The house was different at night.
Still quiet—but not the stiff, sterile kind of quiet Anna had first walked into. This was something else. A hush that wrapped around the walls after bedtime routines were done. After tiny feet stopped padding across the tiled floors. After the dishwasher had hummed its last cycle and the lights were dimmed to golden glows under stairwells and sconces.
The kind of quiet that belonged to secrets. And ghosts.
Isla had fallen asleep quickly. Too quickly.
Anna sat on the edge of the bed for a while, brushing her fingers through the girl's curls. Her breathing was already slow and steady, bunny tucked beneath her chin. She hadn't asked for a bedtime story, hadn't even said goodnight. But when Anna leaned down and whispered, "Goodnight, moonbeam," Isla's small hand reached up and clutched her pinky for a brief second before letting go.
Anna didn't move right away.
She just sat there, staring at the pale blue ceiling, wondering how a house so massive could feel so weightless and heavy all at once until she could lay Isla to sleep properly.
She moved barefoot down the hallway, hoodie draped over her pajama top, the hem brushing against her legs as she padded toward the kitchen.
The fridge light spilled into the room as she opened it. A plate of shortbread cookies and cut fruit sat on the middle shelf—probably Isla's snack for tomorrow, labeled with a neat post-it in Lora's handwriting.
Anna hesitated, then plucked a single cookie from the plate.
Just one. No crumbs. That's fair, right?
She turned around mid-bite—and stopped dead.
Zane.
Standing in the hallway just beyond the island, half-unbuttoned shirt, sleeves rolled. Drink in hand. Quiet. Still.
Watching her.
Anna froze, crumbs stuck in the corner of her mouth. "I swear I'm not stealing. Just borrowing. One cookie. No casualties."
His mouth twitched. Barely. But it was there.
"You're off duty. You can raid the kitchen." He said plainly.
She raised a brow, chewing slowly. "Dangerously close to permission, Mr. Frost."
He stepped into the soft light of the kitchen, and for the first time, he looked less like a man built from steel and more like a man trying not to break. The harsh lines of his suit were gone. His hair slightly tousled, collar undone.
He didn't look powerful.
He looked… tired.
Anna leaned against the counter. "Can't sleep?"
"I don't,"
"At all?" She gaped.
Zane poured another finger of dark liquid into his glass. "Not when the house is quiet. That's when it gets loud."
That caught her off guard.
She blinked. "What do you mean?"
He took a slow sip and leaned on the island, one hand braced against the cool marble. "You've been here four days. Haven't you noticed? The quiet isn't peace, Miss Rivera. It's what's left."
Anna studied him for a long beat. Maybe he was slightly drunk because that was more words than he had said to her since the first day she got here.
"Do you always talk like that after midnight, or is this special?"
Zane huffed something close to a laugh. "You don't fold easily, do you?"
"Nope," she said. "Occupational hazard."
He nodded, as if to himself. "You're not like the others."
Anna's eyes narrowed slightly. "Others?"
"Nannies. Staff. People who show up thinking they'll be the exception. That they'll unlock Isla, or thaw me out. Most don't make it past the second week."
"And you think I'm trying to thaw you out?" she asked, genuinely curious.
Zane looked at her. Really looked at her.
"You tell me."
Anna held his gaze. "I'm here for Isla. She's the one who matters. But… I won't pretend I don't see you."
That quiet between them stretched wide and long again. Not awkward—just loaded.
"You know," she added, "for someone so obsessed with control, you let a lot of things go untouched in this house."
He raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"
"The library. The garden. The piano room. They're all perfect. But unused. Like someone preserved a version of life that's no longer happening."
Zane's face didn't change. But his voice did.
"That's because it isn't."
Anna took a breath. "What happened, Zane?"
She held her hand over her mouth after it slipped. She was getting too familiar with her boss and her thumped, worried he was going to fire her for it.
He blinked.
It was the first time she'd said his name.
And he didn't correct her.
There was a long pause. Then, softly he said;
"My wife played piano every morning. Same piece. Rain or shine. Isla used to sit beside her and pretend she was playing too."
Anna felt something catch in her throat.
Zane looked at the drink in his hand, then set it down.
"She died in that room," he said, almost absently. "Collapsed mid-song. Aneurysm. No warning. Isla was the one who found her."
Silence.
The kind that hummed. That carved into the drywall and stuck behind your ribs.
Anna didn't speak. She didn't try to fill it. She just stood there, letting the weight of it settle between them.
Zane's jaw tightened. "After that, the piano stayed covered. The room stayed shut. Everything stayed… frozen."
"You included," Anna said gently.
His eyes flicked up, sharp again—but not cruel. Just raw.
"I don't need your pity, Miss Rivera." His words were sharp, cutting.
"It's not pity," she replied. "It's recognition. There's a difference."
Zane nodded slowly, as if trying to process something he hadn't let himself name before.
Zane gave her the barest hint of a smirk. "Don't read too much into this." His words sounded like a warning.
"Oh, I won't," she said.
He picked up his drink and turned, the moment already folding closed like a book.
But he paused in the doorway.
"You were right," he said. "About presence."
Then he disappeared down the hallway, back into the quiet.
Anna stood there, alone with the cookie plate, her pulse still unsteady.
The house wasn't just haunted by loss.
It was haunted by a man still alive.
And for the first time, she wasn't sure who she was here to save.
Isla.
Zane.
Or herself.