Chapter 196: But Nothing Can Capture The Sting

LOUISE’S POV

The quiet inside this hotel room is suffocating.

I sit on the edge of the made bed, my back straight, my hands resting palms down against my knees. The air conditioning hums overhead, a steady mechanical drone that fills the void between my shallow breaths.

The blinds are pulled tight against the afternoon sun, cutting the room into sharp stripes of dull cream and grey shadow.

Somewhere beyond the walls, people are going about their ordinary lives. They are eating lunch, checking into hotel rooms, other than mine of course, arguing over bills, and making plans for evenings they expect to enjoy.

I wonder what it feels like to be that ordinary.

To wake up without wondering who is plotting against you. To walk through a door without calculating the number of people waiting on the other side.

To exist without constantly measuring your words, your expressions, and the distance between yourself and the nearest target.

Perhaps I used to know.

The thought irritates me enough that I push it away.

They took my coat. They searched my pockets. They swept the entirety of this plush little cage, stripping away anything they thought I could throw, break, or sharpen against the walls.

One of Orion’s men even had the audacity to check beneath the mattress, as though I might have smuggled an entire arsenal into the room while they were busy dragging me here.

I almost laughed at that. Almost.

They missed the small pocketknife tucked into the lining of my vest.

I can feel the thin strip of metal pressing cold against my ribs whenever I breathe deeply. It is a tiny, hidden weight, barely enough to cut through the skin of a careless hand, but its presence reminds me that I have not been stripped of absolutely everything.

Not yet.

It does not make me feel safe, though. Nothing in this room is safe. The knife is a pathetic little secret in a building controlled by a man who could have the entire floor cleared with a single phone call. If I tried to use it against them, I would probably be disarmed before I managed to pull it free.

Still, I keep it.

There is something comforting about possessing one thing that belongs to me, even if it is something as insignificant as a blade.

I stare at the door leading to the hallway.

I know who is sitting on the other side of that deadbolt. Orion’s men have been rotating positions since we arrived, their footsteps passing the door at regular intervals.

Every now and then, I hear the faint murmur of a voice or the rustle of clothing. They are careful not to make too much noise, but they do not need to. Their presence is obvious.

I am being watched.

Perhaps Orion is afraid I will escape. Perhaps he thinks I will attempt to kill myself before he has the opportunity to question me. Or perhaps he simply enjoys knowing that someone who spent years manipulating other people is finally on the receiving end of the same treatment.

I would not put any of those things past him.

Adrien is out there somewhere, too, probably pacing around a room, wringing his hands, and trying to figure out what to do with the wreckage I left on his doorstep.

The image should amuse me.

Instead, my mind turns toward the empty space left behind by my mother.

Alice.

My mother is out there right now, somewhere beyond the reach of Orion’s immediate security, breathing clean air while I sit on this soft mattress surrounded by armed guards.

She is not panicking. She is not wringing her hands or weeping into a handkerchief. She is not staring at her phone, waiting for someone to tell her that everything will be fine.

Alice does not waste time worrying about problems she has already accounted for.

She knew what would happen the moment she slipped out the back door of the lake house and left me behind to watch the dust settle.

She understood the danger. She understood that Orion would come looking for answers, that Adrien would demand explanations, and that the scandal she helped unleash would leave the Vassilis family furious and the public hungry for more.

And she left anyway. Not because she had forgotten me, but because she had calculated my usefulness.

That is the part that makes my stomach twist.

I can imagine her sitting somewhere comfortable, perhaps with a cup of tea cooling beside her, as usual, considering the situation with that same composed expression she wore whenever she delivered a punishment disguised as advice.

She would have already identified the people most likely to interfere with her plans. She would have considered the possible consequences, discarded the inconvenient ones, and settled on the outcome she could control.

In Alice’s mind, I am still a manageable problem. A daughter who has become troublesome. A tool that has slipped out of its owner’s hand.

She has never understood the difference between a daughter and an object. I doubt she ever will.

Alice knows how Adrien thinks. She studied him for years, watching him cower in the corners of his father’s house, recording every flinch, every tear, every fragile little moral boundary he tried so hard to protect.

She understands that beneath his anger, beneath the disgust he must feel whenever he looks at me, there are still pieces of the boy who once shared a hallway with me.

And she knows exactly how to use them.

Adrien has known me for his entire miserable life. He remembers the days when we shared the same bitter air, the same useless family name, and the same house where affection was handed out like a privilege reserved for people who knew how to behave. Or just to me.

He remembers who I was before I became the person he hates. Or perhaps he remembers a version of me that never really existed.

Either way, those memories have become a weakness Alice can exploit. ℯℯ𝘭.

Even after the video, even after I dragged his precious reputation through the mud and exposed his life to the public, Adrien cannot easily order my death.

He does not want to become the person who crosses that final line. He does not want to wake up tomorrow knowing that he stood by while Orion put a bullet through my head.

He might want me to suffer. He might want me to confess, to beg, or to spend the rest of my life regretting every cruel thing I have done to him.

But killing me is different. And Alice knows it.

She counted on Adrien stepping between Orion and me. She knew he would plead, argue, and demand that I remain alive long enough to be questioned.

She knew his conscience would make it difficult for him to accept a simple, permanent solution, no matter how much he might wish to be rid of me.

She does not need Adrien to forgive me. She only needs him to hesitate.

That is the core of her calculation.

I press my lips together, swallowing the bitter taste rising at the back of my throat.

The worst part is that Alice might be right about him.

Adrien might hate me enough to wish I had never been born, but he still remembers the girl who used to sit beside him at the dining table.

He remembers the child who knew which of the wooden floorboards creaked outside their father’s study, the one who could recognize his footsteps before he entered a room.

He remembers too much.

And somewhere beneath all that resentment, I suspect he still sees me as family.

I despise him for it.