Chapter 5 - THE CONFESSION IN THE DARK
Lydia didn't knock. She pushed the door open quietly and stepped inside, closing it softly behind her.
Roland stood by the window, his back to her. His shoulders were rigid, his breathing heavy and uneven. The scent of copper—fresh blood from his hand—hung thick in the air.
"I told them to get out," Roland said, his voice flat, devoid of the fury he had just unleashed on Bishop. "Are you deaf, maid? Or are you simply stupid?"
"Neither," Lydia said, walking slowly across the room, careful to let her footsteps be heard so she wouldn't startle him. "I'm a nurse. And your hand is bleeding."
Roland didn't move. "Let it bleed. Pain is the only way I know I'm still breathing."
Lydia stopped two feet away from him. Without asking for permission, she reached out and gently took his large, calloused hand.
Roland flinched violently, his muscles instantly tightening as if preparing for an attack. But Lydia didn't pull away. She held his hand firmly, turning it over to inspect the jagged cut across his palm where the glass had bitten into his flesh.
"You didn't have an episode, did you?" Lydia asked softly, her voice cutting through the heavy silence of the room.
Roland went completely still. "What did you say?"
"You didn't lose your balance. You smashed the lamp because you were furious. Because you realized that the medication they're feeding you isn't meant to heal your eyes—it's meant to cloud your mind."
Roland’s head whipped around toward her voice, his blind eyes wide, the terrible scars across his face tightening in an expression of shock and profound disbelief.
"How do you know that?" he whispered, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low register.
"I was in the study tonight," Lydia confessed, meeting his gaze without a tremor. "I read the file, Roland. Dr. Harrison's reports, the proxy agreements, the psychiatric evaluations claiming you have paranoid delusions. They're poisoning you. Celeste and Bishop are systematically rewriting your life so they can steal everything you own."
For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the crackle of the fireplace.
Roland slowly closed his hand around hers—not with the crushing grip of a mafia boss, but with the desperate, fragile hold of a drowning man reaching for a lifeline.
"For six years," Roland whispered, his voice cracking for the first time, breaking through the iron armor he had worn for so long, "they told me I was losing my mind. They told me everyone abandoned me, that no one could look at me without wanting to vomit. They kept the curtains drawn because they said the light would burn what was left of my retinas."
He turned his sightless eyes down toward where her hand touched his.
"You're the first person in six years who touched my face and didn't recoil," he continued, a tremor running through his deep voice. "And now you're telling me I'm not crazy... that I'm being murdered slowly in my own home."
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"You aren't crazy," Lydia said, her thumb gently brushing the back of his hand, right over the scar tissue. "You're just surrounded by vipers. But we can change that. Together."
Before Roland could reply, a sudden, violent crash echoed from the hallway downstairs, followed by the terrifying sound of shattering glass and a woman’s muffled scream.
