Serena woke in silk sheets that smelled like power and distance.

The guest room—no, her room now—was luxurious but cold. The windows were large, but the curtains heavy. Nothing here was warm. Not even the sun could touch the walls.

She moved through the mansion quietly, like a ghost in someone else’s story. Every step echoed. Every hallway watched her.

Guards were everywhere.

Maids looked at her like she was both lucky and cursed.

She found the library before breakfast.

It was massive. Two floors, dark wood, ladders, and walls covered in books. She ran her fingers across the spines—some classics, some in Italian, some rare editions she could only dream of touching.

But none of them were hers. And none of them could save her.

Until she found it.

A single, familiar title. One she had written.

Her heart stopped.

Whispers in Crimson, by E. S. Vale—her pen name.

She pulled it off the shelf, her fingers trembling. A sticky note was tucked inside the front cover.

“Chapter 13 was the best. The girl with blood on her hands made the cleanest escape.”

No name. No handwriting she recognized. Just those words.

She pressed the note between her fingers, the weight of it hitting her harder than she expected.

Someone in this house read her work. Someone knew.

And she had a dark, terrible guess who.

Downstairs, she found him.

Luciano.

Sitting at the end of the long dining table, black shirt, sleeves rolled up, tie undone like he owned everything—including the silence around him.

He didn’t look at her as she entered. He just spoke without glancing up.

“You were in the library.”

Serena didn’t flinch. “You have good taste in fiction.”

“I don’t read fiction.”

She raised a brow. “Then why keep books written by liars?”

He finally looked at her then. “Because sometimes lies reveal more than truth.”

Their eyes locked. The air shifted.

This wasn’t a conversation.

It was a test.

“You know, your wife is a liar too,” she said softly.

Luciano leaned back. “Is that a confession?”

“A warning.”

He smirked. Not with amusement, but challenge.

“You’re not what I expected.”

“You never asked what I was.”

He stood. Walked over. His presence towered over her, and still, she didn’t step back.

“I’ll find out,” he murmured. “You’re mine now. Everything about you belongs to me.”

Serena smiled faintly, calm as still water. “Even the parts I haven’t written yet?”

Luciano didn’t answer. He just walked away, leaving her with the echo of his footsteps and the heavy feeling that he’d already started reading her like one of his enemies—word by word, secret by secret.

But he didn’t know—

She had a whole library of darkness inside her.

And she was just getting started.