Chapter 5: Caroline

I didn’t sleep.

Again.

The silk sheets feel like they’re closing in. The air smells of him — of cedar and danger, of something too dark to name. Even in his absence, Sylvester is everywhere. In the way the lights hum low, in the heavy silence that lives in the walls, in the weight that never leaves my lungs.

He didn’t come to bed last night.

But that doesn’t mean he’s gone.

No. Sylvester Moreau never truly leaves a room. He simply watches from the shadows he built.

---

I step into the bathroom. The lights brighten slowly, reacting to my presence. Technology, luxury, surveillance — it’s all the same in this house. Designed to pamper, but meant to control.

My reflection stares back at me, paler than usual, eyes sharp and rimmed in faint purple.

My body is tired.

My mind is not.

It’s awake.

Buzzing. Burning. Changing.

Because last night, he touched me like I was something sacred and threatened me like I was something hunted.

Because when I asked him what would happen if I ever looked at another man, he placed his hand on my throat with all the tenderness of a caress — and all the warning of a noose.

I hated the way I shivered.

I hated that I wanted to.

---

The dress still lies draped over the chair. The black silk one he chose for me. As if I’m some doll to be dressed and displayed.

I should burn it.

Rip it to pieces.

But instead, I touch it. Run my fingers over it. I remember the way his eyes darkened when he saw me in it — like the room itself bowed to his desire.

And I wonder.

What would it feel like to surrender?

---

I find myself in the garden again.

I’ve started to come here more often. Not because it’s safe — nothing in this place ever is — but because the illusion of fresh air helps me pretend I still breathe freely.

The rose bushes are blooming early.

He had them imported from Florence. My favorite, he said, though I don’t remember ever telling him that.

He knows things he shouldn’t.

He listens when I forget he’s even watching.

And that terrifies me more than his temper.

---

The gardener is gone.

The one who used to hum when he worked. An older man with a kind smile and a limp. He never spoke much, but he looked me in the eye.

That’s probably why he’s no longer here.

I don’t ask.

I already know.

Sylvester does not share.

Not glances.

Not words.

Not oxygen.

---

Back inside, I pass by the grand piano in the drawing room. It’s untouched. Untuned. Like a memory no one dares to disturb.

I sit.

Let my fingers hover over the keys.

I used to play.

Before him.

Before this.

Before I became a wife in name and a prisoner in truth.

I press a single note. Then another. A quiet, broken melody that doesn’t know how to finish itself.

Like me.

Just as I find a rhythm, the door clicks open behind me.

I don’t need to look to know it’s him.

I feel it in my spine.

---

“You’re playing,” Sylvester says, voice low, like smoke curling into my lungs.

“I was.”

He steps forward. I see him in the piano’s reflection — black shirt, tailored to perfection, no tie, sleeves rolled, casual in that terrifying way only he can manage. Casual, like he could strangle you and sip champagne in the same breath.

“Don’t stop,” he murmurs.

I don’t move. “You’ll ruin it.”

His brow lifts in the mirrored glass. “The song?”

“The silence.”

He chuckles. It’s not kind. It’s possessive. As if even my sharpness belongs to him.

“You’re angry again,” he says.

“Would you prefer me sweet and silent?”

“I’d prefer you honest.”

Honest.

I close the piano lid with a soft click.

I rise. Turn to face him.

And say the one thing I’ve been swallowing since our wedding night.

“I hate this,” I whisper. “I hate this house. I hate that you follow me without moving. I hate how your love is a threat instead of a promise.”

He watches me with that deadly calm.

“And yet,” he says, stepping closer, “you wear the dresses I send. You sit at my table. You come when I call.”

“I survive.”

“No, Caroline,” he breathes, now inches away. “You obey.”

There it is.

The truth of him.

Raw. Unfiltered. Unashamed.

And the worst part?

I’m not running.

I’m not screaming.

I’m standing still, breath hitching, heart racing — because somewhere inside, a terrible part of me wants to understand this madness.

Wants to belong to it.

To him.

And that’s when I realize:

It’s already happening.

I’m falling.

Not in love.

But into him.

Into this darkness.

Into the cage I swore I’d never accept.

Days pass differently in this house.

Time doesn't tick — it coils. It stretches like smoke in a locked room, curling around your ribs, slipping into your lungs before you realize you’ve stopped breathing like a normal person.

This is how he wins.

Not with violence.

But with order.

Routine.

Structure.

The same breakfast tray outside my door every morning — warm croissants, black coffee, a single ivory rose in a thin crystal vase. Always the same. Always perfect.

Like a noose made of silk.

---

I start testing things.

Tiny things.

At first, just to prove to myself I can.

I leave the coffee untouched one morning. Let it go cold. The next day, it’s still there — same temperature, same rose, as if nothing’s happened.

Next, I skip lunch. Refuse the maid when she knocks. I hear her pause, waiting, unsure whether to insist. But she doesn’t. Hours later, when I emerge from the library, I find a plate of untouched food resting on a silver tray in the corridor. Like someone’s watching. Like someone’s waiting me out.

I wonder if he’s the one placing it.

I wonder if he wants me hungry enough to crawl.

---

By the third day, I speak to the staff.

Short words. Simple questions. Measured curiosity. I get little in return.

Polite smiles.

Darted glances.

Thinly veiled fear.

They don’t talk about him. No one uses his name. To them, he’s not a man — he’s an atmosphere. A law. A god.

It makes me cold.

It makes me curious.

It makes me angry.

---

At night, I lie awake and listen for him.

Sometimes I hear his footsteps. Steady, unhurried. Like a predator circling the perimeter of his own creation. Other times, I sense him outside the door — the weight of him, the silence he casts.

He never enters.

Not unless I let him.

And that, I realize, is the real trick of it all — he wants me to invite him in. Not force. Not chains.

Consent.

Or the illusion of it.

---

Tonight, I test him again.

I leave my bedroom.

Wearing nothing but one of his black shirts — the silk one I stole from the laundry room days ago. It drowns my frame. Smells like him.

I walk barefoot through the hallway. Slow. Quiet. Like prey pretending it’s in control.

I find myself in the north wing. The one no one talks about. The doors here are heavier. The air colder. Everything reeks of secrets.

One door is cracked open.

Light spills through the gap like liquid gold.

I push it open.

And step inside a room built of obsessions.

---

Walls of photographs.

Floor to ceiling.

All of me.

Candid shots. Frozen moments. Me in the garden. Me reading. Me asleep. Me laughing once — a memory I didn’t even remember having until now.

There are sketches too. Watercolors. Ink. Charcoal. Some half-finished. Some smudged from fingers too rough with want.

There’s even a mannequin in the corner — my measurements, my height, dressed in a gown I’ve never worn.

A shrine.

A laboratory.

A temple to my existence.

---

I back away slowly, heart pounding in my throat.

And that’s when I feel him behind me.

The heat of him. The gravity. The storm in human form.

I don’t turn.

Not yet.

“You weren’t supposed to see this,” Sylvester says softly.

“Why not?”

“Because you’d misunderstand.”

“Would I?”

He steps closer. “You think this is control.”

I let out a shaky breath. “Isn’t it?”

“No, Caroline. This is devotion.”

He walks past me, enters the room like a king returning to his throne. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t explain, doesn’t hide.

Instead, he reaches for one of the canvases.

A painting.

Me, in the garden, head tilted back, eyes closed, face bathed in sunlight.

“I painted this the day after our wedding,” he says. “You wouldn’t speak to me. Wouldn’t look at me. But I watched you in the garden for hours.”

“Because I didn’t have a choice.”

He glances at me then. And for the first time, there’s no mask. No calculation.

Only hunger.

Only ache.

“You think I want your obedience,” he says. “But that’s not what I’m waiting for.”

I swallow. “Then what?”

“Your willingness.”

He sets the painting down.

Turns fully to face me.

And in that moment, I realize something terrifying:

I’m not afraid of his obsession anymore.

I’m afraid of what’s waking up inside me in response to it.

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