219 The Bondless Throne
Mara
The morning Lucian left, I felt like my chest was caving in. But I couldn’t show it.
I couldn’t be the weak link in our bond.
I had almost lost my mind the last time he left on a mission, and I swore I wouldn’t unravel again. So I stood
tall, pressed my shoulders back, and smiled through the ache as I faced the press.
I announced his illness with calm authority. It spread through Mooncrest quickly, whispers, speculation,
sympathy. Meanwhile, I prayed every night that he would return and speak for himself. That he’d walk through the door and make it all go away.
Suspending operations at Steel Corp was brutal. Not just for me, for everyone. People were scared. Angry.
Hungry. But when I explained it, when I stood before the cameras and explained our decision, our caution, they listened. Not because they believed it would be okay, but because they wanted to.
But I knew it wouldn’t last.
By the third day, protests broke out across the island. Loud. Frustrated. Desperate. The suspended territories didn’t matter to me anymore, not the ones who turned their backs. But the seven who still supported us? They mattered. Their faith mattered.
There were moments when I almost reopened Steel Corp. We were insured. The math said we could take the risk.
But I couldn’t predict Chase’s next move.
So I let it burn.
Darian installed cameras across the mansion, smart, wired, secure. I was grateful. Every night I checked the feeds like a ritual. Like maybe I’d see Lucian walk through the gate if I just stared long enough.
By the fifth day, the silence started to rot me from the inside out. When Lucian left on missions in the past, we kept in touch. But this? This radio silence? It was a slow suffocation.
Two weeks passed, and I kept my face strong. I went to HQ, made decisions, signed papers. Then came home to a room that reeked of his absence. I cried in the shower where he used to hold me. I wore his shirts to bed like they were armor. It didn’t help.
I didn’t want to change the story.
I wanted to keep the lie alive: that he was sick, resting, recovering.
But by the third week, we had no choice.
Darian and I made the announcement, Lucian had been kidnapped.
That word… kidnapped… made it real. Too real.
After the press briefing, I returned to the left wing. Darian followed me in silence. We didn’t speak until we were alone, standing in the hallway thick with tension and dread. The scent of our fear hung heavy in the air. “What should we do, Darian?” I whispered, my voice cracking. I hated how small it sounded.
1/3
He exhaled slowly.
“Do you think he’s okay?” I asked again, already knowing he didn’t have an answer.
He opened the door to my bedroom and gestured for me to go in.
I sat on the couch, curled in on myself.
Darian stood there for a while, hands on his hips, jaw tight.
“They should be back by now,” he said. “He wasn’t supposed to stay this long.”
The words broke me.
I folded in tighter and began to sob. Quiet, shaking, ugly sobs.
Lucian was my world.
And I was starting to fear I would never see him again.
“What if that bastard got them?” I whispered, my voice barely holding steady. “Keisha keeps calling… and I don’t know what to tell her. Everyone’s asking about Lucian, Darian. They want answers, and I don’t have any.”
The tears returned before I could stop them. I hated this feeling, helplessness clinging to me like a second skin.
Darian sat beside me and pulled me into his arms. “We have to be strong, Mara,” he said quietly.
But I pulled away.
Strong? I was tired of being strong.
Wiping my tears, I stood up. “It’s time to visit the hospital.”
He nodded, sensing my shift. “Meet me at the entrance.”
47
#
えたら
He left the room, and I made my way to the bathroom. I stood under the warm water longer than usual, trying to wash away the pain, the
pressure, the anger.
I got dressed in a pair of joggers and a loose top that barely hid the bump beginning to show. Lucian should be here. He should be rubbing my belly, whispering names into my skin, telling me everything would be okay.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
As I stepped out and headed down the corridor toward the mansion’s entrance, Austin appeared, walking fast, face tense.
“Luna,” he said, his voice low. “May I have a word?”
Something in his tone chilled me. Urgency, sharpened with unease.
I nodded. “Lead the way.”
He guided me to the right wing, through the staff corridor, into a utility room. The air smelled faintly of cleaning solution and something heavier, wrong.
I gasped the moment I saw the body.
A young man, barely in his twenties, lay cold and still on the floor. His face was pale. Lifeless.
“He took his life yesterday,” Austin said. “I’m not sure when, exactly. But the body’s cold. No signs of struggle.
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< 219 The Bondless Throne
Just… gone.”
I stared at him. He was new, one of the more recent hires. Quiet. Polite.
Now dead.
“What was he mixed up in?” I muttered under my breath. “Did he leave a note? Say anything?”
Austin shook his head. “Nothing. No message. No explanation.”
I clenched my fists. It felt like the walls were closing in.
One thing after another. I couldn’t catch a breath.
I ran a hand over my belly, instinctively protective. I didn’t say it aloud, but I knew it, this wasn’t suicide.
This was cleanup.
Someone silencing a loose thread.
And I was done watching it happen.
-x
+3 Points >
“Have Rowan retrieve the security footage from this wing,” I said coldly. “Immediately. Don’t tell anyone else.
No one.”
“Yes, Luna.”
As he moved, I stared back at the body, my stomach twisting.
Whoever was pulling strings inside this mansion just made their next move.
And now… I would make mine.
“Do the needful, we have bigger issues,” I told Austin before leaving the wing.
