The Soldier & The Daisy — Chapter Twenty Four THE RECKONING "The human heart is a labyrinth, Daisy. And fear... fear can turn people into things they never recognized in the mirror." ✦ Pairing — [Levi x OC] ✦ Rating — 18+ ✦ Warnings/Tropes - [AU, Canon Divergence, No War, Forbidden Romance, Bodyguard Romance, Nobility, Class Differences, Slow Burn, Secret Relationship, Smut, Smut in the first chapter, Romantic Tension, Angst, Fluff, Rebellious Protagonist, Assassination attempts, Ballet Enthusiast, Protective Levi Ackerman, Levi Ackerman is Bad at Feelings, POV Levi Ackerman, Forbidden Love, Affairs] ✦ Table of Contents ——— ✦ ———
Chapter Twenty Four: The Reckoning
The silence that followed the cessation of the alarm bell was heavier than the iron noise itself. For what felt like an eternity, the tolling had been a physical assault, a frantic heartbeat of panic that vibrated in the teeth and bones of everyone present. Now, abruptly, it was gone, leaving behind a ringing void that pressed against the eardrums, magnified by the sudden, ragged quiet of the stable.
The air was thick with the primal scents of distress: the sour tang of human sweat, the metallic sharpness of fresh blood, the musk of frightened horses, and the damp, earthy smell of the hay. In the center of the main aisle, beneath the high, raftered ceiling where shadows danced in the flickering lantern light, a tableau of devastation had frozen in place.
Duchess Gretchen LaRue stood bracketed by two of the Duke’s largest guards. Her hands were not bound, but the grip on her arms was iron-clad. She did not struggle. The mask of the elegant aristocrat had not just slipped; it had been incinerated. Her posture remained rigid, her chin high, but her eyes—sharp, dark, and devoid of warmth—radiated a hatred so pure and concentrated it felt radioactive. She looked at the Duke not with fear, but with a venomous loathing, as if his discovery of her treachery was a personal insult to her intelligence.
At her feet, a few yards away, lay the ruin of Sophia. The maid had collapsed into a heap of linen and despair, her body curled tight against the hay-strewn floor. Her sobbing had reduced to a wet, hitching gasp, the sound of a lung puncture. The confession she had screamed into the rafters still seemed to hang in the dust motes above them, a toxic cloud that choked the breath from the room.
And Daisy. Daisy sat on the floor near the stall of the black stallion, her legs sprawled in an ungraceful angle that spoke of total physical collapse. Her hand was still pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide and glassy, fixed on a point in the middle distance. She was in shock, her mind having retreated behind a wall of numbness to survive the collision of two impossible truths: the salvation of her lover and the betrayal of her best friend.
Duke Desmond Lenore stood like a man who had been struck by lightning and survived, only to wish he hadn't. His face, usually flushed with the vigor of command, was the color of old parchment. He stared at Gretchen, his oldest friend’s wife, the woman he had trusted with his daughter’s future, as if seeing a ghost. The devastation in his eyes was not just political or familial; it was the shattering of a worldview. He looked at the onyx ring on her finger, then at the weeping maid, and finally at the man he had ordered chained like a dog.
Markus stood by Levi, the severed chains dangling from his hand like dead snakes. He looked between his Duke and the Captain, his expression a mixture of grim duty and dawning, nauseous realization of how close they had come to a catastrophic injustice.
And Levi.
He stood alone in the center of the tragedy. He was a wreck of a man, barefoot, his shirt torn and stained with the grime of the dungeon floor. Blood, dried and dark, matted his hair from the staged seizure. His wrists were raw, encircled by angry, weeping abrasions where the iron cuffs had eaten into the skin. He rubbed them absently, the movement slow and stiff, but his attention was not on his pain. His gaze, terrifying in its cold, flat stillness, rested on Gretchen for a single, long second—a promise of retribution deferred—before dismissing her entirely.
The silence broke not with a shout, but with the soft crunch of a bare foot on straw.
Levi moved. He did not look at the Duke. He did not acknowledge the guards or the traitor. He walked, his steps heavy but steady, straight toward the girl slumped against the stall door.
He stopped a foot away from her and dropped to one knee in the hay. He didn't reach for her immediately. He seemed acutely aware of the filth on his skin, the blood on his hands, the audience watching them. He simply existed in her space, a solid, breathing barrier between her and the horrors of the room.
"Daisy," he said. His voice was a wreck, raspy from disuse and the screaming acting in the cell, but it was pitched low, a rough vibration meant for her ears alone.
She blinked, the glassy look in her lavender eyes fracturing as focus returned. She looked at his chest first, seeing the rise and fall of his breathing, then up to his face. She saw the bruise darkening his jaw, the cut on his forehead, the exhaustion etched into the lines around his stormy eyes. But mostly, she saw him. Alive. Free.
"It's over," he murmured, the words simple and absolute. "You're safe."
The sound of his voice, familiar and gentle amidst the carnage, was the key that unlocked the paralysis. The dam broke. It wasn't a gradual return to feeling; it was a violent, shuddering release. A sound tore from her throat—half-sob, half-wail—a noise of such raw, wounded animal pain that the Duke flinched visibly across the room.
She didn't just reach for him; she launched herself. She threw her body forward, colliding with him, her arms wrapping frantically around his neck, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder. She clung to him with a strength born of desperation, her fingers digging into the fabric of his ruined shirt, anchoring herself to the only piece of solid ground left in a world that had dissolved into madness.
Levi’s hesitation vanished. His arms came up, encircling her, pulling her tight against his chest. One hand tangled in the mess of her hair, cradling the back of her head, pressing her face deeper into his shoulder to shield her eyes from the sight of Sophia and Gretchen. The other arm wrapped around her waist, holding her together as she shook apart. He didn't speak; he just held her, absorbing the force of her grief, his chin resting on the top of her head, his eyes closing for a brief, pained moment.
The Duke watched them. He saw his daughter, the girl he had dismissed as hysterical, the girl he had locked away for her own "protection," clinging to the man he had branded a traitor. He saw the way Levi held her—not with the possessiveness of a captor, but with the fierce, reverent protection of a guardian who had walked through fire to get to her.
He saw the absolute, unshakeable truth of their bond, a truth he had been too blind, too arrogant, and too fearful to see. The shame that washed over him was a physical blow, a sickness that roiled in his gut. He realized, with a clarity that cut like a knife, that he had not just been wrong about the conspiracy. He had been wrong about everything. He had nearly destroyed the one person who had actually saved his child.
He swallowed, his throat clicking dryly. He had to act. He was still the Duke, even if he felt like a ruin of one.
"Markus," he said. His voice was unrecognizable—hoarse, stripped of its usual booming cadence.
Markus snapped to attention, though his eyes remained sympathetic. "Your Grace."
The Duke pointed a trembling finger at Gretchen. He couldn't look her in the eye. "Take Duchess Gretchen to the secure holding cells," he ordered, the words tasting like ash. "The same one he just left. The deepest one." He paused, inhaling a shaky breath. "Double the guard. She speaks to no one. If she asks for water, you give it to her. If she asks for a lawyer, or a priest, or me... you give her silence."
"Yes, Your Grace," Markus said, his voice hard. He signaled the guards, and they began to haul Gretchen away. She didn't scream. She didn't protest. She simply cast one final, loathing look at the Duke, a look that promised a war that was far from over, before she was marched out into the night.
The Duke turned his gaze to the floor, to the weeping pile of linen that was Sophia. His expression softened, not with forgiveness, but with a terrible, weary pity. "Gregor. Thom."
The two guards stepped forward.
"Take... take Sophia to the tower room," the Duke said quietly. "The one with the locking bolt. Put her there. Post a guard at the door." He looked away, unable to bear the sound of her hitching breaths. "We will deal with her... testimony... later. Ensure she does not harm herself."
"Understood, sir," Gregor muttered. They lifted the sobbing maid. She was dead weight, her legs refusing to hold her. As they dragged her past, she didn't look at Daisy. She didn't look at Levi. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her face a mask of agony, as if she were trying to erase herself from existence.
When the stable doors closed behind them, a new, heavy silence settled. It was just the three of them now. The Duke, the soldier, and the girl.
The Duke took a step toward the couple on the floor, then stopped. He didn't have the right to intrude. Not yet. He looked at the back of Levi's head, at the bloody matted hair, the torn shirt, the defensive set of his shoulders.
"Captain," the Duke said. The title felt heavy on his tongue, weighted with a new, begrudging respect and a fathomless apology.
Levi didn't look up immediately. He waited until Daisy’s sobs had quieted to wet hiccups, stroking her hair once, twice, before lifting his head. His gray eyes were guarded, cold, expecting another accusation.
The Duke met that gaze and held it. He lowered his hands, opening them in a gesture of surrender. "Captain... get my daughter to the house," he said softly. "The study. It's warm there. I will... I will meet you there in a moment."
It was an order, but it was also a concession. He was not ordering his guards to take her. He was not separating them. He was entrusting her to Levi. It was the first, silent step on a long, painful road of penance.
Levi stared at him for a beat, assessing the man, measuring the sincerity against the threat. Finally, he gave a curt, almost imperceptible nod.
"Come on," Levi whispered to Daisy, his hands shifting to help her rise. "Let's get you inside."
━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━
The fire in the Duke’s study had been built up to a roar, the flames licking hungrily at the large oak logs, casting a flickering, orange warmth across the room. But despite the heat, the atmosphere in the high-ceilinged chamber was frigid, suffocated by a tension so thick it felt like breathing water.
Daisy sat on the plush leather sofa, her knees pulled up to her chest, wrapped in a heavy woolen blanket Levi had pulled from the back of a chair. A cup of tea, steaming and fragrant with bergamot, sat untouched on the low table in front of her. Her hands, pale and trembling, gripped the edges of the blanket as if it were the only thing holding her together. She stared into the fire, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen, watching the wood turn to ash.
Levi stood by the hearth, one arm resting on the mantle, his back partially turned to the room. He had refused a seat. He had refused a drink. He was a ghost in the shadows, his presence a silent, watchful reproach. He had washed the worst of the blood from his hands in a basin by the door, but the raw, red rings around his wrists were stark against his pale skin. He watched the door, and he watched Daisy, his vigilance a living thing.
The heavy oak door creaked open, and Duke Desmond entered. He looked older than he had an hour ago. The formidable vitality that usually defined him seemed to have drained away, leaving behind a man whose shoulders slumped under an invisible weight. He closed the door softly and didn't move toward his massive desk—the seat of his power. Instead, he walked to the tall window that overlooked the darkened grounds.
He stood there for a long time, his back to them, staring out at his reflection in the dark glass. The silence stretched, uncomfortable and jagged.
"I was a fool," the Duke said.
The words were quiet, spoken to the glass, but they carried in the stillness. He turned slowly to face them. His face was gray, the lines around his mouth etched deep with regret.
He looked at Daisy first. His gaze traveled over her huddled form, the evidence of her terror, the exhaustion in her posture. "I called you a liar," he said, his voice trembling slightly. "I called you hysterical. I dismissed your instincts, your heart, your truth... as the ravings of a child." He took a hesitant step toward her, then stopped, as if a barrier prevented him from getting closer. "I locked you in your room. I isolated you. I left you vulnerable to the very serpent I swore to protect you from."
Daisy didn't look up from the fire, but a fresh tear tracked a silent path down her cheek.
"You were right," the Duke whispered, the admission costing him everything. "You were right all along. And I... I failed you."
He took a breath, steeling himself, and turned his gaze to the fireplace. To the man who stood there, dark and unyielding.
"Captain," the Duke said. He straightened his spine, an instinctive attempt to regain some shred of dignity, though his eyes remained haunted. "I... I have done you a profound disservice."
Levi turned his head slowly, his expression unreadable.
"I let my fear," the Duke continued, his voice gaining a little strength, though it remained laced with shame. "My arrogance. My desperation to control a situation I did not understand... and my friendship with that... that monster... blind me." He gestured vaguely toward the door, toward the dungeons where he had sent Levi. "I accused you of the vilest of crimes. I stripped you of your honor. I imprisoned you. I chained you."
The Duke paused, his gaze dropping to Levi's wrists. He flinched, a micro-expression of pain, before forcing himself to look Levi in the eye again.
"I am so sorry," he said. "There is no excuse for my failure. None. I judged you by your station, and by the lies of a woman I thought I knew, rather than by your actions. I owe you my life, for saving hers. Instead, I offered you a cell."
The apology hung in the warm air, heavy and undeniable. It was total. There was no mitigation, no 'but', no attempt to shift the blame. It was the baring of a throat.
Levi watched him. His face was stone, his eyes calm and hard. He did not offer forgiveness. He did not smile. He was a soldier who had been mistreated by a commander, and the bridge was burned. But he was also a pragmatist.
"Your daughter was the priority," Levi said. His voice was flat, rough with the memory of the chokehold he had faked. He nodded once, a sharp, curt motion. "She remains the priority."
It was a dismissal of the apology, but an acceptance of the mission. It was also a subtle, stinging reminder: You failed at the priority, too.
The Duke nodded, accepting the rebuke. "Yes. Yes, she does."
A small, broken voice rose from the sofa.
"Sophia..."
Daisy hadn't moved, her gaze still fixed on the dancing flames. Her voice was thin, fragile as spun glass. "She... she was my friend. She was my sister."
The pain in those few words sucked the air out of the room. It wasn't the anger of betrayal; it was the confusion of grief. The inability to reconcile the girl who had braided her hair and laughed at her secrets with the woman who had sewn poison into her dress.
The Duke closed his eyes for a moment, the mask of the strategist slipping to reveal the heartbroken father. He walked over to the sofa and sat on the edge of the cushion, careful not to crowd her. He reached out, covering her trembling hands with his own large, warm one.
"I know, child," he said softly. "I know."
Daisy looked up at him then, her eyes swimming. "Did she hate me? All that time... was it all a lie?"
"I do not know," the Duke admitted, his voice thick. "The human heart is a labyrinth, Daisy. And fear... fear can turn people into things they never recognized in the mirror." He squeezed her hand gently. "But the woman you knew... the girl you grew up with... she made a terrible choice. A choice that nearly cost you your life. And we must now deal with the consequences."
He looked up at Levi, his eyes hardening, the shift from father to ruler happening in real-time. The grief was still there, but the necessity of action was taking over.
"We need to know everything," the Duke said to Levi. "We need to know the extent of the web. Gretchen is in the cells, but she is a seasoned liar. She will wait for her lawyers. She will stall."
"Sophia won't," Levi said. He moved away from the mantle, stepping into the light. "She's broken. She's terrified. And she's the weak link."
"I will go to her," the Duke said, starting to rise.
"No," Levi cut in. His tone wasn't insubordinate, just factual. "You represent the authority she betrayed. She'll freeze. Or she'll lie to please you." He looked at the door. "I'll go."
The Duke hesitated. "You? After what she did to you?"
"Because of what she did to me," Levi corrected. "She knows I saw through her. She knows I know the mechanics of the frame. And she knows..." He glanced at Daisy, his expression softening for a fraction of a second. "...she knows I'm the only one who might understand doing terrible things for the sake of someone else."
The Duke looked at Levi, really looked at him, perhaps for the first time seeing the depth of the man beneath the uniform. He nodded slowly. "Very well. Go to the tower room. Find out the truth. All of it."
Levi nodded. He turned to Daisy. "I'll be back," he promised quietly.
Daisy nodded, pulling the blanket tighter around herself. As Levi turned to leave, the Duke spoke one last time.
"Captain."
Levi paused at the door, his hand on the latch.
"Thank you," the Duke said. It wasn't an apology this time. It was gratitude.
Levi didn't turn around. He just opened the door and stepped out into the cold corridor, leaving the warmth of the study behind to descend into the darkness of the tower, where the shattered remnants of a betrayal waited to be swept up.
━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━
The tower room was a small, circular chamber located in the oldest part of the estate, a relic from a time when the Lenore ancestors needed slit windows for archers rather than glass for views. The air here was stagnant, trapped between thick blocks of gray stone, holding a chill that had nothing to do with the season. It smelled of damp mortar and ancient dust.
Gregor stood guard outside the heavy, iron-banded door. He straightened as Levi approached, his eyes flickering to the raw, red abrasions on Levi’s wrists. There was no sneer in the guard’s expression now, only a grim, respectful nod. He slid the bolt back with a heavy metallic clank and pulled the door open.
Levi stepped inside.
Sophia was huddled in the corner furthest from the door, a shapeless mound of gray linen and trembling limbs. She had pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her head, as if trying to make herself small enough to disappear into the masonry. A single tallow candle burned on a small stool, casting long, dancing shadows that warped against the curved walls.
She didn't look up when the door closed, sealing them in. She flinched at the sound of the latch, a full-body spasm, but remained curled tight. She was waiting for the Duke’s roar, or perhaps the cold steel of a blade.
Levi didn't shout. He didn't move toward her immediately. He stood by the door, leaning his back against the wood, and waited. He let the silence stretch, heavy and suffocating, broken only by the wet, ragged sound of her breathing. He watched her with the detached, clinical eye of a man who had seen fear break stronger soldiers than this girl. He wasn't angry. Anger was a fire that burned energy; this required ice.
"Why?"
The single word cut through the damp air, low and devoid of inflection.
Sophia’s head snapped up. Her face was a ruin. Her eyes were swollen shut, the skin around them blotchy and raw from salt and friction. Her hair, usually pinned with such precise, maid-perfect discipline, hung in matted tangles around her face. When she saw him—saw the man she had condemned to a cage standing free, watching her not with rage but with a terrifying, empty stillness—her breath hitched in a sob that sounded like a bone breaking.
"I... I had no choice," she whispered, the words bubbling up through a throat clogged with tears. "She... she owns them."
Levi pushed off the door and took a step closer. "Be specific."
"My parents," she gasped, rocking slightly. "My father... he has a weakness. Cards. Dice. He always has. He hid it well, for years, but... the debts grew. They were going to lose the cottage. They were going to lose everything."
She wiped her nose on her sleeve, a gesture of childish despair. "Duchess LaRue... she found out. I don't know how. She has eyes everywhere. She went to them. She paid the debt. All of it. A fortune." Sophia looked up at Levi, her expression pleading for understanding. "She didn't ask for repayment. She just... she made them sign a paper. Acknowledging the debt. And then she came to me."
"Leverage," Levi said. It wasn't a question.
"She told me I belonged to her now," Sophia sobbed. "That my parents' lives belonged to her. At first, it was small things. Information. What was Daisy wearing? Who was she writing to? Was she happy with the engagement? I thought... I thought it was just gossip. Nasty, highborn gossip."
Levi’s expression didn't change. "And then?"
"Then the letter came." Sophia fumbled at her bodice, her fingers shaking so violently she could barely grasp the fabric, as if searching for the paper she no longer had. "It was from my mother. It looked like her handwriting. But there was a postscript. It said... it said the winter was dry. That old wood burns so fast. That a house fire at night is a tragedy no one survives."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop another ten degrees. Levi knew that tactic. It was crude, brutal, and effective. Fear for oneself was a powerful motivator, but fear for loved ones turned people into weapons.
"The poison," Levi said.
Sophia flinched. "I couldn't do it! I swear, Captain, I couldn't kill her!" She scrambled to her knees, her hands clasped in a desperate prayer. "She gave me the vial. She told me to put it in her wine. To finish it. But I... I chose the quail. I knew you checked the food. I knew you were careful. I put just enough... just enough to make her sick. To make the Duke afraid. I thought if he was scared enough, he'd send her away, hide her somewhere safe where Gretchen couldn't reach her, and I wouldn't have to... I wouldn't have to kill her."
It was a twisted, desperate logic, the kind born of panic and naivety. She had tried to thread a needle between murder and survival, and she had failed catastrophically.
"And the frame?" Levi asked. "The gold. The letters."
"When you became her guard... when you moved into the house... she was furious," Sophia whispered, her voice trembling. "She said you were an obstacle. A wall she couldn't climb. She said you had to be removed. Disgraced. She gave me the packages. Two of them. Identical."
She swallowed hard. "She gave me a vial of sedative, too. The one Markus found. She told me to use it on you at the farmhouse. To knock you out so I could plant the evidence on you while you slept. To make it look like you were meeting a contact."
"But you didn't use it," Levi noted.
"I was too scared," she admitted. "You... you don't sleep like other people. You're always listening. I knew you'd catch me."
"So you improvised."
"The sea," she said, tears streaming down her face again. "When you said we were going to the sea... it was like a gift from God. A whole day. An empty house. I planted the first package in your room here at the estate. The jacket. I ripped the lining just like she told me."
"And the second?"
"I put it in your satchel before we left," she confessed. "While you were in the stables prepping the horses. I slipped it in with the food. That's why it was there. I didn't need to drug you. I just needed you to carry it."
Levi’s jaw tightened. He remembered the weight of the satchel, the simple domesticity of that morning. He had carried his own warrant, packed by the woman who had smiled and handed him bread.
"And tonight?" Levi asked. "The escape."
Sophia slumped back against the stone wall, exhausted. "The alarm... I thought she had gotten away. I was happy. For a second, I was so happy. But then I remembered the threat. If Daisy escaped, Gretchen would blame me. My parents would burn." Her eyes went wide, staring into the flickering candlelight. "So I ran to find her. I had to bring her back. Or..."
"Or what?"
"The cellars," Sophia whispered, her voice barely audible. "Gretchen's orders were clear. If the frame failed, if you weren't removed... I was to get Daisy to the old wine cellars. To 'hide.' She said... she said she had someone waiting there. An accomplice. Someone who would make sure Daisy had a tragic accident in the dark."
Levi stared at her. The chill in his gut solidified. An accomplice. Gretchen wasn't waiting in the cellar; she had been in the stable courtyard. That meant there was another player. Someone willing to do wet work in the dark.
"Who?" Levi demanded.
"I don't know," Sophia wept. "She never said a name. Just 'a friend.' Please, Captain... I've told you everything. I've told you the truth."
She looked up at him, her face a portrait of ruin. "My parents... she knows I failed. She's in a cell, but she has reach. She said she has people. They'll kill them. They'll burn them tonight because of me."
Levi pushed himself off the wall. He looked down at her, at the pathetic creature who had nearly destroyed his life and the life of the woman he loved. He felt no sympathy, only a cold recognition of cause and effect. She was a victim, yes, but she was also a criminal. Her choices had consequences.
But he needed her. She was the witness. She was the thread that would unravel the rest of the tapestry.
"You will tell the Duke," Levi said, his voice flat. "Everything you just told me. Every detail. Every threat. You will testify."
"It won't matter if they're dead!" she wailed.
Levi turned to the door. He paused, his hand on the iron latch. He didn't look back at her.
"I will handle it."
He opened the door and stepped out, leaving her weeping in the dark, the heavy bolt sliding home with a sound like a gavel falling.
━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━
The transition from the dank, suffocating air of the tower to the Duke’s study was jarring. Levi walked through the silent corridors of the estate, the adrenaline of the night beginning to fade, replaced by a deep, grinding ache in his bones. His wrists burned. His head throbbed where he had rammed it against the cell wall. But his mind was clear, sharp, and spinning.
He entered the study without knocking.
The room had changed. The fire had burned down to glowing embers, casting a dull, red light over the space. But outside the tall windows, the sky was turning the color of bruised iron. Dawn was breaking. A cold, gray light filtered through the glass, illuminating the exhaustion on the faces of the people waiting for him.
Daisy was still on the sofa, but she had shed the blanket. She sat upright, a cup of fresh coffee in her hands. Her eyes were red and swollen, but dry. The shock had receded, leaving behind a brittle, hardened resolve. She looked like porcelain that had been broken and glued back together—the cracks were visible, but the shape held.
The Duke sat behind his desk, no longer the broken man staring at his reflection. He was writing, his quill scratching furiously against parchment. He looked up as Levi entered, his eyes dark-circled but sharp. Markus stood by the window, a silent sentinel, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
They were a council of the wounded.
"Well?" the Duke asked, laying down the quill.
Levi walked to the center of the room. He didn't sit. "She confessed. Everything."
He gave his report with military precision, stripping away Sophia’s tears and justifications, leaving only the tactical facts. He detailed the debt, the purchase of the parents' marker, the letter with the fire threat. He explained the mechanics of the poison—the calculated half-measure—and the timeline of the frame-up.
"Her motive was survival," Levi concluded, his voice raspy. "Her weapon was coercion. Sophia’s parents are the leverage. As long as they are vulnerable, Gretchen holds a knife to Sophia’s throat, even from a cell."
The Duke listened, his face hardening into a mask of granite. He looked at Daisy, seeing the pain flicker across her face at the details of the betrayal, but she didn't look away. She nodded, accepting the truth.
"She mentioned an accomplice," Levi added, dropping the final piece of intel. "The plan was to lure Daisy to the cellars. Gretchen was outside. Someone else was waiting in the dark to stage the accident."
Markus straightened by the window. "Did she give a name?"
"No. She doesn't know."
The Duke stood up. The weariness seemed to fall from his shoulders, replaced by the mantle of authority. He was done mourning his mistakes; he was ready to rectify them.
"Markus," the Duke commanded. "Send two of your best men. Not in uniform. Give them fast horses." He picked up the parchment he had been writing on, blowing on the wet ink. "This is an order of protection under my seal. Ride to Sophia’s village. Now. Do not stop for rest."
"Your Grace?" Markus asked.
"Get her parents," the Duke said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Pack them up. Bring them here. Tell them their daughter is in service and requires their presence—tell them whatever lie is necessary to get them moving quickly. But get them out of that cottage. Bring them within the estate walls."
"We take the leverage off the board," Levi said, nodding approval.
"Exactly," the Duke said. "If Gretchen’s reach extends beyond these walls, we cut it off. Once her parents are safe, Sophia will have no reason to hold back. She will give us everything."
Markus took the parchment, saluted sharply, and strode from the room. The heavy door clicked shut, leaving the three of them in the gray morning light.
The silence that followed was heavy, pregnant with the things that had not yet been said. The immediate crisis was contained. The viper was in a cage. The witness was secured. But the picture Levi had assembled in his mind was incomplete. It was unbalanced.
"Gretchen is arrested," Levi said quietly, moving toward the window to look out at the mist rising from the gardens. "But the math doesn't work."
The Duke frowned. "She was caught with the ring. She had the motive. The means."
"She had the means to buy a maid's debt," Levi corrected, turning to face them. "She's a Duchess. She operates in drawing rooms and ballrooms. She deals in gossip and social influence."
He walked back to the desk, placing his hands on the polished wood, leaning in. "But think about the attacks. The poison in the quail—Marleyan origin, hard to source. The gold in my satchel—foreign currency, laundered. The shooter in the park—a professional marksman, hired through a go-between."
Levi looked from the Duke to Daisy. "Gretchen LaRue does not know how to hire a sniper. She does not know how to source rare poisons without leaving a paper trail. She doesn't walk into the criminal underworld of the capital and negotiate contracts."
Daisy set her coffee cup down, the china rattling slightly against the saucer. "She had help," she whispered. "The 'Minister' isn't a person. It's a partnership."
"Exactly," Levi said. "She has accomplices. Competent ones. Dangerous ones. People who know how to operate in the shadows where a Duchess would stand out like a flare."
The room seemed to grow colder. The victory of the night before felt suddenly fragile, a thin veneer over a deeper rot.
"And the motive," Levi continued, his voice dropping. "We assumed it was ambition. Greed. But look at the target. It wasn't just about killing Daisy. It was about clearing the board."
"The inheritance," the Duke said, rubbing his temples. "If Daisy dies... the Lenore fortune, the estate..."
"It goes to the next of kin," Levi finished. "Or, if the marriage contract was sealed... it would secure the future of the husband."
The air in the room shifted. It wasn't a sudden realization, but a slow, creeping horror, like the tide coming in. The Duke went very still. Daisy’s breath hitched.
"Gretchen did this for a reason," Levi said. "She is a mother. Mothers do terrible things for their children."
The Duke looked up, his eyes wide, the denial warring with the logic in his gaze. "No," he whispered. "He... he is a boy. A vain, foolish boy, perhaps. But... a murderer?"
"He stands to gain everything," Levi said, relentless. "With Daisy gone, or with Daisy married to him and then 'tragically' dying... he becomes the Duke in all but name. He inherits the power. The money."
The name hung in the air, unspoken for a moment, a ghost haunting the dawn council.
"Edward," the Duke whispered.
Levi nodded grimly. "We have to know. We have to know if he was a pawn in his mother's game—a spoiled child waiting for his inheritance—or if he was a player."
Daisy stood up. She wrapped her arms around herself, a chill shaking her that had nothing to do with the temperature. "He... he came to my room," she said, her voice trembling. "When I was locked in. He was so... smug. He talked about 'taming' me. About how I would learn my place." She looked at her father, her eyes wide. "He didn't seem worried, Papa. He didn't seem like a man whose mother was plotting behind his back. He seemed... entitled. Like he was waiting for a prize he had already won."
The Duke slammed his hand onto the desk, a sudden, violent release of frustration. "If he is involved... if he knew..."
"We can't move against him yet," Levi warned. "We have Gretchen. We have Sophia. But we have nothing on Edward. If we arrest him now, without proof, the other noble families will riot. They'll say you're purging your enemies. It will look like tyranny."
"So what do we do?" the Duke demanded. "Wait for him to strike?"
"We watch him," Levi said. "We watch him like a hawk. We see who he talks to now that his mother is in chains. We see who he sends messages to. If he's innocent, he'll be confused and terrified. If he's guilty..." Levi’s eyes narrowed, the predator surfacing. "...he'll try to finish what she started. Or he'll try to run."
Levi looked out the window again. The sun had crested the horizon, a pale, watery disk that offered light but no warmth. The long night was over, but the shadows it had cast were longer than ever.
"We won the battle," Levi said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "But the war... the war is just beginning."
The four of them—the Duke, the heiress, the soldier, and the ghost of the loyal Captain absent in the room—stood in the silence of the dawn. They were bruised, battered, and weary to their souls. But as Levi looked at Daisy, and she looked back at him with eyes that held no more secrets, he knew one thing for certain: they were finally fighting the same enemy. And they were united.
For the first time in a long time, the monsters in the dark had reason to be afraid.
To Be Continued... ——— ✦ ——— Thank you for reading. ♡ ✦ Check out my Patreon for more content. I'm four chapters ahead on my fics there. ✦ THE MAIN UNIVERSE ✦ Love my writing? Check out my Gothic Romantasy novel — Liquid Sunlight. ↳ Masterlist | Table of Contents | Join my Taglist Tagging:@grey-clowd @faerie-soirxx @tojiswifeforlife
