Chapter 4 - THE SERPENT’S TONGUE
Celeste Vane was not a woman who accepted defeat quietly,
she was a creature of the social scene,
built on rumors and the carefully constructed ruin of others.
The morning after the dinner,
she sat in her father’s library,
the curtains drawn to block out the judgmental sun.
Her phone was a constant vibration of messages,
some mocking,
some curious,
all of them a reminder of her humiliation.
“He’s at the estate,”
her father said,
walking into the room with a glass of scotch.
“He took the girl with him.”
“The staff say she’s staying in the guest wing.”
Celeste’s eyes burned with a cold,
calculating fury.
“A waitress,”
she spat,
her voice a hiss of venom.
“He’s throwing away our alliance for a girl who smells of dishwater and grease.”
Her father looked at her,
his face a mask of disappointment.
“You kicked her,
Celeste.”
“In front of the entire council.”
“You showed your hand before you had the cards.”
Celeste stood up,
her red dress from the night before lying in a heap on the floor.
“I’ll get her out,”
she vowed,
her fingers clenching into fists.
“I know people in the city.”
“I know why she’s hiding.”
She picked up her phone and dialed a number she had kept for emergencies,
a man who specialized in finding things that didn't want to be found.
“I need a file,”
she told the voice on the other end.
“On a girl named Sadie from the city.”
“Find out who she owes,
and tell them where she is.”
While the serpent was spinning her web,
Sadie was waking up in a room that cost more than her entire life.
The guest wing was a place of silk and velvet,
a far cry from the cramped apartment she shared with three other girls.
She walked to the window and saw Julian in the garden below,
walking a very slow,
very shaky Titus.
The dog’s tail wagged once,
a small sign of life that made Sadie smile.
But the smile didn't last long.
She knew that the peace of the Croft estate was an illusion.
Julian was a man of violence,
a man whose name was written in blood across the history of Harrow Falls.
And Celeste Vane was a woman who would rather burn the city down than lose her throne.
Sadie looked at the door,
wondering if she should run now,
before the walls closed in.
But then she saw Julian look up at her window,
his gaze locking onto hers.
He didn't wave,
he didn't smile,
he simply watched her.
And she knew,
May you like
in that moment,
that there was nowhere left to run.
