The Threads Of Deceit

Chapter 7: The Prison of the Past

The mansion was quiet that night. Too quiet. Lucas lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, his body tense, every muscle coiled as though ready to spring into action. Sleep never came easily for him. It hadn't since he was a boy.

His mind was a labyrinth of memories, each one darker than the last, twisted corridors filled with shadows he could never quite escape. Every time he closed his eyes, they came back—the echoes of his past, haunting him, tightening their grip until he could barely breathe. Tonight was no different.

He rolled over, burying his face in the pillow, hoping to smother the thoughts before they overwhelmed him. But it was useless. They came, like they always did, dragging him back to when he was fifteen—back to when Vivian had first found him, a broken kid barely surviving on the streets, a boy with nothing to offer except the sharpness of his wit and the willingness to do whatever it took to survive.

Fifteen.

He had been so young, barely a teenager, when she pulled him into her world. She had saved him, or so she claimed. He remembered the way she had looked at him then—her eyes filled with calculation, but also something else. Something darker. He was naïve, too young to understand what that look meant. All he saw was a woman who offered him protection, food, a place to sleep. He had thought she was his savior.

He hadn't realized until much later that she had been grooming him.

Vivian had been almost forty, a woman of immense power, sophistication, and manipulation. She played the role of mentor, guiding him through the labyrinth of cons and lies that would become his life. But she had also been something else to him, something more sinister. She had blurred the lines between protector and abuser, between comfort and control. Slowly, insidiously, she had wrapped herself around him, her influence seeping into every corner of his life.

Lucas's breath quickened as the memories washed over him, images of her hands on his shoulders, her voice whispering in his ear, telling him he was special, that she was the only one who truly understood him. The praise felt intoxicating at first, a balm for the wounds left by his abandonment. But beneath her words, there was always an unspoken demand—his loyalty, his devotion, his soul.

You belong to me, she had said more times than he could count.

And for years, he had believed her. Even now, part of him still did.

Lucas turned over again, frustration gnawing at him. The suffocating weight of those memories dragged him deeper into his own mind. He could feel the cold tendrils of fear creeping up his spine—the same fear he felt as a boy, when he had nowhere to go, no one to trust. Vivian had made sure of that. She had isolated him, ensuring that he depended on her for everything. Food. Shelter. Love. Or at least what she called love.

He clenched his jaw, his hand tightening into a fist against the sheets. She's the center of everything, even my nightmares.

Vivian's presence in his life was like a chain wrapped around his throat, a constant reminder of his past, his mistakes, and the cage he had willingly stepped into. She was the reason he couldn't trust anyone, the reason he pushed people away. He had built walls so high that not even he could see over them anymore. She had shaped him, molded him into something cold and unfeeling, and yet she still had the power to tear him apart.

Even now, after all these years, she was the one who could calm him. She knew how to soothe the jagged edges of his mind, how to speak the right words to bring him back from the brink when the nightmares were too much. But that comfort came with a price—a heavy price. It wasn't real, and he knew it. It was manipulation, carefully crafted to keep him in her control.