Then I stood. The corridor was quiet, the marble floors cold beneath my bare feet. I passed the guest wing, the lounge, then paused outside the room at the far end of the hallway.
That was Troy’s private sanctuary. A room he always kept locked. A room I was never allowed to enter.
Tonight, it wasn’t locked. And from inside, I heard a sound. A low groan. Drawn out. Suppressed. I froze. My fingers brushed the edge of the door, hesitating.
Troy was on the couch, shirt half-undone, pants pushed down around his thighs. His back arched slightly, one hand gripping the edge of the cushion, the other working between his legs with a familiar, practiced rhythm.
His head was thrown back, lips parted, eyes locked on the screen in front of him. But what turned my stomach—what turned my heart to dust—was what he was watching.
It was her. Bianca. His stepsister.
The video was from a summer vacation, one we all took together three years ago. I recognized the scenery instantly—waves crashing behind her, the cliffside covered in wildflowers. Bianca was at the beach, laughing, hair wind-blown and sunlit, wearing a white dress that clung to her figure like a second skin.