Next day—
The house felt different once Aiden left—too quiet, as if it were holding its breath.
I wandered without direction at first, opening doors I hadn't dared to touch before. A study. A locked cabinet. A hallway that ended in a small prayer room. Then, tucked between two heavy books on a shelf, I found the frame.
My fingers froze around it.
Aiden stood in the photograph, younger but unmistakable, his arm wrapped around a woman with brown hair cascading over a white lace veil. They were standing inside a church—sunlight pouring through stained glass, pews filled with people, flowers everywhere. A real wedding. Witnessed. Celebrated.
Not hidden like mine.
My chest burned.
So this was the truth.
I didn't remember walking to the servants' wing, only the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. The butler—an older man who barely ever met my eyes—nearly dropped the tray he was carrying when he saw the photo in my hands.
"Where did you get this?" he whispered.
His fear wasn't surprise. It was panic.
"You tell me," I said. "Who is she?"
He shook his head immediately. "Madam, you shouldn't—he didn't want—"
"Answer me."
His hands trembled. "She… she left," he said quickly. "Long ago. She ran away. That is all."
Something about the way he said it—too rehearsed, too rushed—made my stomach twist.
"If she ran," I asked slowly, "why is her room still locked?"
He went pale.
I hadn't known about the room. His reaction told me everything.
"Why does the gardener still light a candle in the east wing chapel every year on the same day?" I continued. "Why is her name scratched off the family registry instead of crossed out?"
He looked at the floor, lips moving in silent prayer.
Finally, in a broken voice, he said, "There was an accident."
I waited.
"No body was ever returned to her family," he added. "Only… ashes."
The photograph slipped from my fingers and hit the floor.
She hadn't run.
She hadn't escaped.
And suddenly, being the second wife didn't feel like a coincidence—it felt like a replacement.
_______________
10pm:
He returned late that evening.
I heard his footsteps before I saw him—calm, unhurried, exactly the way they always were. The house seemed to straighten itself around him. I was waiting in the sitting room, the photograph placed carefully on the table between us, as if it were a legal document.
His gaze dropped to it the moment he entered.
For the first time since I had known him, he stopped walking.
Silence stretched. Thick. Heavy.
"So," he said at last, voice even, "you found it."
"You said you hated crowds," I replied. My fingers curled tightly in my lap. "You said secrecy was part of your belief. You said there was no one before me."
He took off his coat slowly, deliberately, as though this conversation required patience rather than urgency. Then he sat opposite me, eyes never leaving my face.
"I hid everything," he admitted. "Except that."
"Why?" My voice shook despite my effort. "Why leave proof?"
His lips curved—not into a smile, but something colder. Reflective.
"Because lies rot when they're perfect," he said. "I wanted the truth to exist somewhere. Even if you weren't meant to see it yet."
My chest tightened. "She didn't run away."
A pause.
"No," he agreed quietly.
The word settled like a verdict.
"You killed her," I whispered.
His eyes darkened—not with anger, but with something almost wounded. He leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees.
"She betrayed me," he said. "She tried to escape after swearing eternity. Just like you were trying to delay it."
"I'm not her," I said, standing abruptly.
He rose too—faster than I expected—closing the distance until I had to tilt my head to look at him.
"I know," he murmured. "That's why you're still alive."
My breath hitched.
"You were never a replacement," he continued softly. "You're the correction."
His fingers brushed the edge of the photograph, then he flipped it face down.
"And now," he said calmly, "there are no more secrets between us."
_________
The moment he turned the photograph face down, something inside me refused to settle.
It wasn't relief.
It wasn't closure.
It was a slow, crawling certainty.
I looked past him—past his calm posture, past the certainty in his voice—and my gaze drifted toward the corridor that led deeper into the house. Toward the rooms I still hadn't seen. Toward the one door that never opened.
"You could've destroyed it," I said quietly.
He stilled.
"The photo," I continued, my voice gaining strength despite the ache spreading through my chest. "You burn documents. You erase people. You plan everything three steps ahead." I swallowed. "You didn't forget that picture."
His eyes sharpened, but I didn't stop.
"You wanted it to stay," I whispered.
I laughed once—soft, broken. "That room upstairs… the one that's always locked. You told me it was storage. You could've thrown everything inside away. But you didn't."
He took a step toward me.
"You still love her," I said before he could speak. "Don't you?"
Silence answered me. Long enough to hurt.
"And when she left—or when she disappointed you—you didn't replace her," I went on, tears blurring my vision. "You copied her. Same face. Same age. Same silence. Same obedience."
His jaw tightened.
"I'm not your correction," I said, voice shaking now. "I'm your substitute."
He reached for me, but I stepped back.
That hurt him. I saw it then—not rage, not cruelty—but something cracked and ugly beneath the control.
"You think love is something pure," he said softly. "Love is survival."
My heart clenched painfully.
Because even now—knowing this—I still felt it.
He hadn't stopped loving her.
And somehow… he had learned to love me in the same space she once occupied."I didn't wanted this..you should have told me..."
He didn't let me finish another word.
His mouth crashed onto mine—hard, unforgiving. There was no tenderness in it, no question. It was anger disguised as desire, possession dressed as intimacy. I stiffened beneath him, my hands curling into the fabric of his shirt, not to pull him closer, but to steady myself.
What followed felt nothing like love, even though he said I was his life from now on.
It was heavy. Overwhelming. Every touch carried a sharp edge, as if he were trying to prove something—to himself more than to me. I didn't cry out. I didn't resist. I didn't respond the way I once thought I would when I gave myself to someone I loved. When it was over, I lay still, staring at the ceiling, my body aching in places that throbbed dully, my chest tighter than before.
Sleep never came.
Hours later, the house was silent except for the distant hum of electricity. Aiden slept beside me, calm and unbothered, as if nothing had cracked between us. I slipped out of bed slowly, every movement careful, pain blooming with each step.
I wrapped a shawl around myself and wandered into the hall.
The locked door stood at the end of the corridor.
My heart pounded as my fingers brushed the handle.
It wasn't locked.
_________
The room inside wasn't filled with weapons or bones like my nightmares had imagined. It was worse in its own quiet way. Shelves, neatly arranged. Boxes labeled with dates. Photographs turned face-down. A life archived.
On a small desk near the wall, something caught my eye.
A diary.
Old. Leather-bound. The edges worn soft, like it had been held often. Jealousy burned in my chest before I even opened it. This was hers, wasn't it? His first wife. The woman in the church photograph.
My hands shook as I flipped through the pages.
At first, the writing was romantic. Naïve. Full of love and devotion. Mentions of a man who felt distant sometimes, secretive, but kind. A fairy-tale husband. My stomach twisted with jealousy.
Then—abrupt gaps.
Several pages had been ripped out violently, leaving jagged edges behind. Whole memories missing.
My breath caught.
I turned another page.
This one wasn't torn.
The handwriting here was different—sharper, uneven, pressed hard into the paper as if written in panic.
• I found something I shouldn't have.
I think he knows.
He watches me when I pretend to sleep.
I believed in a fairy tale, but this isn't one.
If anyone reads this—he will kill me. It's only a matter of time.
The words sat in the middle of the page.
Not the beginning.
Not the end.
That was the worst part.
He hadn't torn this page out because it hadn't started or ended cleanly. It was trapped between pages he couldn't remove without revealing it.
My knees weakened.
So she hadn't run away.
She hadn't been replaced.
She had been erased.
A soft sound echoed behind me.
A footstep.
"Love," Aiden said from the doorway, "you weren't supposed to read that."
I couldn't even found the time to hide it, I was shaking,my heartbeats were faster.