Chapter 197: Of The Venom She’s Going To Spit

LOUISE’S POV

I despise him because his inability to abandon the past makes him predictable, and because Alice has always known how to turn predictability into a weapon.

I despise him because even now, sitting in a room where I could be killed without anyone outside this building knowing the truth, a part of me is certain he will come through that door and try to understand me.

As though understanding has ever saved anyone in our wretched ’family’.

A quiet, breathless sound escapes my throat.

It is not a laugh. It is merely dry air scraping against my teeth.

The sheer audacity of Alice’s assumptions deepens the fury burning behind my ribs, turning it from a messy flare into something hard and cold. Even now, while I sit in a trap designed by her enemies, she assumes my life still belongs to her.

She assumes my anger is temporary. A tantrum. A brief rebellion from a puppet who has grown tired of dancing and will eventually remember who holds the strings.

That is her mistake.

The one flaw in her carefully constructed design is that she has never considered the possibility that I might stop wanting her approval.

For years, I convinced myself that if I behaved correctly, if I dressed the way she wanted, spoke when she permitted, and learned to smile at the right people, there might eventually be something waiting for me at the end of all that obedience.

Affection, perhaps. Pride, even.

A single moment when she would look at me and see something other than a reflection of herself. I spent years trying to earn something she had never intended to give.

I remember standing before a mirror while Alice adjusted the collar of my dress, her fingers precise and unhurried. She told me to lift my chin. To relax my mouth. To stop looking so miserable because no one liked a girl who wore her unhappiness like an accusation.

I remember obeying.

I remember the sting of her nails against my skin when I failed to hold still.

And I remember looking at my reflection afterward, wondering which expression belonged to me and which one she had taught me to wear.

Those memories used to hurt. Now they make me angry.

Alice believes that our relationship can continue as it always has. She thinks that because she gave birth to me, dressed me in expensive clothes, and taught me how to navigate this society, I will forever remain an extension of her will.

She thinks the strings she has tied around me are made of steel. She does not realize that I have been sharpening my teeth against them for years.

And all it takes is one little thing for me to bite.

I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees, my gaze fixed on the pattern of the carpet. The room smells faintly of detergent and the floral fragrance someone has sprayed near the entrance. Everything is clean, orderly, and carefully arranged.

It makes me want to tear something apart.

Instead, I sit still.

I do not turn this realization into a clever plan for escape. I am not plotting a dramatic exit through the window or convincing myself that I will find a way to track Alice down and destroy her before Orion finds us both. I am not a heroine in a story, and I have no sudden desire to become one.

I have done enough damage to know that pretending to be righteous does not make a person good.

I am not trying to fix the world. I am not going to play the whistleblower who reveals every secret Alice has ever kept in exchange for Adrien’s pity. I will not offer Orion a convenient confession and hope he rewards me with a longer leash.

Whatever happens next, I will face it without handing them another piece of myself.

When Adrien walks through that door—and he will walk through that door—I know what he will want.

Answers. A confession. An explanation that makes sense of the woman who ruined his life and the sister he thought he knew.

Perhaps he will ask why I did it. Perhaps he will demand to know whether Alice was involved. Perhaps he will look at me with those wounded eyes and wait for me to say something that will allow him to never make the decision he knows Orion wants him to make.

He will want a reason he can understand.

I will give him nothing.

I will keep my anger behind my ribs. I will not drag Alice’s name into a pathetic plea for mercy, and I will not let him believe that my suffering makes us even. Whatever war exists between my mother and me stays buried in the dark where it belongs.

Let them stand outside this room and wonder.

Let Orion analyze my silence like a tactical threat. Let Adrien exhaust himself trying to pick open a lock that has no key. Let them invent explanations for every minute I refuse to speak.

They think they have captured me.

They think that by taking away my coat, searching my pockets, locking the door, and surrounding the floor with armed men, they have taken control of my life.

They have taken my freedom for now. I am not foolish enough to pretend otherwise.

But they have not taken my thoughts.

And they have not taken the part of me that finally understands what Alice has done.

The cage was built years ago, long before Orion’s men ever set foot in the lake house. Alice built it herself, assembling the walls out of quiet expectations, subtle insults, and cold, calculating demands.

She taught me to measure my worth by how useful I could be, then punished me whenever I dared to want something for myself.

She spent my whole life taking from me.

My choices. My voice. My future.

Piece by piece, she stripped away everything that might have made me difficult to control. She taught me to mistake obedience for love and silence for strength.

She made sure I understood that affection could be withdrawn at any moment, that belonging was conditional, and that being her daughter meant nothing if I failed to serve her purpose.

Until there was almost nothing left of the girl who used to lie awake at night, waiting in hopes of catching a whiff of Matteo’s cooking when he began flipping pancakes.

I wonder what that girl would think of me now.

Would she be frightened? Would she recognize me?

Or would she simply move aside, make room on the stairs, and ask why it took me so long to stop waiting for our mother to come looking for us?

My throat tightens.

I hate that thought more than anything else.

I reach down into my vest, my fingers sliding over the fabric until the cold tip of the hidden knife presses firmly against my thumb. I hold it there, feeling the small, sharp edge through the lining.

It is not enough to save me. It is not enough to change anything. But it is mine. For once, I do not need Alice to approve of what I choose to keep.

Outside, footsteps approach the door.

I lift my head.

They stop on the other side, followed by a low murmur and the metallic click of a key turning in the lock. My fingers curl around the knife, but I do not draw it. I listen as the deadbolt shifts, as the handle moves, as someone pauses before entering.

Adrien, perhaps.

Orion.

It does not matter.

I straighten my back and smooth the front of my dress, forcing my expression into something neither welcoming nor afraid.

Whoever enters will find me sitting exactly where I was, with my hands resting quietly on my knees and my secrets locked behind my teeth.

Let them look for the girl Alice raised.

Let them search for the frightened daughter who still hopes to be loved, the obedient puppet who will confess if someone pulls the right string.

She has been missing for a long time.

Alice took everything she wanted, stripping away my life piece by piece to build her own safety. She convinced herself that knowing my weaknesses meant knowing me, that shaping my childhood gave her ownership over my future.

But she never understood the difference between creating a person and possessing one.

I raise my eyes to the door as the handle begins to turn.

Alice thinks she knows me because she made me. She thinks she understands the limits of my anger because she was the one who taught me how to bleed people slowly.

She is wrong.

And for the first time in my life, I do not need her to understand why.