“Is this yours, Dan? Or did the ‘consultant’ leave it in the seat crack for me to find like a treasure hunt?”

The bedroom was too quiet, the air thick with the scent of the white peonies he’d bought me earlier—peonies that now felt like funeral flowers. I stood in the center of our silk-carpeted room, my hand trembling as I held out the gold tube of the Soft Nude Pink lipstick. The metal felt like ice against my palm, a cold, hard piece of evidence in a world made of soft lies.

Dan didn’t turn around immediately. He was busy unbuttoning his shirt, his movements fluid and relaxed. He draped his silk tie over the valet stand with a rhythmic precision that made my stomach churn. When he finally turned, he didn’t look angry. He didn’t even look surprised. He just stared at the lipstick, then at me, with a small, patronizing smile playing on his lips.

“Oh, Vic,” he sighed, the sound echoing with a sickening kind of pity. “Are we really doing this again? I thought we buried this little obsession in the trash bin this afternoon. You’re becoming quite the scavenger, aren’t you?”

“I tried it on, Dan,” I said, my voice rising, cracking at the edges. “I looked in the mirror and I didn’t see myself. I saw a ghost. This color… it’s for someone young, someone loud. It’s brand new. Who was in that car, Dan? And don’t you dare tell me it was a lobbyist. I know what a boardroom looks like, and it doesn’t look like this.”

Dan walked toward me, the slow, deliberate grace of his stride making me want to shrink back. He didn’t stop until he was inches away, his shadow swallowing me whole. He reached out, his thumb grazing my lower lip where I had scrubbed the pink stain away until the skin was raw.

“You’re overworking that beautiful, imaginative brain of yours until it starts seeing monsters in the shadows, Vic,” he whispered, his voice like velvet over a blade. “It’s tragic, really. You’re so talented on a canvas, but in real life, you have no sense of perspective. You’re turning a stray piece of plastic into a Shakespearean tragedy.”

“It’s not plastic! It’s proof that you’re lying to me!”

“Proof?” He let out a low, melodic laugh that chilled my blood. “The only thing this is proof of is your declining mental state. This is exactly like that semester in college, isn’t it? The pressure, the stress of the exhibit… you started losing your grip on reality then, too. I had to be the one to pick up the pieces. I had to be the one to tell you what was real because you were too far gone to know for yourself. Do you remember the screaming, Victoria? Do you remember how I held you while you cried about things that never happened?”

I felt a cold shiver wash over me. He was using it again—the gap in my memory, the trauma I couldn’t fully grasp, using it as a cage to keep me silent.

“This is different, Dan. I found this. I felt it. It’s real.”

“And you’re making it the center of your world while the real world is crumbling around you,” he countered, his voice suddenly sharp, the ‘Ideal Husband’ mask slipping for a fraction of a second. He gripped my chin, his fingers digging into my skin, forcing me to look into his dark, empty eyes. “You are breaking the peace of this house over a tube of paint. Do you realize how incredibly selfish you’re being? I spend eighteen hours a day building an empire for you, protecting the Vermon name from the gutter, and you repay me with paranoid delusions.”

“I just want the truth,” I choked out, tears blurring my vision.

“The truth is that you are unstable, Victoria,” he hissed, leaning in so close I could smell the expensive scotch on his breath. “The truth is that without me to keep you grounded, you’d be back in a psychiatric wing, drugged and forgotten. Is that what you want for Ethan? For him to see his mother being hauled away because she couldn’t stop obsessing over a lipstick?”

The mention of my son felt like a physical blow to my stomach. I gasped, my knees feeling weak.

“Don’t bring him into this, Dan. Please.”

“How can I not?” Dan asked, his voice returning to a terrifyingly soft whisper. “He’s five years old, Vic. He’s sensitive. He sees you trembling. He sees you looking at me like I’m a stranger. Do you want him to grow up afraid of his own mother? Do you want him to inherit your… instability? Because every time you question me, every time you create a scene, you’re tearing a brick out of the foundation of his safety. Be the mother he needs. Stop being the madwoman I have to hide.”

I felt degraded. I felt small. He had taken my valid suspicion and twisted it into a symptom of madness, using my love for my son as the ultimate silencer. I stood there, defeated, as he reached out and plucked the lipstick from my hand.

“I’ll dispose of this properly this time,” he said, dropping it into his pocket. “Go to sleep, Vic. You look exhausted. I have some documents to review in the study. Try to be sane by morning.”

He walked out, the click of the door sounding like the locking of a cell.

I stood there for a long time, the silence of the room pressing against my eardrums. I felt like a ghost haunting my own life. My throat was dry, parched from the words I couldn’t say. I wrapped my silk robe tighter around me and decided to head downstairs for a glass of water, needing to feel the cold bite of the marble under my feet to remind myself I was still alive.

The house was a tomb of shadows. As I passed the library, a sliver of light spilled from the heavy mahogany doors. I slowed my pace, my heart thudding.

Inside, Michael Blackwood stood by the window. He was a tall, imposing silhouette, holding a crystal tumbler of amber liquid. He didn’t turn when he heard my footsteps. He didn’t need to. In this family, Michael was the architect of every lie, the man who had raised Dan to be a titan and Zander to be a ghost.

“The gala was a success, Victoria,” he said, his voice cold and resonant, though he remained staring at the gardens outside. “The Sy and Blackwood names remained unblemished tonight.”

“I… I tried my best, sir,” I whispered, clutching the railing of the hallway.

He finally turned, but not to offer comfort. He looked at me with a hard, judging stare—the kind of look a collector gives a piece of art that has developed a crack. His reflection in the dark window was even more terrifying than the man himself.

“In this family, we do not indulge in ‘best efforts’,” Michael said, his eyes narrowing. “We indulge in results. Daniel is a man of great responsibilities. He requires a wife who provides a sanctuary, not a series of petty interrogations. Do not let your… feminine temperament… jeopardize the legacy we have built for Ethan.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He turned back to the window, dismissing me as if I were a piece of furniture that had been moved out of place. There was no warmth here. No truth. Only the cold, hard requirement of perfection.

I hurried past the library, my breath coming in shallow gasps. I didn’t get my water. I ran back upstairs, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I crawled into the vast, empty bed, the silk sheets feeling like a shroud. Dan told me I was losing my mind. Rita told me my feelings didn’t matter. Michael told me I was a liability.

But as I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, I didn’t feel crazy. I felt a cold, hard resolve beginning to crystallize in my chest. If they wanted me to be the “mad artist,” then I would play the part. I would be the masterpiece they couldn’t control.

Because beneath the gaslighting and the threats, I knew one thing for certain: Dan wasn’t protecting me. He was hiding. And I was going to find out exactly what was behind the mask, even if I had to burn the whole house down to see it.