Chapter Four: The Locked Door
Eileen’s Pov
The taxi stopped at the entrance to Silver Crown. I paid the fare and got out. The night wind slipped between my fingers, and the last trace of Ronan’s warmth had long since faded from my palm. Yet something had brushed lightly against my chest, leaving behind a pain I did not dare touch.
“Ma’am, the Alpha is waiting for you.”
The night guard opened the rear door of the car waiting inside. I got in and looked through the window toward the main house on the hillside. The lit window had once belonged to my father.
Hector sat in the small sitting room with a glass of liquor on the table. When he saw me enter, he tapped the space beside him with his knuckles.
I remained standing across the table from him, sliding the strap of my bag from my shoulder and gripping it in my hand.
“Is Beth’s birthday party over?”
“Yes.”
“Ronan was there too.”
His voice was quiet and flat, without a trace of emotion. I glanced toward the doorway. The guard who had escorted me in had already withdrawn, but the door had not been fully closed.
I had not seen anyone from Silver Crown in the private room during the party, but I knew there had been eyes on me the entire time.
“He works with Gavin,” I said. “I didn’t know he would be there.”
Hector picked up his glass and slowly turned it in his hand.
“I heard he held you.”
“My dress caught on the chair. I almost fell, and he steadied me.”
“Stop lying to me!”
His voice rose without warning. In a fit of rage, he hurled the glass and its contents to the floor.
I continued to look at him calmly. After five years, I was used to this.
He walked toward me, the soles of his shoes making almost no sound against the carpet. I forced myself to stay where I was and let him grip my chin. The smell of liquor pressed close to my nose. My stomach lurched, and I held my tongue hard against my teeth to stop myself from turning away.
“You don’t look well.” His thumb brushed the side of my neck, his voice once again calm. “Seeing your old lover got you too excited?”
“It’s a side effect of the medication. You know that.”
His hand paused. His gaze traveled down my face, as if judging whether there was anything wrong with the body he controlled.
I slowed my breathing. I did not dare call Luma’s name again.
It had been silent for five years. That faint response tonight was the one thing I could never let him discover.
At last, Hector released me.
“There’s still some time before your next injection. Don’t make trouble.”
“I have an appointment with a client tomorrow morning.”
“You seem to be awfully fond of work these days.”
He reached for my bag, but I pulled out the folder first and spread it across the table: attendance records for workers at a construction company in the city, along with calculations of their unpaid wages.
He glanced at the documents and quickly lost interest.
“The wife of Silver Crown’s Alpha spends every day fighting outsiders’ battles over a few miserable coins.”
“At the last press interview, you said you supported my legal-aid work.”
His gaze turned cold. He reached through my collar toward my breasts.
Without changing expression, I bent down and gathered the pages one by one, neatly avoiding his hand.
After a moment, he laughed.
“You’re allowed to be difficult. Whether your mother wants to see you on visiting day depends on how obedient you are.”
“I’m only going to work.”
“You’d better be.”
He leaned toward me and inhaled greedily. Then he pointed toward the other side of the staircase.
“Come to my room tonight.”
My fingertips went cold.
For five years, we had lived in the same building, yet my bedroom door had remained closed the entire time.
At first, I had resisted to protect it. I had been hurt, and I had used the only identity he could still place before the public to stand against him. He had never had me.
That resistance could not give me freedom, but it allowed me to recognize the person in the mirror each morning when I woke.
“I’m not feeling well.” I put the folder back into my bag. “If I can’t even stand tomorrow, you’ll have to explain it to the law firm yourself.”
Hector did not answer. His gaze rested on my face for a long time.
I stared back without the slightest sign of retreat.
Only when a car horn sounded outside did he impatiently wave me away.
I went upstairs, locked my bedroom door, and listened as his footsteps passed along the far end of the hallway.
Only after I was certain they had not stopped outside my door did I slowly slide down to the floor.
I took out my phone and replied to Beth that I had arrived home. She immediately sent me a hugging emoji and said the cake had been delicious. She had frozen the leftovers.
I stared at the message for a while, until the screen went dark.
There was still half a glass of cold water beside the bed. I took my medicine with it, closed my eyes, and waited for the dull pain to pass. Then I tried to call softly for Luma in my mind.
There was no answer.
I opened my work notebook and recorded the times I had been close to Ronan twice that evening, replacing the names with two letters only I could understand.
I pressed too hard with the pen, leaving faint indentations on the back of the page. I turned it over and placed my calculations for the unpaid-wages case on top of it.
The next morning, Beth came in carrying sandwiches. I was checking a handwritten overtime record.
She set down breakfast and pulled over a chair.
“You really scared me last night. Are you feeling better?”
“I slept. I’m much better.”
“That’s what you say every time.” She picked up my cup and took a sip. “That woman last night was awful. How could she accuse you of something you didn’t do? And you—why didn’t you defend yourself?”
I put down the calculator and unwrapped the sandwich she had brought.
“It smells wonderful.”
She was about to say something else when someone knocked twice at the door.
Gavin had come to pick her up. He was holding a cup of coffee, and an identification badge from the Astronautics Institute still hung from his coat.
He apologized first for the previous night, saying he had not expected Vivian to follow them.
Beth asked, “Is she really going to marry the person in charge of your department?”
“That’s probably what both families want.” Gavin paused. “Ronan rarely talks about it himself. His father is the Alpha of Cang Yue—you know, the largest wolf pack. Ronan is the second son, but he never uses that status to push people around at the institute. When the propulsion system ran into trouble, he stayed later than anyone else.”
Beth turned to look at me. I lowered my head and took a bite of bread.
“No wonder everyone listens to him,” she said.
“That’s because he can solve problems.” Gavin smiled. “He was the last one to leave again after yesterday’s test review.”
I gathered the loose lettuce back into the sandwich.
Beth knew I had once been with a boyfriend for three years. She knew the relationship had ended badly, but she had never seen him. Even after hearing those cutting remarks and seeing me lose control the night before, she still could not connect the nameless man in my memories with Ronan.
After all, Ronan seemed impossibly out of reach.
And yet, at that moment, the question that mattered most to me was this:
Could Ronan help me awaken Luma?
