The text came on a Sunday afternoon, as Amelia was trying to focus on her fellowship application.
Adrian: I have to do a thing tonight. A family dinner. My mother is insisting.
Amelia's fingers stilled over the keyboard. His mother. The fragile, medicated ghost from his confession on the balcony. A woman she knew only as a tragic figure in a private facility.
Adrian: She asked me to bring you.
The world tilted. This was not a stolen night in his apartment. This was not a secret. This was an invitation into the heart of the beast, from the one person in the Vale family who wasn't supposed to be part of the performance.
Amelia: Are you sure that's a good idea?
Adrian: No. But she rarely asks for anything. I can't say no. I'll pick you up at 7.
The Vale family home was not a house; it was a compound. Set behind high, wrought-iron gates on a sprawling, manicured estate on the city's outskirts, it was a monument to cold, classical beauty. Every column, every hedgerow, was perfectly placed, projecting an aura of immovable, ancient wealth. It felt less like a home and more like a museum that happened to have people living in it.
Adrian's grip on her hand was vicelike as he led her up the vast, stone steps. The door was opened by a silent, uniformed housekeeper.
The interior was cavernous, all marble floors and soaring ceilings, echoing with a silence that felt heavy and watchful. The air smelled of lemon polish and expensive flowers.
"Adrian? Is that you?"
The voice was thin, reedy, but sweet. A woman appeared in the doorway of a drawing room. Eleanor Vale was a faded photograph of the beauty she must have once been. Her blonde hair was elegantly coiffed, her silk dress impeccable, but her eyes were too bright, her smile a little too fixed. She moved with a careful, deliberate grace, as if afraid she might break.
"Mother," Adrian said, his voice softening in a way Amelia had never heard. He crossed the room and kissed her cheek. "You look well."
"Oh, you liar," she said with a fragile laugh, patting his arm. Her gaze, wide and curiously childlike, landed on Amelia. "And this must be her. The one who isn't afraid of you."
Amelia stepped forward, her heart pounding. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Vale. I'm Amelia."
Eleanor took Amelia's hands in hers. Her skin was cool and papery. "Amelia," she repeated, as if testing the name. "A lovely, strong name. Not like these flimsy names they give girls nowadays." She leaned in conspiratorially. "He talks about you, you know. In his visits. It's the only interesting thing he tells me."
Amelia shot a look at Adrian, who looked equal parts mortified and touched.
The dinner was a surreal affair in a formal dining room that could seat thirty. They were the only three at the immense table, their voices swallowed by the space. Eleanor asked Amelia polite, meandering questions about her studies, her family, seeming genuinely interested in her answers about her father the English teacher.
"Books," Eleanor sighed, pushing her food around her plate. "We used to have so many books in this house. Alistair had them moved to the library wing. He said they collected dust."
There was a sadness in her voice that made Amelia's heart ache. This woman was a prisoner here, too, in her own way.
It was then that the front door opened and closed, the sound echoing like a gunshot through the house. Footsteps, firm and authoritative, approached the dining room.
Adrian went rigid. Eleanor's fragile composure seemed to tighten, her smile becoming even more fixed.
Alistair Vale appeared in the doorway, still in his business suit, his presence sucking all the air from the room. His icy gaze swept over the scene, lingering on Amelia with a look of pure, undiluted contempt before settling on his son.
"Adrian. I wasn't aware we were having guests." His voice was a low rumble of displeasure.
"Eleanor invited her," Adrian said, his own voice tight. He didn't look at his father.
"I see." Alistair's eyes shifted to his wife. "Darling, you should have consulted me. You know how these things… overwhelm you."
The condescension was a velvet-wrapped blade. Eleanor flinched almost imperceptibly. "It was just a small dinner, Alistair. I wanted to meet the girl."
Alistair's smile was a cold, thin line. "And now you have." He didn't even glance at Amelia again. "Adrian, a word in my study. Now."
He turned and left, not waiting for a reply. The command hung in the air.
Adrian stood, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. He gave Amelia a look that was part apology, part desperation, and followed his father out.
The silence they left behind was deafening. Eleanor Vale looked down at her plate, her carefully constructed cheer crumbling into a quiet, profound misery.
"He doesn't like surprises," she said to her napkin, her voice barely a whisper.
Amelia sat in the opulent tomb of a dining room, the taste of expensive food turning to ash in her mouth. She had just seen the full, devastating picture. The manipulative, powerful father. The broken, medicated mother. And the son, trapped between them, trying to protect a shred of happiness. The family dinner wasn't an invitation. It was a warning, delivered not by Alistair, but by the crushing weight of the entire, miserable system. She had seen the enemy, and it wasn't a person. It was the house itself.