Chapter 3
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He never mentioned it openly, but his surveillance became more subtle and far more invasive.
He no longer merely observed me from his throne. Instead, he began weaving an invisible net from fragments of memory, trying to capture the butterfly named "Amelia" fluttering deep within my soul.
On an otherwise ordinary afternoon, his assistant delivered an old auction catalog of "the Vanderbilt family's art collection," labeled innocently as "project reference materials." Inside were my mother's beloved Degas "The Dance Class" and the Stradivarius violin my father had once paid a fortune to acquire.
Each page was an exquisite torture to my resolve.
I forced myself to annotate the catalog with the clinical detachment of a stranger, analyzing market values and historical significance as though these treasures were nothing but cold data points—completely irrelevant to my life.
Or he would "coincidentally" drop by my office during late hours to discuss work, casually placing his phone on my desk where it would "happen" to play a particular piece of music.
It was an obscure classical piano etude—one with no publicly available recordings.
The melody was brief, with a raw, unfinished quality, yet gentle as moonlight on water.
My blood froze the instant those notes filled the air.
It was my mother's lullaby—composed by her unrecognized hands specifically for me. Every night before her death, she would sit beside my bed and play it on our old Steinway.
No one but Damian and I should have ever heard this piece. No one.
My fingertips trembled, my heartbeat thundering in my ears, threatening to shatter my carefully constructed facade. Yet I forced myself to remain perfectly still, eyes fixed on financial reports, pretending the melody that nearly broke me was nothing but ambient noise.
"This piece," Damian's voice came from behind me, soft as a whisper, "what do you think?"
"Noisy." I didn't turn around, my voice so steady it surprised even me. "Discordant. Turn it off—it's distracting me."
The melody stopped abruptly.
His silence stretched behind me, heavy as a century.
Then came his footsteps, retreating.
Only I knew that in that moment, something fundamental within me had shattered beyond repair.
My mother's lullaby—I had called it "noisy" and "discordant" with my own lips.
For revenge, I was willing to betray even my most sacred memories.
This is who I've become: Amelia Vanderbilt, a monster sculpted by hatred.
But Damian wasn't finished testing me.
On the fourth day, he invited me to a private dinner at his members-only club—an establishment so exclusive that only New York's true elite could cross its threshold.
The guests were all second-generation heirs around our age, discussing art, politics, and investments with voices dripping with inherited arrogance.
Halfway through dinner, Damian cleared his throat. "Everyone, I'd like to share an interesting story."
All conversation ceased as attention shifted to him.
"Ten years ago," his voice was soft yet penetrating like a steel needle into my nerves, "there was a prominent New York family—the Vanderbilts. They had a clever little girl named Amelia who had this peculiar habit when nervous or concentrating: tapping her right index finger in a specific rhythm. Three short beats, two long."
My right hand instinctively curled into a fist.
"Later, the family went bankrupt, and the little girl vanished." His gaze swept over my face with surgical precision. "I sometimes wonder what she'd be like today... if she survived."
Someone laughed nervously. "Christ, Damian, are you telling ghost stories now?"
"Perhaps." He raised his glass. "To vanished families and their lost children. Cheers."
Everyone raised their glasses. Including me.
Only I understood this wasn't a toast—it was Damian Blackwood's ultimatum to Amelia Vanderbilt.
He knew who I was. Now he waited for my response.
That night, alone in my apartment, I stared at the stranger's face in my bathroom mirror, sleep nowhere to be found.
Seraphina's mask was cracking.
And through those cracks, the broken little girl named Amelia—buried for ten years—was fighting to breathe again.
