Rose and Daniel sat stiffly in the room, still processing the bomb Adeline had casually dropped on them. The woman, who just days ago was wobbling around with a cane and forgetting where she put her slippers, had just admitted that it was all a ruse. No memory loss. No weak knees. No helpless old lady act.
Sure, she was old. But not that old.
Rose couldn't hold it in. "So... why fake the whole thing? The memory loss? The cane? The drama?"
Adeline looked utterly unbothered as she sipped from her tea. "Simple. Easy access to your lives. No questions. And God, I hate questions."
Daniel blinked. "You do realize that's suspicious as hell, right?"
Rose just stared, the gears turning in her head. The deception ran deeper than she thought.
Daniel then asked the question they'd both been avoiding. "Your family... the son you mentioned once—was that true? You seemed really scared when I tried to reach them."
Adeline's expression softened slightly, but the edge in her voice remained. "Yes. I have a family. Had to run away. They wouldn't let me leave willingly, so I made the choice for them. If they've found me, they're just hiding in plain sight now."
She paused. "Just like the spies in this house."
"Wait... what?" Daniel's eyes widened. "Spies? Here?!"
Adeline raised a brow like she was discussing the weather. "Oh? I thought you two knew."
Rose's pulse quickened. She had noticed the men Julian assigned to watch the house. But spies? That was a whole different flavor of paranoia.
"Are they... Julian's men?" Rose murmured to herself, her voice barely audible.
"Speak up, girl," Adeline snapped lightly, pretending to cup a hand to her ear. "I'm not actually deaf, but I'll play the part if you mumble."
Rose didn't respond. She wasn't ready. She didn't want to be ready for whatever truth lay behind Julian and his dark, polished suits and silvery words. Something told her that knowing more would only pull her deeper into something she might not survive.
Adeline must've noticed the fear in Rose's eyes, because her tone softened. "I've watched. Those men... the ones in the shadows? They're not here to harm. If anything, they're guarding. But you still need to be careful. Always."
Then she looked at both siblings with the steel of a battle-tested soldier. "You two need to learn how to protect yourselves."
Daniel straightened his back. "I am a man. I can handle myself."
Adeline raised a brow... then cackled. "Boy, please. I could snap your collarbone in three seconds and still be back in time for my tea refill."
Daniel opened his mouth to protest, then paused. "Wait—what part of the collarbone?"
Rose tried not to laugh but failed, letting out a snort.
Adeline turned serious again. "Rose, I know I said I'm no longer in the business. And that's true. But knowing about this life... it means something. In that old recording, I said once you know about it, you can't escape it. Whether you know or not, it follows you. The difference? When you know, you get to fight. You don't go down quietly."
She stepped closer to Rose, the light catching the sharpness in her eyes.
"You're not a little girl anymore. And there's no such thing as 'princess' in this world. That's just a name people hide behind when they're too scared to stand. You're either a queen, standing tall... or a ghost clinging to someone else's strength."
Rose stared back, unsure what to feel.
Adeline continued, voice low and poetic. "The world's never been safe. Not since the day those two fools took a bite from a tree they weren't meant to touch. But you—you can choose how to live in it."
She rested a hand on Rose's shoulder. "When you're ready to fight for yourself, come find me."
Then she turned, sauntering toward the door with her empty tea cup in hand. "You too, Daniel. I'm going to refill my tea. Don't break anything while I'm gone."
The door shut behind her with a casual click.
Rose and Daniel exchanged a look of mutual disbelief. Adeline had just flipped their reality like a pancake—easy, hot, and slightly burned on the edges.
They didn't speak. What was there to say?
Rose returned to her room, dragging her feet like her thoughts weighed her down. She grabbed her phone and stared at Stella's name in her contact list. Should she text her? But what if Stella didn't know? What if Rose ended up being the one to spill secrets that weren't hers to spill?
She put the phone down.
She laid on her bed, eyes on the ceiling, mind racing. Spies. Secrets. Lies. And Julian. Could he be a mafia lord?
The thought struck her hard.
Julian... a mafia?
She shook her head, literally, trying to toss the thought out of her brain. No way. She wasn't ready to open that Pandora's box.
Instead, she reached for her suitcase. Tomorrow, she was returning to the Carter mansion. Back to being Vivienne's nanny. Back to pretending that everything was normal.
But after tonight?
She'd never see "normal" the same way again.