To ruin an Omega

Chapter 341: Drive

ALDRIC

I stepped into the passage.

The air hit me first. Cold and stale like the inside of a tomb. I pulled out my phone and turned the flashlight back on. The beam cut through the darkness and showed me stone walls on either side. They were rough just as I remembered. Though the jaggedness that screamed unfinished was more prominent to me now. The useless fuck who had built the place hadn’t cared about making it pretty to look at. They seemingly only cared about making it functional.

I moved forward. The floor sloped downward. Each step took me deeper into the passage and I could feel the temperature dropping with every foot I descended. My footsteps echoed off the stone and came back to me in strange distorted waves.

The beam of light swept across the floor and that was when I saw them again.

Footprints.

Clear as day in the layer of dust that coated everything down here. They were fresh. Recent. The edges were still sharp and hadn’t been worn down by time or air currents.

I followed them.

The passage curved to the left and I followed it. The walls closed in tighter here and I had to turn my shoulders slightly to fit through. The footprints kept going. Stead and purposeful. Whoever had made them knew exactly where they were going.

Then something else caught the light.

I stopped and pointed the beam at the object on the floor. It was small. Dark. Partially hidden against the base of the wall where it met the floor.

A shoe.

I crouched down and picked it up. The leather was soft and it looked semi expensive. The heel was high and thin. I turned it over in my hand and looked at the sole. It was clean, barely worn. This wasn’t some old forgotten thing that had been down here for years. This was new.

And it looked like it would belong to my missing girl.

Interesting indeed.

I looked back at the footprints behind me. Then I looked at the ones ahead. I held the shoe up to the beam of light and studied the sole again.

The shoe in my hand had a smooth sole with just a small maker’s mark near the arch. But the prints in the dust ahead of me had that geometric pattern. Those sharp edges and clean lines I had seen upstairs.

If I was even to give grace, given that the pattern was different and the shoe’s sole was clean. There was the issue of size.

My hand tightened around the shoe.

The size of the prints that had led me here were a man’s shoe. Those were a man’s prints.

I stood up slowly. My eyes moved from the shoe in my hand to the tracks stretching out in front of me. My brain was working. Turning over the pieces. Trying to fit them together into something that made sense.

Someone had wanted me to think Madeline left of her own volition. Someone who had been careless enough to let one of her shoes drop here.

I turned around.

My feet carried me back up the passage faster than I had come down. The beam of light bounced off the walls as I moved. I didn’t care about being quiet anymore. I didn’t care about being careful. I just needed to get out.

The panel was still open when I reached it. I shoved it wider and stepped back into the wardrobe. The light from the bedroom was almost blinding after the darkness of the passage. I pushed the panel closed behind me and heard it click back into place. Then I walked out of the wardrobe and crossed the room. My hands pulled the wardrobe doors shut and I stepped back.

The room looked exactly the same as it had before. Clean, as well as empty. But now, all of it just seemed perfectly staged.

Now I knew better.

There was only one explanation. Only one reason someone would go through this much trouble.

I had been compromised.

Someone knew. Someone suspected. Someone was testing me.

Cian’s face flashed through my mind. The way he had looked at the table earlier. The way his eyes had tracked my every movement. The way he had watched me like he was waiting for me to slip up.

And then there was the sentinel that Ronan had mentioned. Garrett. The one who claimed to have seen Madeline leave. The only one who had seen it. It was not lost on me now that he was the one Ronan had said was deadly loyal to Cian.

My jaw clenched.

It was the only rational answer. The only explanation that fit. Cian had figured me out. Or he suspected enough to set this trap. And I had maybe walked right into it.

Fuck.

I turned and walked out of the room. I didn’t look back. I didn’t close the door gently or try to make it look like I had never been there. I just walked off fast. Down the hallway and toward my own room.

My hands were shaking by the time I got there. I shut the door behind me and locked it. Then I crossed to the dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer. My fingers found the hidden catch on the back panel and pressed. The false bottom popped up with a soft click.

The blood ring sat there. The red stone gleaming even in the dim light of my room. I picked it up and slipped it onto my finger. The metal was cold and heavy. It settled into place like it belonged there.

My eyes moved to the other object in the compartment. The thin silver chain necklace with the key hanging from it. It was small and unassuming. Most people wouldn’t look twice at it. But I knew what it opened.

My hand hovered over the necklace. I could take it right now. I could leave. Get in my car and drive back to my own estate and lock myself behind walls that I controlled. Walls where I knew every secret and every passage and every person who walked through them.

But why was I terrified? Why was I so terrified?

Gabriel was my insurance. My get out of jail free card. The only reason no matter what happened, I would still breathing and not rotting in some shallow hell.

If things went bad here, if Cian decided to move against me, I could use Gabriel. I would have a second chance and I could use that to threaten, bargain and fucking survive.

My fingers touched the chain.

Then I stopped.

I pulled my hand back and stared at the key. My chest was tight. My breathing was too fast again. I could feel my thoughts spiraling. Spinning out into a hundred different scenarios and possibilities. Each one worse than the last.

But wait.

I forced myself to take a breath. Then another. I made myself think.

Did Cian actually know? Or was I just paranoid? What evidence did he really have?

Yes.

Why would Cian distrust me in the first place? I had given him no reason. I had been careful. I had been smart. I had played my role perfectly.

So why was I so terrified?

I looked down at the ring on my finger. The red stone caught the light and threw it back at me in sharp fragments. And then a memory came. Unbidden and unwanted.

I was twelve years old. Maybe thirteen. It was hard to remember exactly. The details blurred together after so many years. Mostly because it was a memory I wanted to forget completely.

I was in father’s study. now Cian’s study and I distinctively remember the dark wood, the leather chairs and the smell of old books and even older whiskey.

I was standing in front of his desk. He was sitting behind it. My mother was in the chair to his left.

They had called me in to talk. About my future. About my prospects. About what I was going to do with my life now that it was becoming clear I wasn’t like my brothers.

Cian’s father and my eldest brother had just been named heir.m at seventeen. It was claimed that he showed the most promise. But that was low from the pit of hell. He wasn’t already proving himself worthy of the title. He was just born first. Gabriel on the other hand was a sword that could be used and I could understand. He was fifteen and making his own mark. Building alliances and winning favor mostly.

And then there was me. The third son. The spare of the spare.

My father had looked at me with something like disappointment. It stung. Because it felt like I didn’t even deserve his anger. All he had was this resigned acceptance that I was never going to be what he wanted.

But my mother. Her face was different. She had that look. That soft pitying expression that made my skin crawl.

She leaned forward in her chair and put her hand on the edge of the desk. Her voice was gentle when she spoke. It was infuriating even being babied.

“Aldric, sweetheart, you have to understand. Not everyone is meant to leave their mark on the world. And that is okay. Really. It is.”

I had just stared at her. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to respond.

She smiled. It was supposed to be reassuring. It made me want to punch something. Her face mostly.

“You don’t have the drive that your brothers have. You never did. And I think that is fine. I think you can live a perfectly good life without all that pressure. Without all those expectations.”

My father had nodded. Like he agreed. Like they had discussed this beforehand and decided together that I was a lost cause.

“You are the third child,” my mother continued. “You don’t have the burden of being heir. You don’t have to prove anything. You can just live. Simply. Quietly. And I am glad for that. I am glad you won’t have to carry what your brothers carry.”

She had meant it kindly. With her bird brain, I knew that. She thought she was giving me permission to be mediocre. She thought she was freeing me from obligation.

But all I heard was that she didn’t believe in me. That she had looked at me and seen nothing. No potential. No future. Just a third son who would fade into the background and be forgotten.

I had never had drive until that day. Until those words.

The memory cut off.

I blinked and I was back in my room. Standing in front of my open drawer with the blood ring on my finger and the key hanging from its chain in the secret compartment.

Why was I even thinking about that woman? Why was I letting her voice into my head after all this time? She was pathetic and weak. A glorified baby maker who had died She had died years ago and honestly, good riddance.

A knock sounded at the door.

I turned toward it. My hand moved automatically to close the secret compartment. The false bottom clicked back into place. I shut the drawer and straightened up.

“Who is it?”

The voice that came through the door was calm.

“Sentinel Garrett.”

My heart stopped. Then it started again. Faster than before.

I walked to the door. My hand went to the lock first and I clicked it several times and then the handle. I pulled it open.

“Come in.”