Chapter 5 - The Second LieHenry was out the door first.
Nathan stayed only long enough to haul Eleanor to her feet and wrap one arm around her waist. She was frighteningly light.
Another shout echoed from the corridor, followed by the thud of bodies colliding with stone.
Nathan dragged the unconscious Holt by one wrist closer to the wall so he wouldn’t be trampled and looked back at Eleanor.
“Can you walk?”
“I can if the alternative is Victoria winning again.”
“That’s my girl,” Henry called from the hall, though the sound was strained.
They reached the doorway just as one of the security guards slammed a man face-first against the wall.
The attacker wore catering blacks.
Not household staff. Not estate security.
Nathan recognized him vaguely from the reception line—a man carrying champagne trays.
The second guard lay on the floor clutching his shoulder, blood soaking through his sleeve.
Henry had the attacker by the throat.
“There were two,” he snapped.
Nathan’s heart lurched.
“Where’s the other one?”
As if summoned by the question, a metallic door banged farther down the basement corridor.
Then came Victoria’s voice.
“Nathan!”
He turned.
She stood at the far end of the hall, one hand braced against the wall, the other gripping Lily by the arm.
Nathan’s whole body went cold.
Lily’s face was wet with tears, but she was not screaming. She looked past Victoria, straight at Eleanor, and for one long second mother and daughter simply stared at each other from opposite ends of the corridor.
Eleanor made a broken sound and tried to surge forward.
Nathan caught her.
“Don’t.”
Victoria’s expression had become something almost unrecognizable—not grief, not panic, not quite madness, but the raw face beneath three years of polished lies.
“You should have stayed upstairs,” she said to Lily.
Lily’s breath hitched.
Henry stepped forward. “Let her go.”
Victoria laughed once. “You always did mistake yourself for a hero.”
Nathan’s voice dropped into something deadly calm. “Release my daughter.”
“Your daughter?” Victoria repeated. “Interesting choice of words from a man who never noticed his wife was still under his own house.”
The words landed because they were true.
Nathan absorbed the blow without flinching.
“Let her go.”
Victoria’s fingers tightened on Lily’s arm.
And then Eleanor spoke.
Softly.
Clearly.
With more force than Nathan had heard from her in years.
“Why?”
Victoria looked at her.
Eleanor’s hollow face was white with exhaustion, but her eyes burned.
“Why keep me alive?” she asked. “Why not kill me, if this is what you wanted?”
For one second, the entire basement seemed to lean in for the answer.
Victoria’s smile shook.
“Because dead women become martyrs,” she said. “Missing women become warnings.”
Henry stared at her.
Nathan felt Eleanor go rigid beside him.
Victoria continued, voice steadier now, as if at last she had reached the only truth that mattered to her.
“Do you know what it was like?” she asked Nathan. “To marry into this family and never belong? To watch Eleanor glide through Bellrose like it was built out of her own bones? To see Richard adore her because she gave him an heir and a golden little family picture?”
Nathan said nothing.
“She had everything,” Victoria hissed. “And she didn’t even appreciate it. She wanted freedom. She wanted time away. She wanted her own work. Her own identity.” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “I took her at her word.”
Eleanor’s voice trembled with fury. “You locked me in a basement.”
“I replaced you,” Victoria said.
Silence followed.
Not because no one understood.
Because everyone did.
Victoria went on, more quickly now, her control slipping.
“You were always going to leave one way or another. I simply helped the timing. I told Nathan what he was already afraid to admit—that you were tired of motherhood, tired of marriage, tired of Bellrose. And he believed it because some part of him already feared it.”
Nathan closed his eyes briefly.
Again, true enough to wound.
Eleanor’s knees almost buckled, but she stayed upright. “And Lily?”
Victoria looked down at the child in her grip.
Her expression softened in a way more frightening than cruelty.
“Lily could have loved me,” she said. “If she had forgotten you properly.”
Lily recoiled as much as Victoria’s grasp allowed.
Henry took another slow step. “You used a child.”
Victoria looked at him sharply. “I did what was necessary.”
“And the men?” Nathan asked. “The fake caterers? Gavin Holt? The recordings?”
That seemed to snap her back into practical fear.
Her gaze darted past them toward the open basement room. Toward the shelves Eleanor had mentioned.
“There are things you don’t understand.”
“Then explain them.”
She hesitated.
And that hesitation told Nathan more than a confession might have.
Someone else mattered more to her than the hostage in her hand.
Or the family.
Or survival.
Victoria drew a breath. “I’m leaving this house.”
“No.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
Then Lily did something none of them expected.
She stomped hard on Victoria’s foot.
Victoria cried out.
Lily twisted free and ran.
Henry caught her halfway down the corridor and pulled her against his chest just as Victoria lunged after her.
Nathan moved at the same instant.
He slammed Victoria against the stone wall hard enough to rattle the sconces.
She clawed at his hands, face white with rage.
“You ruined everything!” she screamed.
“No,” Nathan said. “You did.”
He held her while the uninjured guard rushed forward with handcuffs. Victoria fought until the metal clicked around her wrists.
Only then did the strength leave her.
She looked past Nathan at Eleanor.
And smiled.
That smile frightened Eleanor more than anything else had.
“Do you remember the nursery window?” Victoria asked.
Eleanor’s face changed instantly.
Nathan turned. “What window?”
But Victoria only kept looking at Eleanor.
“I sealed it the day after Lily turned three,” she said. “Because I knew if you ever got truly desperate, you’d try it.”
Eleanor went pale.
Henry frowned. “What is she talking about?”
But Eleanor wasn’t hearing him.
She was staring at Victoria like someone who had just remembered another piece of a nightmare.
“The vent,” she whispered.
Victoria’s smile widened.
“That’s right.”
Nathan’s blood turned to ice.
“What vent?”
Eleanor looked at him slowly.
“In the blue room,” she said. “There was a heating vent low in the wall. It connected to the old servants’ duct system. I used to speak through it to Lily when Victoria left her nearby. But one night I heard someone else answer me.”
Henry’s face hardened. “Who?”
Eleanor swallowed.
“A child.”
The corridor fell silent.
Lily clutched Henry’s jacket and began crying again.
“There was another child,” Eleanor whispered. “Somewhere else in the walls.”
Nathan looked at Victoria.
For the first time, he saw real terror flicker in her eyes.
Not because of what she had done.
Because of what she had not controlled.
And suddenly it became horrifyingly clear:
May you like
Victoria had trapped Eleanor.
But something else had been living beneath Bellrose too.
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