<b>Chapter </b>77


    This message came barely two hours after Axel left. I knew I wasn’t asleep for that long. So this person knew Axel would be gone, and even knew when. I’m sure Axel would still be on the ne by now, so there was no way I could contact him.


    I stared at the message, staring at the number. There was no point in calling the number, cause I was sure they wouldn’t pick up.


    I locked the phone, pushing it aside but my mind never left the message.


    Axel said he would tell me when he was ready. Should I really be considering this? But I… I needed to know. I needed to know what kind of man I was in love with.


    I opened my phone again, biting my lower lip, torn between letting Axel tell me at his own pace or just going to find out. But my fingers decided for me.


    “Where would he be?” I typed, hitting send before I could change my mind.


    The message was read instantly. “At their mansion. Basement. Be there by nine and you’ll see everything.”


    Under that message was a four–digit number. That was it. No other message what the number was for. I asked, but no reply came, the message wasn’t even read.


    “I’m sorry, Axel,” I muttered as I booked my flight. “I’m really sorry.”


    But I had to know. Even though this wasn’t right.


    <b>*** </b>


    When the nended, I checked the time and saw that I still had about four hours until nine, so I decided to book a hotel. I couldn’t sleep a wink on the ne because I kept thinking, “Basement? For the time I stayed in that mansion, I didn’t know they had a basement. And who was this person? What was their connection with Axel?”


    My head was a damn mess and I ended up staying awake all through the eight–hour flight.


    When I got to the hotel, I showered, changed, and stood in front of the mirror.


    My eyes were swollen fromck of sleep, dark rings bruising the skin underneath. I looked like someone about to do something stupid.


    That’s because I was.


    Axel trusted me with so much already–his temper, his softness, the little pieces of himself he slipped without realizing. Yet here I was, sneaking behind his back and about to dig into a secret he wasn’t ready to share.


    It was wrong, so goddamn wrong, and it felt like I was betraying his trust. Things were fragile between us, still so new, and I knew I shouldn’t be doing this, and yet…


    Since I had time, I decided to sleep, and I was out as soon as my head touched the pillow despite the mess my head.


    ***


    Something startled me awake. I didn’t know what it was, but it was a feeling, a feeling that made my insides turn sour. It made me jump awake, sweating, panting with my clothes soaked.


    I grabbed my phone with shaking hands and I gasped when I saw the time. It was almost ten.


    I jumped off the bed, grabbed the hotel card key, and shoved it with my phone into my pocket, ordering a cab.


    The ride felt endless, streetlights blurring into the smear of gold and white as the driver wound through the city, the full moon bright. My heart mmed harder the closer we got, and when the gates of the mansion finally loomed into view, I almost told the driver to turn around.


    Almost.


    But I havee this far already, so I was going to see it right.


    I paid the driver and moved to the gates, my steps slow, my heartbeat a loud mess in my chest. I entered the code for the gates and they pushed open.


    There was not a single light turned on. The whole mansion was dark, silent, and it felt… haunted.


    I reached the entrance door, my hands trembling as I gripped the handles, pulling it open.


    The air that hit me was cold, metallic… and wrong.


    I entered the elevator, unsure if it was going to work, but it did, taking me up, and it felt so loud in this silent


    space.


    “Kade?” I called when the elevator opened and I stepped out, but I kept my voice down. “Kross?” No answer.


    Of course, there wasn’t an answer. The house looked and felt abandoned.


    Right now I am really regretting why I came here. This mansion didn’t feel like the mansion I left a year ago. It felt so cold, so still like there wasn’t any life.


    Maybe I was deceived? But why? And the timing of the message… I didn’t think I was.


    I also didn’t know where the basement was. But as soon as I had those thoughts, the house shook and there was a distant… roar.


    A roar… From how the house shook, I was sure it wasing from… inside.


    A bear? What the hell could it be? Did the men keep wild animals as pets now? And the sound came from underneath my feet.


    I went back to the elevator, pressing the button that would take me down, almost underground. I only knew


    of that ce because Axel had mentioned it in a conversation, but in my stay at the mansion, I hadn’t been curious about what was there, but then again, I hadn’t been curious about a lot of things.


    The roar came again, and I gasped as the elevator shook, gripping the handle tight to steady myself.


    “What the…?“.


    If that roar was enough to shake the elevator, I didn’t want to know how big that beast was. I was tempted to just go back up, but… Axel.


    I needed to know.


    The elevator opened to thest floor, and it was the basement. It was bright here, and just two feet away from the elevator were double doors made of steel, which looked highly secured.


    This was what the four–digit number was for. It was a pin.


    I walked to the door with my legs that felt boneless, and to where I was going to input the code. I input the pin, but hesitated when I got to thest digit, but then I punched that in.


    The door opened with a really loud sound, disrupting the stillness. But before the door could fully open, the roar erupted again.


    If I thought it was loud when I was upstairs, it was nothingpared to how it was now that I was face–to–face with the beast.