
I don't know who found it—a maid, probably, or one of the servants. But word spread quickly through the house, the way secrets always do in a place like this. By the time I came down from my room, everyone knew.
Everyone except Aleksander.
He was in his study when I found him, standing at the window, his back to the door. The fire was lit, burning high and bright, and the room smelled like cedar and smoke and something else—something that might have been anger.
"Monika." He didn't turn around. "Close the door."
I closed the door.
"The headboard in your room," he said. "It's broken."
"I know."
"Broken," he repeated, like he was tasting the word. "Cracked down the middle. Splintered. Like someone had been—" He stopped. Turned. His grey eyes found mine, and I saw what was in them.
Not anger. Not yet.
Something worse.
"I was away for one night," he said. "One night. And in that time, something happened in your room that broke furniture."
I opened my mouth to speak. Closed it. There was nothing I could say that would make this better.
"Was it Gabriel?" Aleksander asked. His voice was soft. Too soft.
"No."
"Was it someone else? One of the staff? A guard?"
"No."
"Then who?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. The silence was deafening, filling the space between us like water.
