Chapter 2: Keys to the Abyss
by Leah Beaumont · 1,771 words
The summons hit my inbox at six sharp, the rain outside still dripping from the eaves like it refused to let go.
I stared at the screen in my cramped office until the words blurred. Lorenzo wanted me in the east wing at eight. Not his office. Disciplinary. Come alone. My fingers found my grandmother's gold cross and twisted the chain until it bit into my neck.
Screw him. But I went anyway, heels slapping the wet stone path that curved behind the main hall. The east wing rose ahead, ivy thick over the stone, windows dark and boarded. I pushed through the service door he'd left cracked, dust and old wood filling my lungs. My heart thudded louder than the distant water drip in the rafters.
He waited at the head of the long oak table, suit jacket slung over a chair, tie loosened just enough to show the dip at the base of his throat. Ice-blue eyes tracked me like I was something he already owned. The single lamp carved hard shadows across his cheekbones.
"Professor Castellano." His voice stayed low and clipped. "Sit."
I stayed on my feet, arms folded, back against the doorframe. The room felt too small with him in it. "You dragged me out here after hours? Scared the faculty lounge has ears?"
He straightened a stack of blank notepads, fingers precise. That habit again. Like lining up edges could force the rest of the world to behave. Including me.
"Your speech today crossed a line." He didn't raise his voice. He never did. The words still dropped like stones. "Dr. Ramirez's termination was necessary. Your public challenge makes you a liability."
I laughed once, the sound bouncing off the high ceiling. "Liability. Cute, coming from the man whose family bought this place with dirty money and silence. Does the board know about that photo? The one where my mother looks like she owned your father?"
His jaw flexed. Once. Twice. He circled the table with those slow, measured steps until only three feet separated us. Close enough that I caught the faint woody scent of scotch on his breath.
"You have no idea what you're digging into." His gaze flicked to my mouth, then back up. "Some secrets stay buried. For everyone's sake."
My skin heated under that stare. My thighs pressed together before I could stop them, remembering how he'd crowded me in his office yesterday. I hated the way my body answered him. Hated more that part of me wanted him to push harder.
"Then enlighten me." I stepped forward instead of back, until I could see the pulse beating in his neck. "Or are you scared a working-class historian might actually find what your legacy is hiding?"
His hand rose, hovering near my arm. Not touching. Deciding. The air between us thickened until breathing felt like work. I watched the war play across his face—control cracking against whatever storm lived underneath.
"Nadia." My name in that low timbre sent heat straight down my spine. "This isn't a game. Walk away."
I lifted my chin, defiant even as my heart slammed against my ribs. His eyes dropped to my lips again, stayed there. Our breaths fell into the same quick rhythm without either of us asking. For one suspended second I thought he would close the last inch. Crush his mouth to mine and let the hate burn into something filthy.
My lips parted. His head dipped. The warmth of him brushed my skin.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. Heavy. Coming closer.
Lorenzo jerked back like I'd burned him. His face slammed shut into that cold mask. He grabbed his jacket and moved to the far side of the table, straightening something that didn't need it.
"This meeting is over," he said, voice steady as if nothing had happened. "Consider it your first and only warning."
I slipped out the side door before whoever it was appeared, legs unsteady, cheeks hot with equal parts fury and shame. What the hell was wrong with me? Almost kissing the man trying to ruin my career. The man whose family might have ruined my mother's life.
I shouldn't have sent the email.
The thought circles in my head as I pace the length of my private study, scotch untouched on the desk. Two fingers at eleven. Always. Except tonight the glass sits full because my hands won't stay steady enough to pour it. Nadia looked at me in that room like she wanted to kill me or climb me, and some fractured part of me had been ready for either.
The almost-kiss replays in vicious detail. The way her lips had parted. The faint vanilla scent cutting through the dust. How my control had frayed like old rope. Victor's voice from our last call still echoes. Handle her, Lorenzo. Before she handles us.
I trace the signet ring until the crest bites into my skin. Lies stacked on lies. My father paid her mother off, buried the pregnancy, kept the Ashworth line clean on paper. And now the living proof of his mistakes is tearing apart every rule I've rebuilt.
The security feed flickers on my laptop. Movement in the piano room. My collection of antique keys—every locked-away family shame made metal—now in her hands. She shouldn't even know that room exists. I never should have left the service door unlocked.
I close the laptop before I do something stupid like go after her. Tomorrow I'll tighten the noose on her contract review. Remind her of the morality clauses that could end her over one unauthorized visit. Push her away before she pushes everything into rubble.
Even as I think it, I know it's bullshit. The heat between us tonight wasn't one-sided. Her breath had caught the same as mine. Her body had leaned in, not away.
I am so screwed.
The east wing felt like a maze when I slipped back inside instead of heading home. My phone buzzed—Elena, probably—but I silenced it. I needed answers, not warnings. The faint scent of polished wood pulled me down a side corridor I hadn't noticed before.
The door creaked open under my hand. Moonlight cut through a cracked shutter, lighting up a grand piano draped in a dusty sheet. On a side table sat a wooden box that looked older than the academy itself.
Curiosity clawed harder than fear. I lifted the lid. Inside lay dozens of antique keys, each tagged in elegant faded script. Most carried the Ashworth crest. My fingers shook as I sorted through them, metal cool against my skin.
One smaller key caught my eye, etched with the letter C. The tag beside it read simply: M. Castellano - Private Vault. My mother's initials. My mother's name.
My stomach tightened. I shouldn't be here. This was trespassing on another level. Still I kept digging, breath coming faster, until my hand closed around a sealed envelope wedged at the bottom. Yellowed with age, my mother's maiden name scrawled across the front in handwriting I recognized from old photos.
I shoved the envelope into my coat pocket just as a floorboard creaked behind me.
The sound froze me in place. I turned slowly, heart hammering, but the room stayed empty. Only shadows and the distant patter of rain against the boarded windows. I slipped out before my luck ran out completely, the stolen paper burning against my ribs like a live coal.
Elena caught me in the faculty lounge at nine-thirty the next morning, stress-eating a day-old croissant while my coat with the hidden envelope still hung in my office across the hall.
"You look like you got caught in more than rain," she said, pushing her oversized glasses up. Her black bob was slightly messy, vintage cardigan askew. "Spill. What did Ice King want last night?"
I shrugged, aiming for casual even though my pulse still hadn't settled. "Same old threats. My contract. His authority. Legacy bullshit."
She dropped into the chair across from me and stole a corner of my pastry. "Babe, you are playing with napalm. I heard rumors in the admin pool—NDAs that make normal ones look like Post-its. People who dig too deep into the Ashworths tend to... disappear. Career-wise, at least."
The envelope felt heavier in my mind. I wanted to tell her. Wanted to have my best friend pick it apart with me over tequila from my desk flask. But the words stuck. This felt too tangled with the way Lorenzo had almost kissed me. Or I'd almost kissed him. The memory made heat crawl up my neck.
"I'm not scared of him," I lied, biting the croissant harder than necessary. The flakes tasted like cardboard.
Elena leaned in, voice dropping. "That rich asshole can fire you on a technicality. And something's off about how he's looking at you. Like he wants to strangle you or—"
"Don't," I cut her off sharper than I meant. Her eyes widened, a flicker that looked almost like jealousy crossing her face before she hid it.
"Fine. Keep your secrets." She stood, brushing crumbs from her cardigan. "But when this blows up—and it will—don't say I didn't warn you. These people play for keeps."
She left me with the half-eaten pastry and a sour taste that had nothing to do with the food. Our friendship felt strained for the first time in years, like my fixation on the Ashworths was already costing more than I realized.
Back in my office past midnight, I locked the door, pulled the envelope from my coat, and slit it open with a letter opener that trembled in my grip.
Inside was a single sheet—official paper, faded stamps. A birth certificate. My birth certificate. The father line was mostly blank, but a handwritten note in the margin listed a paternity test reference number that matched documents I'd only seen hints of before.
And in the space for father's surname, someone had scrawled Ashworth.
The room tilted. My stomach dropped through the floor. This couldn't be right. I wasn't... he wasn't...
My phone lit up on the desk. One vibration. A text from an unknown number I already knew by heart.
My office. Now. We need to talk about what you took from the east wing.
The words swam through the sudden burn of tears. I wasn't just a professor anymore, challenging the new dean.
I might be the secret that could destroy everything he held dear.
And the worst part? Some treacherous corner of my heart still wanted him to be the one to break me.