Becoming Lailah: Married to my Twin Sister's Billionaire Husband-Chapter 193: The Message

BY THE TIME they reached the sixth body—a young woman who’d died sitting at a vanity table, her reflection still caught in the mirror—Mailah felt numb.

Too many bodies. Too much death. The house that had seemed warm and inviting from outside was a mausoleum.

"This is wrong," she said, her voice hollow. "This is so wrong. Who does this? What kind of demon needs to feed like this?"

Carson and Lucson exchanged glances.

"That’s the question," Lucson said carefully. "This isn’t typical demon feeding. Most of us take small amounts from multiple sources over time. This is..."

"Systematic slaughter," Carson finished. "Like someone’s trying to stockpile power. Or someone who’s been starving and finally snapped."

Mailah’s heart stopped. "Grayson."

"We don’t know that," Lucson said immediately.

"But it fits! He’s been taken, he might be starving, he might not have control—"

"Mailah." Lucson’s voice cut through her rising panic. "This feeding pattern doesn’t match Grayson’s nature. Incubi feed on life force through intimate connection, not mass consumption. This is something else."

"Then what?" Mailah demanded. "What kind of demon does this?"

The brothers were quiet for a long moment.

"One that’s desperate," Carson said finally. "Or one that’s experimenting. Testing limits."

"Or one that’s feeding someone else," Lucson added, his expression darkening.

The implication settled over them like ice water.

Someone was doing this deliberately. Systematically. And if they were feeding someone else...

"We need to search the rest of the house," Lucson said. "Now. If this is a feeding station, there might be evidence of where they’re taking the power. Or who they’re feeding."

They moved faster now, checking rooms with grim efficiency. More bodies appeared—seven total, then eight. An entire household, drained and left like discarded shells.

It was in the master bedroom that they found something different.

Not a body.

A message.

Written on the mirror in something dark and viscous that Mailah really hoped wasn’t blood but probably was:

"HE HUNGERS"

Below it, an address.

And below that, three words that made Mailah’s blood run cold:

"COME ALONE, MAILAH"

Mailah stared at the message, her reflection distorted in the dark streaks across the mirror.

Her name. Written in what was almost certainly blood. In a house full of drained corpses.

"Absolutely not," Lucson said before she could even process the words fully. "Whatever this is, whatever trap this obviously is, you’re not walking into it alone."

"It’s addressed to me," Mailah said, her voice sounding distant to her own ears.

"It’s bait," Carson corrected, moving closer to examine the writing. "Very obvious bait. Written by someone who either thinks we’re idiots or is so confident it doesn’t matter."

"The handwriting is deliberate," Lucson observed, pulling out his phone to photograph the message. "Not hurried. They took their time. Which means they expected us to find this eventually but not immediately."

Mailah’s mind raced. "So they’re not watching us right now?"

"Unlikely. If they were, they’d know we arrived hours sooner than expected." Lucson studied the address written below the message. "This location is approximately forty kilometers from here. Industrial district on the outskirts of Basel."

"How do you know that?" Mailah asked.

"I memorize maps. Useful skill for someone who’s been alive three centuries." He lowered his phone. "The question is whether this address leads to Grayson or to Seryn who’s orchestrating this feeding spree."

"Or both," Carson added unhelpfully. "Could be both."

Mailah’s stomach churned. The message said "HE HUNGERS." If "he" meant Grayson, if he was the one being fed all this stolen life force...

"We need to go there," she said. "Now. Tonight."

"We need to plan," Lucson countered. "Rushing into an obvious trap without preparation is how humans die. Quickly and stupidly."

"Grayson could be dying!"

"Grayson could also be the trap." Lucson’s voice was firm but not unkind. "We don’t know what we’re walking into. For all we know, this is designed to get you specifically, using your worry for Grayson as leverage."

Carson had moved to the window, peering out into the darkness. "We’re also assuming the message writer is gone. They might still be on the property. These bodies are fresh enough that whoever did this was here within the last twelve hours."

The thought made Mailah’s skin crawl. She glanced around the bedroom—at the massive four-poster bed, the wardrobes that could hide a person, the bathroom door standing slightly ajar.

"You think they’re still here?" she whispered.

"I think we should assume the worst-case scenario and be pleasantly surprised if we’re wrong," Carson said. "It’s kept me alive this long."

Lucson moved to the doorway, his posture shifting into something more alert. "Carson’s right. We clear the rest of the house, document everything, then we leave and regroup."

"But the address—"

"Will still be there in two hours," Lucson interrupted. "What won’t be there is our advantage if we charge in unprepared. Whoever wrote this wants you emotional and impulsive. Don’t give them what they want."

Mailah wanted to argue. Wanted to demand they leave immediately, consequences be damned. But the logical part of her brain—the part that had kept her alive through months of supernatural chaos—knew Lucson was right.

"Fine," she said through gritted teeth. "We clear the house. But then we go. No more delays."

"Agreed." Lucson gestured for them to follow. "Let’s move. Methodically. Every room, every closet, every space large enough to hide a person or a clue."

They worked through the upper floor first. More bedrooms, all empty of living occupants.

A nursery that made Mailah’s heart ache—toys arranged neatly, a crib prepared for a child who would never sleep in it. The parents must have been among the bodies downstairs.

"No baby," Carson noted quietly. "That’s something, at least."

"Maybe they weren’t home," Mailah said, desperate for that small mercy.

"Maybe." But Carson didn’t sound convinced.

The attic yielded nothing but dust and storage. The basement was worse—a wine cellar that should have been cozy but instead felt like a crypt.

Old bottles lined the walls, labels faded with age. A tasting table sat in the center, glasses still arranged as if waiting for the next gathering.

"This family had money," Carson observed, examining a bottle. "Old money. The kind that hosts dinner parties and collects wine."

"And now they’re dead," Mailah said flatly. "All their money didn’t save them."

"Money rarely saves anyone from supernatural threats," Lucson said. "If anything, it makes you a target. Demons are attracted to success, to achievement, to lives that burn bright. Makes the feeding more... satisfying."

The casual way he said it made Mailah’s stomach turn. She had to remind herself that Lucson was also a demon. That he fed on influence and admiration. That in another context, he might look at a house like this and see opportunity rather than tragedy.

"Found something," Carson called from a corner of the basement.

They moved toward him. He stood in front of what appeared to be a false wall—or rather, a door disguised to look like part of the stone foundation. It stood slightly ajar, revealing darkness beyond.

"Secret room," Mailah said. "Of course there’s a secret room."

"Rich people love their secret rooms," Carson agreed. "Makes them feel important and mysterious."

Lucson pulled the door fully open, shining his phone light into the space beyond, most probably for her. It wasn’t large—maybe ten feet by ten feet—but what it contained made Mailah’s breath catch.

Photographs. Dozens of them, pinned to the walls like evidence in a detective’s investigation.

And every single photograph was of Grayson.

Mailah pushed past Lucson, stepping into the small room. The images varied—some looked recent, others older.

Grayson leaving his office building. Grayson at a restaurant. Grayson in what looked like candid moments where he clearly didn’t know he was being photographed.

"They were watching him," she breathed. "Whoever lived here, they were stalking Grayson."

"Or documenting him," Lucson said, his voice tight. "This isn’t casual observation. This is systematic surveillance."

Carson pointed to one wall where the photos were arranged in a timeline. "Look at the dates. These go back months. Maybe a year. Someone’s been tracking his movements, his habits, his patterns."

"Why?" Mailah demanded. "Why would this family be watching Grayson?"

"They probably weren’t," Lucson said grimly. "This room feels wrong for the house. Too clinical. Too organized. My guess? Whoever killed them was the one watching Grayson. They used this house as a base of operations."

"And then killed everyone in it to cover their tracks," Carson finished. "Or to feed. Or both."

Mailah’s eyes caught on one photograph in particular. It showed Grayson and her together, walking down a street she recognized near their home. She was laughing at something he’d said, and he was looking at her with an expression so tender it made her chest ache.

Someone had drawn a circle around her face in red marker.

And written next to it: "LEVERAGE."

"She knows I’m..." she said, her voice hollow. "

"Important to him," Lucson finished. "Yes. Which means this entire setup—the bodies, the message, the address—it’s all designed to manipulate you into doing exactly what she want."

"Which is what? Coming alone so she can kill me? Use me against Grayson?" Mailah couldn’t tear her eyes from the photograph. "What does she want?"

"That," Carson said, "is what we’re going to find out. But preferably while keeping you alive and un-kidnapped."

They photographed everything in the secret room. Every image, every note scrawled in the margins, every piece of evidence. Lucson worked with methodical efficiency while Carson kept watch at the door.

"We need to leave," Lucson said finally. "We have what we need from this location. Staying longer increases risk without providing additional benefit."

They climbed back up from the basement, moving through the house one final time. The bodies remained where they’d found them—eight lives ended for someone’s supernatural agenda.

Mailah wanted to do something for them, offer some acknowledgment of their deaths, but what? A prayer? A moment of silence?

"They deserve better than this," she said quietly.

"They do," Lucson agreed. "But we can’t help them now. We can only stop whoever did this from doing it again."

Outside, the night air felt like a blessing after the death-soaked atmosphere of the house. Mailah gulped it in, trying to clear the smell of decay from her nose.