CHAPTER 38: CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

The tiny, dilapidated hovel was suffocatingly dark, the only light coming from the weak, sputtering flames of a dying fire. The air was thick with the smell of cheap incense, tea, and Lorena’s own, paralyzing terror.

She was on her knees, her world shattered, her confession hanging in the dead, silent air. The figure in the exorcist’s dark robes, the figure she had just confessed to, was Marissa.

"M...Marissa?" Lorena stammered, the name a broken, choking sound. Her mind, already fractured by the horror of Ryan’s "death," could not process this. This was impossible. This was a ghost. "W...why are you h...here? You’re supposed to be at the temple!"

Marissa said nothing. She simply stared, her face a pale, beautiful mask of cold, fury, her eyes reflecting the dying fire like two burning embers.

The silence was broken by a sudden, heavy grunt from the doorway. The cheap wooden door was kicked open, slamming against the plaster wall. Two of the Duke’s guards, huge, grim-faced men, entered. They were dragging a body between them—a man in the tattered, torn robes of an exorcist.

They hauled him into the room and, with a grunt of disgust, threw him to the floor in front of Lorena. He was not dead, but he was close. His face was a bloody, swollen pulp, his eyes shut, his breathing a shallow, wet rattle. He was a broken thing.

And then, Derek walked in.

He filled the small doorway, his presence sucking all the air from the room. He was in a simple black coat, his face hard and unreadable as stone. He looked at the half-dead exorcist on the floor, then at the kneeling, sobbing Lorena, and finally at Marissa, who still stood in the fraud’s borrowed robes.

The sight of the Duke, here, in this place, with Marissa, was the final, fatal blow to Lorena’s sanity. Her conspiracy was not just exposed; it was annihilated.

"Your Grace!" she wailed, collapsing completely, her forehead hitting the dusty, grimy floorboards.

Marissa finally spoke, her voice low, shaking not with fear, but with a rage so profound it was almost quiet. "You could have done anything to me, Lorena," she said, her voice trembling. "You could have framed me, humiliated me, exiled me. I was prepared for that." She took a step closer, looming over the pathetic, prostrate woman. "But I never, ever thought you would harm a child!"

"No!" Lorena shrieked, her voice cracking. "No, it wasn’t supposed to be like that! The drugs I gave him... it was just a sleeping draught! It was only to make him sleep, to make the possession look real! I didn’t mean to kill him! I swear, Your Grace, I swear! I would never kill him! I loved him!"

Derek, who had been watching this with a cold, detached expression, finally spoke. His voice was cruel, devoid of any and all emotion. "If you have anything to say, you can go and explain it to my grandmother." He turned to his guards. "Take her with us."

One of the guards gestured with his chin towards the groaning, bloody heap that was the exorcist. "And the fraud, Your Grace? What about him?"

Derek’s eyes were like chips of ice. "He will die anyway," he said, his voice flat. "Leave him." He turned and walked out of the hovel without a backward glance, not caring if the man lived or died. His purpose here was served.

The return to the estate was a blur of terror for Lorena. She was hauled between the two guards, her feet barely touching the ground, and marched not to the dungeon, but straight to the south wing, to the Dowager Duchess’s private chambers.

They did not knock. The guards slammed the doors open, marched inside, and threw her to the floor at the foot of Beatrice’s bed. The old woman, who had been sitting up in bed, her face pale with worry, let out a sharp, startled cry.

Derek entered behind them, followed by Marissa, who had shed the exorcist’s robes and was now wrapped in a simple, dark cloak.

"Your Grace! What is the meaning of this?" Beatrice demanded, her hand flying to her heart.

Derek did not waste time. His voice was clipped, precise, and utterly damning. He explained everything.

As Beatrice listened, her face went from confusion to a pale, ashen horror, and then, finally, to a deep, dark, volcanic rage.

When Derek finished his explanation, Beatrice slowly, with the shaky movements of an old woman, climbed out of her bed. She walked until she was standing over the sobbing, broken form of the woman she had trusted for over twenty years.

SLAP!

The sound was sharp, violent, and absolute. Beatrice, with all the strength of her fury, struck Lorena hard across the face, sending her sprawling.

"You," Beatrice hissed, her voice shaking with a lifetime of betrayal. "You have disappointed me."

Lorena clutched her burning cheek, her mind completely broken. She had failed. Ryan is dead. Marissa is still here. And she... she was a monster. But the cornered rat still has its teeth. She scrambled forward, grabbing at the hem of Beatrice’s nightgown, her eyes wild with a last, insane gamble.

"Dowager, no, please! Things aren’t as you believe!" she shrieked. She turned and pointed a trembling, desperate finger at Marissa. "It was her! It was all her! She set this up! She poisoned Ryan herself to make me look guilty! She deliberately framed me!"

Marissa, who was standing close to Derek, simply watched, her expression one of weary pity. This woman was a lost cause, her soul so twisted by hatred that she could no longer see the truth.

Derek, however, had no such patience. "You dare to lie?" he barked, his voice so full of sudden rage that Lorena flinched as if she had been struck again. "Even now?"

Lorena brought her hand down slowly, her last desperate hope extinguished.

Derek stepped forward, standing between his grandmother and the woman on the floor. "Marissa has been with Ryan for two nights," he said, his voice a cold, final judgment. "She confirmed the presence of a lethal toxin. One strong enough to kill him." He looked down at Lorena, his face a mask of disgust.

"If Marissa hadn’t found out," he said, his voice dropping to a low, terrible growl, "if she hadn’t possessed the cunning to suspect your treachery, if she hadn’t come back... Ryan would be dead."