The mansion stood at the edge of the city like a faded dream, high above the rest of the world. Its walls held secrets that were whispered but never spoken aloud. The grand chandelier in the foyer caught the last rays of the setting sun, casting an amber glow over everything. But there were no eyes left to admire it anymore. Not in the way they once did.
Elena Zhao, the heir to the Zhao fortune, had lost herself somewhere between the echoing hallways of her crumbling empire. A mix of high society blood and the fierce heart of her late father’s ruthless business acumen, Elena should have been unstoppable. But somewhere along the way, she had become a shadow of herself—haunted by ghosts, both real and imagined.
That’s how I found her, pacing in the grand parlor, lost in a frenzy. Her eyes were glassy, the makeup she wore like a mask, smudged and faded. She’d been coming apart for weeks now. Doctors told her to rest, but she didn’t listen. So she called me. Said she needed to clear the house out, to rid herself of the past, of the things that reminded her of what she was before everything turned cold.
I ran a junk removal business—nothing glamorous, just a steady grind. My name’s Vince. I’d been doing it long enough to know that things weren’t always what they seemed. People often hired me to get rid of what they couldn’t bear to part with on their own. But Elena’s request… it wasn’t like anything I’d dealt with before. She wanted everything gone.
“Just… get it all out,” she’d said, the night we started. Her voice trembled like she was about to crack.
It wasn’t long before I realized why. As my crew and I went through the rooms, packing away valuables and old family heirlooms, I began to notice things out of place. A letter here, tucked into a drawer of her father’s desk. A bottle of pills by the kitchen sink, its label scratched out like someone was hiding something. And then there were the bottles of wine, all uncorked, with no explanation. I didn’t think much of it at first—until I found the note.
It was hidden beneath a stack of vintage silk scarves, faded by time but still beautiful. The note was in her handwriting, but the words didn’t match her usual flow. They were frantic, erratic. “Trust no one.” That was the first line. “I don’t know what’s real anymore. He’s here.”
I folded the note back and tucked it into my pocket, heart racing. Elena had been acting paranoid for weeks. But this? This felt like something else.
It wasn’t just the note that bothered me. It was the subtle signs of… change. Her butler, Andre, who was always a rock for her, had begun acting distant—almost aloof. Her personal assistant, Lily, seemed more interested in the mansion’s financial records than Elena’s wellbeing. Then there was the gardener, who’d been working late hours. I’d seen them together a few times, talking in hushed tones in the garden, his hands always just a little too friendly when they brushed hers.
It didn’t take long to realize that Elena wasn’t losing her mind from stress or grief. Someone close to her was poisoning her. Slowly, methodically. I wasn’t sure who yet—but I knew. The signs were all there. Her mind, once sharp and calculating, was now slipping. And it wasn’t just the paranoia; it was the physical decline. Her skin had grown pale, her energy waning. There was something in her food or drink, something subtle yet insidious.
I tried to confront her about it one night, after we’d cleared the last of the rooms. Elena was sitting by the fireplace, her gaze fixed on the flames.
“You’re being poisoned,” I said, my voice a low murmur.
She didn’t react at first. Then, without looking at me, she whispered, “I know.”
The confession hit me like a cold slap to the face. She knew. The heiress who had everything, who owned this mansion and the city’s skyline, knew she was dying. And she couldn’t stop it.
“Who’s doing it?” I asked.
Elena’s gaze flickered to the window, her lips trembling. “I don’t know. But it’s one of them… Andre, Lily, maybe even… him.”
I followed her eyes out to the garden, where a silhouette stood in the shadows. A man. I didn’t recognize him. But there was something in the way he stood there, his hands folded, like he knew his role in this play. The night was thick with tension.
I left that night with more questions than answers. The mansion was empty now, its walls stripped bare of memories and valuables. But the mystery still clung to me, like the scent of perfume in the air, too faint to catch but impossible to forget.
Weeks passed before I heard anything from Elena again. The mansion had been sold, or at least that’s what the papers said. They said she’d left for good, taken some time away to get well. But I knew better. The next time I saw her, she was in the papers again, a tragic story of a woman lost to the world she’d once ruled.
The article was vague, but the details were chilling. A suspected overdose. A cocktail of toxins in her system. But no one ever pinned it on anyone. No one was arrested.
I still wonder—was it one of them? Andre? Lily? The mysterious man in the garden? Or was it Elena herself, perhaps pushing herself to the brink in some twisted form of self-destruction?
Sometimes, I dream of her, walking through the darkened halls of the mansion. Her hand brushing the glass of a wine bottle, her eyes reflecting the ghosts of a life she’d tried to escape. I can still hear her voice, lost in the velvet shadows.
“Trust no one…”
Maybe that was the answer after all. Or maybe, like me, you’ll never know.
