Ryan remained seated in the great room long after the echo of his last words had faded. The silence didn’t feel natural anymore. It felt manufactured, dense, almost pressurised, as though the air itself had thickened, as though the walls were listening and filing every sound away for later.
The grand chandelier above them shimmered faintly, catching the morning light in cold, fractured prisms. Its crystal drops scattered thin streaks of brightness over the polished floor, the ornate rugs, the carved side tables that had been in this house longer than he had been alive. All of it, the art, the furniture, the subtle smell of old money and polish, belonged to the Ashbrook story.
It had seen their arguments.
Their celebrations.
Their schemes.
And now it was hearing the quiet unravelling o
