I looked at Dylan and I saw Auguste in him.

The fact he had lied for all of the time we were together made me realize he wasn't the Dylan I knew at all. He was a complete stranger.

His eyes were wide as he saw me and he couldn't move. He was stunned to the core that he couldn't trample on more lives for our "happily ever after".

I wouldn't have been happy with you.

"Rose? Since when did you arrive?" he whispered.

"Since the very beginning. It's final, Dylan. You can't trick me anymore."

He shook his head as though crazed. "I wasn't—I didn't do this! I didn't want to do this!"

"You're a criminal," I croaked out. "You've locked Blanche up this whole time! It's been half an year since Auguste's death! Imagine the time she's lost!"

"I know, I'm wrong. I know better than anyone!" he screamed. "But I got myself in deeper and deeper, I couldn't stop anymore!"

"You're Auguste. You're the same as him." I backed away. "Giving me presents, investing in me, the jealousy you had when you knew I was an escort—it makes perfect sense. I'm an item like Blanche to use, to further your fortune and family name.

"No," he denied, but I saw from his face he was lying.

But what face should I put on? I couldn't choose between the disappointment, the sadness, and most of all the denial that I latched on. No, I thought, he wasn't a monster.

"I had loved you," I cried, and Dylan ran forward but me only hovered his hands around mine.

"I still love you. That rainy day I thought you were a ghost, sent to me as a blessing. But you were so warm, you were real. You made me unable to do what I planned to, to cut ties with you and send you away. To marry you off, no, I couldn't accept that!"

"So you destroyed her life? For me?" His figure blurred through my tears but whenever I saw his pained face it pained me too.

"I didn't plan for this! No, it was only to have a substitute until the will was heard—Vaughn followed my plan perfectly and I thought you would leave once it was read, but then there was all the relatives and the—"

He cried, and he wiped his face desperately, "I didn't plan for you to stay so long, to fall in love, and then you chose to marry Leroy. I knew it, I was being punished, but I couldn't clean up my own mess."

"Why did you do this, Dylan?" I looked at the Blanche that now stood up to watch us. "She's innocent!"

"I—I hated my father. Hated everything he liked, and it only made sense. That's why I lost my temper when you said you knew my father!" Dylan admitted.

"You're twisted. You see woman as commodities, we are nothing other than girls labeled as tainted or untainted by your father. You made this curse, you chose to live in it!"

He looked up at me. 

It was such a haunting face. I saw not Auguste in it, but the boy who always came to lay bouquets.

Would he eventually follow Rosemarie into the lake? I wondered all the time. Now his life was hopeless, wouldn't he choose to die? This loneliness we shared were understood by one another, as disgusting as it sounds.

Even now, I saw his next step and choice. I wavered.

"I'll let Blanche free, as well as give her the will she deserves." Dylan stood upright and the immediate change scared me.

He turned to Judy, who immediately nodded. "How much am I entitled to?" She turned to Vaughn. "You're the lawyer, right?"

"You will inherit everything after five years of marriage to a respectable man your father has approved of and listed," Vaughn whispered to her.

"Marriage?" Judy narrowed her brows and seemed angered. "Why must I?"

"The de Winter family influence cane keep you out, maybe Austen will adopt you," Vaughn said with a small shrug. "You have been saved, maybe it's time to leave this place first then talk about the will."

I walked over to Blanche, and I knelt down next to her. Her hair was greasy, eyes unfocused.

"Blanche, I'm so sorry. We are all sorry. I wish you could hear us. I stole your place as heiress—but I'll give it back. I promise." I held her hand, and although it was warm, it felt bony and callused, unlike Ruby's soft ones.

What life did Blanche live? Did she have a family, or had her life been even lonelier than mine?

"Thank you, Rose. I've heard about you from Hughes, that you would replace me from dangers. Either way, I don't blame you, I heard from tidbits you were clueless I existed." She sighed a bit. "Thank God you noted Hughes wrote my letters.

"Let's leave, let's finally leave this place and tell the truth together."

Judy nodded and turning away from Dylan she came close to me and along with Vaughn, we helped her up the dark stairs and into the forest outside.

There was no footsteps behind us, and I wondered if Dylan was untying Hughes. After all, this was all done of his own accord. He hadn't been tricked by Hughes, it was the other way around.

Outside the night seemed colder than before.

"Calvin?"

He gasped and nodded slowly at Judy, who flared at him, too.

"I assume you are Blanche?" Calvin whispered. "Let's hurry to the main house."

We hurried and Vaughn and Judy didn't speak, and I didn't want Calvin to learn from me that Dylan was the perpetrator.

Back at the house Judy was given a guest room to stay in, and she whispered to Vaughn to tell everyone to leave her alone including the maids. Vaughn was her messenger to us. I wanted to see her and apologize but I couldn't. I was the reason she was replaced so cruelly.

I asked for Irene and a moment later she was there, only I stood outside my room, knowing soon it might be Blanche—no, Judy's room.

"Irene." I smiled. "You're right, love is cruel. Get me a plain outfit, and you, Julie, and Gwendoline can keep the rest including all accessories. My last request as Blanche is to have a bag of necessities packed as soon as possible. I don't really need much."

"But where are you going?" Irene asked.

I hugged myself, still trembling.

"Away." From this house. And from Dylan.

"Now?"

"Yes."

Irene nodded and walked into the room, and I saw Ruby sitting straight in my bed, head turned up quickly and hands holding a book that was half opened.

"Blanche." She looked at me with innocent eyes, but I knew she had heard.

"I'm sorry I have to go. You'll understand me, I know. Maybe one day I will see you again."

"I don't stutter anymore," she whispered. "When I talk wi-with you, I don't stutter." I heard the faint stutter but nodded.

"You've came a long way. You've always been there for me, thank you, Ruby."

"You've always been here for me, too. And I will find you, too. This won't be the last time."

"Of course." I pulled away.

No. I wanted to leave this house forever, and anything or anyone who is connected. It hurts. It scared me. I wanted to leave.

Irene packed my bag by the edge of the room, gathering things as I stroked Ruby's hair as she snuggled besides me. She had such warm brown eyes, such pretty hair and curls.

Irene did not appear with my luggage. In fact, it was gone. I would've ran away, but an ominous feeling overcame me when I saw Ruby sleeping. She frowned in her sleep, and I saw Blanche's face. Judy looked like Ruby, I realized.

I read Jane Eyre and the story was the same. An innocent romance, and then out of nowhere Bertha appeared. It made my blood run cold, and I couldn't sleep the that night.

That morning Irene came into my room and averted her eyes. She simply said that before breakfast had ended and I was asked to go to Dylan's study.

"What about my suitcase?" I asked.

Irene kept quiet and her head was down low. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

"What's going on?"

"Please see Master Dylan with Vaughn."

I dressed up and ran to where Vaughn might be couldn't couldn't find him. He wasn't anywhere until I thought of Dylan's study. I went to the dreaded place and saw the door was closed. I pressed my ear to it.

"The fault will lie within Hughes, then." Dylan's voice!

"Fine, I will agree to those terms."

"I have my own stores under management, and what money I earned from my job will stay mine." Dylan's voice. "So we can both say the fault will lie with Hughes and have him terminated."

"I agree to those terms." Vaughn?

I couldn't believe myself and opened the door. The two men stared at me and I kept myself from biting my lips.

Dylan was staring at me but I turned away to eye Vaughn.

"How could you! Are you going to lie like Hughes did? Why is he the only one at fault?"

"Look, Bla—Rose, it's not easy," Vaughn began.

"We are the witnesses, Vaughn! Even Calvin counts!" My whisper grew, "It enough for both of them to go to jail?"

"And what'll become of Ruby?" Dylan looked at me coldly. "When I'm gone some other gold digger will ravage this twisted house and ruin our family fortune. Can you imagine Austen doing anything remotely useful? Can you imagine Calvin dealing with finances or even Vaughn to ward off anything for sure?"

Dylan was morose and his face somehow reminded of what he always was. A businessman. He operated his fathers money and never wanted to let go of it.

He probably had no plans of ever leaving this house, ever being somewhere where he was not de Winter.

"This house always matters to you, even though you hate your bloodline, doesn't it?" I whispered. "Strange, maybe you were always after the fortune, and I was just a pawn."

Dylan clenched his fists on the desk and leaned forward.

"You know, I saw Hughes as my father. So much that tonight, when he said he'd carry my sins, I realized for both of us, we replaced someone. His son died in war, and I suppose I replaced him. He truly saw me as a son, someone he'd the the fall for."

"Hughes chose that? Of course, you always take their sacrifices, don't you? That's why you let him go!" I spat.

"That's not true!"

Vaughn signed for Dylan to lower his voice.

Dylan breathed in before he breathed out. "I love Hughes."

"Love? What do you know of love? It's only because we were useful," I taunted.

"Maybe." Then he raised a corner of his lips in a cold smirk. "But I know well of love. I have found Blanche from Hughes, and now I have your identity bought."

"My identity—bought?" I repeated after him.

"Yes. I had planned everything with Hughes, even how to settle matter with Sal Mazzanti. He's agreed to let me marry you, and as a wedding 'present' he's going to tell the Blackwoods they'll from now on have a daughter named Rose again. If any detective does any digging, the Mazzanti family will end it."

"Even Sal?" I shook my head. "Why is this happening? Vaughn! Why did even you abandon me? Why?"

His face was sad and withered as he looked away.

"They all know where the Newmans live."

My chest tightened and I glared at Dylan.

"Despicable. I see it. That face, it's the same one as Auguste's. No, worse. You've created this mess yourself, even bribing a mafia family. You're going to meet an unsightly end yourself, and I refuse this marriage, naturally."

I shot up faster than they could retort and ran away, the coldness in this big house more than I could take.

Dylan ran after me to the point I stopped on the stairs, turning around to see what kind of expression he had.

Was his face always like this?

I remembered the first days I came over and he treated me as a mere puppet and taught me about his relatives and manners.

This cold, scary, and almost threatening look, though, was like when I first saw him.

"Did you never know?" He smiled, but his eyes were dead. "Like father, like son." 

It was the first time he had willingly called that man his father or recognized their relationship as father and son. I stood there on the stairs, listening to his voice, somewhat warm, an uncanny sort of dissonance with his face.

"I love you, Rose. I'm doing this for us." His eyes were earnest but I shook my head again.

"Dylan—I can't love you when I know what you've done to Blanche. It was wrong of me to have wished for such a life."

I backed up the stairs before I turned and ran down the hallway to Ruby and my room.

If only I hadn't went to the very man who bought me then sold me, the man who had perished and yet left behind so many loose ties that only gotten more tangled and was now in a huge knot.

Claribel was lonely for your love.

Calvin and Ruby sought for their own life away from your presence.

Vaughn lived with the Newmans, and he loved them too much to expose them to danger.

Sal Mazzanti, who still wanted my happiness, was being tricked by Dylan.

Scarlett never had a happy life and you left her no money.

Austen didn't seem to care for your death and only pined after his wife and daughters.

Blanche is poisoned and who knows when she'll heal.

Hughes is the villain when in truth it was your son.

Dylan and I—what will become of us?