Chapter 2

Blackwell Manor sat on a cliff overlooking the Hudson River.

It was enormous—a Gothic cathedral crossed with a fortress. Black stone, iron gates, gargoyle-lined rooftops. The kind of place that looked like it was built to keep something in, not to keep people out.

The gates opened automatically as our car approached.

Every window in the manor was dark.

"Does he not believe in electricity?" I asked.

"Mr. Blackwell prefers low lighting," Gerald said carefully. "He finds it… soothing."

We pulled up to the front entrance. Two massive oak doors, carved with symbols I didn't recognize.

The moment I stepped out of the car, I felt it.

A pressure. Like the air itself had weight.

The temperature dropped at least ten degrees.

I looked up and saw something move in the window on the top floor. A shadow, tall and broad, watching us.

Then it was gone.

"This way, Miss Marsh."

Inside, the manor was beautiful—in a haunted, decaying sort of way. Vaulted ceilings, marble floors, oil paintings lining every wall.

But the paintings were wrong.

In every single one, the faces had been scratched out. Deep, violent gouges, like someone had clawed through the canvas with their bare hands.

"Interesting decorating choice," I said.

Gerald said nothing.

We passed through a long corridor. The shadows here seemed thicker, almost liquid. I could swear they moved when I wasn't looking directly at them.

At the end of the corridor stood a door, twice the height of a normal one.

Gerald knocked three times.

"Sir. Miss Marsh has arrived."

Silence.

Then a voice from inside—deep, cold, and utterly devoid of warmth.

"Send her in. Alone."

Gerald gave me a look that could only be described as a silent apology.

I pushed the door open.

The room was a study, massive and dark. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A fireplace that burned with a strange blue flame. And in the center, behind a desk the size of a small car, sat a man.

Damien Blackwell.

I couldn't see his face clearly—the lighting was deliberately kept dim, and shadows clung to him like a second skin.

But I could see his eyes.

They were silver. Not grey—silver, like liquid mercury. And they glowed faintly in the dark.

"Sit," he said.

I sat.

He studied me in silence for a long, uncomfortable moment.

"You don't look afraid," he said finally.

"Should I be?"

"Everyone who enters this room is afraid," he said. "The last woman who sat in that chair screamed for eleven minutes before she fainted."

"Maybe she had a phobia of ugly furniture," I said, glancing at the chair. "Because this upholstery is genuinely offensive."

The silence that followed was deafening.

Then—impossibly—I heard a sound.

A crack. Barely perceptible. Like ice breaking on a frozen lake.

It came from him.

"You have forty-eight hours," he said, his voice strained. "If you last that long, we proceed with the contract."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you'll leave this house in the same condition as everyone else."

"Which is?"

He leaned forward, and for the first time, the firelight caught his face fully.

He was devastatingly handsome. Sharp jaw, high cheekbones, dark hair falling over his forehead.

But his skin was covered in thin, black, vein-like lines—like cracks in porcelain. They pulsed faintly, as if something dark was alive beneath his skin.

"Broken," he said.

I tilted my head.

"Cool tattoos," I said. "Where'd you get them done?"

Damien Blackwell stared at me like I had just spoken a language that didn't exist.