Chapter 699
Sienna stared at the text for a couple of seconds before glancing at the time.
It was almost midnight.
Setting her pen down, she pulled off her safety goggles and rubbed her temples.
The adrenaline was finally fading, and her stomach felt like a hollowed-out cavern.
From noon until now, she hadn’t eaten a single bite, surviving entirely on water.
Sienna leaned over to double-check Silas’s condition first.
Satisfied that his breathing was steady and he was out of danger, she finally relaxed.
She quickly organized her instruments, turned around, and walked out of the hidden room.
When she pushed the bookcase open, the study was completely empty.
The room was quiet, with only the curtains rustling softly in the breeze. There was no sign of life.
Sienna paused, a flicker of surprise crossing her mind.
Wasn’t Jarred supposed to be standing guard at the door, waiting for her orders?
Earlier that day, whenever she needed lab supplies and made a call, he appeared within five seconds.
He was entirely at her beck and call, without a moment’s delay.
Knowing Jarred, once he took on the role of her bodyguard, he would shadow her every move.
He was more paranoid about her safety than anyone else.
If he had his way, she’d never leave his line of sight.
Yet right now, the man who was supposed to be stationed outside her door was nowhere to be found.
Suspicion began to creep in as Sienna slowly made her way downstairs.
The first-floor living room was quiet and vacant, with no sign of Jarred.
Only two of his security personnel stood guard at the main entrance.
Seeing her approach, the men respectfully lowered their heads.
“Ms. Sloan p>
One of them quickly surmised she must be starving and immediately brought over the late-night meal that had been keeping warm in the kitchen, setting it on the dining table.
“Ms. Sloan, the Boss was worried that eating a heavy meal this late would ruin your sleep.
So he specifically had us prepare some easy-to-digest oatmeal and side dishes. Please enjoy p>
Sienna murmured a soft “Thank you” as she took a seat, casually asking, “Where did your boss go p>
The guard answered honestly, his tone perfectly respectful: “The Boss went upstairs just after dusk and hasn’t come down since p>
The moment those words hung in the air.
Sienna froze completely.
She had just come down from the second floor and hadn’t run into a single soul.
The third floor was pitch black, not a single light on.
Where exactly did he go?
A terrifying thought struck her like lightning.
There was exactly one place in this entire house where a light could be on without her noticing -a place absolutely forbidden to anyone.
There was only one.
The Attic Sanctuary.
Alarm bells shrieked in her head, her body locking up in sheer panic.
Without a second thought, Sienna dropped her fork, shot out of her chair. and sprinted straight aut of the living room and into the courtyard.
She threw her head back, scanning the row of windows on the third floor.
The glass reflected the sparse starlight and the distant, hazy glow of the city.
But the very last window at the corner—her dusty, abandoned attic—was blazing with light.
The warm glow pierced through the window paper, obnoxiously bright against the suffocating darkness of the night.
In that exact second, every ounce of Sienna’s legendary composure shattered.
That attic was a graveyard of all her deepest, most guarded secrets.
It held over a decade of hidden thoughts she had never dared show another living soul.
Inside was the story of when she was twelve years old, stumbling upon a battered, dying Jarred.
After secretly saving his life, she had spent days and nights writing countless unsent letters to a man who likely didn’t even know her name.
It was a shrine to her unrequited, hidden devotion.
And worse, it held the diary she had packed away from Solstice Hill when they divorced.
It contained the most pathetic, humiliating version of herself—a version she refused to let anyone see, least of all Jarred.