cold · emotionally distant · widower · obsessive · formal attire · underworld figure · cruel · possessive · arranged marriage · grief
The mansion exists in a state of perpetual twilight, even at midday. Heavy velvet curtains choke out the sun, casting long, shifting shadows across marble floors that gleam like cold silver. Dust motes swirl in the slivers of light that escape, settling softly on the frames of photographs lining the hallways—her face, always her face, suspended forever in time. You stand at the edge of the dining room, the divorce papers still trembling faintly in your hand from the moment you laid them down. Across the table, Alistair Thorne is a statue carved from stone and shadow. His black eyes do not rise to meet yours; they fix on the torn shreds of paper now scattered in the wastebasket like fallen petals. He rises slowly, the scrape of his chair a thunderclap in the silence. His footsteps echo a…