You expect anger.
You expect the mask to crack.
Instead, Bernardo’s voice softens, just slightly.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll be right here for one minute. Then I’ll leave.”
You hear him sit down in the hallway, back against the wall, like a guard posted outside your cage to keep others from entering.
You don’t know why that breaks you.
Maybe because no one ever sat outside your door before just to make sure you weren’t alone.
You press your forehead against the door and breathe shakily.
After a minute, his footsteps retreat.
He keeps his promise.
The next morning, he’s gone before you wake.
The housekeeper leaves clothes on your bed: simple, elegant, not the kind of revealing thing men buy when they want to own you.
A notebook sits on top with a pen and a sticky note.
“If you want to study, write what you want here. – B.”
You stare at the note for a long time.
It makes no sense.
Monsters don’t leave notebooks like invitations.
Days pass.
You learn the mansion’s rhythms: staff arriving quietly, Bernardo leaving early, returning late, never with laughter.
He doesn’t ask where you are.
He doesn’t demand you sit with him.
He treats you like a person who should choose, and that alone is disorienting.
You start exploring.
You walk through hallways lined with art, past rooms you’re not sure you’re allowed to enter, until you find a locked door at the end of a corridor.
The door is newer than the others, reinforced, with a keypad.
You’re about to turn away when you hear something from inside.
A soft mechanical beep.
Then a tiny voice, recorded, cheerful in a way that stabs your heart.
“Good morning, Dad.”
You freeze.
Your skin prickles.
Bernardo doesn’t have children. Everyone said so.
So why is a child’s voice behind a locked door?
You back away fast, pulse racing, and you try to convince yourself you imagined it.
But that night at dinner, you watch Bernardo’s hands as he pours water.
His fingers tremble once, barely visible.
And you realize that locked door isn’t security.
It’s grief.
A week later, you sit in the garden with a cup of tea you don’t really want.
The housekeeper, Dona Marta, trims roses with sharp snips, not looking at you.
She’s been polite but distant, like she doesn’t know what category you belong in yet.
Finally, she speaks without turning her head.
“You’re not what I expected,” she says.
You swallow. “What did you expect?”
Marta’s mouth tightens.
“A girl who wanted the money,” she says. “A girl who would try to trap him.”
You laugh bitterly. “Trap him? I’m the one trapped.”
Marta’s hands stop for a second.
Then she says quietly, “No.”
Her eyes finally meet yours.
“He’s the one trapped.”
The words hit you like a door opening a crack.
“What do you mean?” you ask.
Marta’s gaze flicks toward the mansion, toward the locked corridor.
Then she lowers her voice.
“Three years ago,” she whispers, “his wife died.”
You already knew that part. The staff had mentioned it like a ghost story.
But Marta continues, and her voice shakes.
“She died in childbirth. And so did the baby.”
You feel the air leave your lungs.
Marta’s eyes shine.
“He never recovered,” she says. “He turned his heart into stone so he wouldn’t bleed again.”
Your throat tightens.
The child’s voice behind the locked door suddenly makes terrible sense.
A recording. A simulation.
A man rehearsing the life he lost.
