MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 59 - Fifty-Nine: The Archive

//CLARA//

The address on Nassau Street looked nothing like I had imagined.

First, I had to find a carriage willing to take me. That took twenty minutes and three refusals. Until the fourth, an old man with a face like cracked leather, agreed only after I offered him five times the usual fare.

The ride was long and jostling, the wheels rattling over cobblestones that had not been repaired since the war. Nassau Street was narrow, and dark, the buildings leaning toward each other like they were sharing secrets.

I paid the driver and climbed out. He left before my foot touched the curb.

The archive was tucked between a pawnbroker and a saloon, its entrance so unremarkable that I walked past it twice. I stood in front of the door for a full minute, trying to convince myself that this was the right place.

A chipped and faded sign hung above: Mercantile Record Repository.

A bell jangled when I pushed open the door, and the smell of mildew, old paper, and the faint, acrid scent of something burning hit me first. The front room was small, cluttered with shelves that sagged under the weight of ledgers and boxes.

The interior was worse than the exterior.

A counter separated the public space from the back, and behind it sat a man who looked like he had been carved from the same dust as the files.

He did not stand when I entered. He simply looked at me over the top of his spectacles, his eyes flat and unimpressed.

"Help you?"

"I need access to your records," I kept my voice steady. "Business records. From about three—four years ago."

He stared at me for a long moment. His gaze traveled from my ridiculous hat to my dress.

"This is a private repository," he said. "Not a public library."

"I am aware."

"Records are for researchers. Historians. Men of business." He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. "Not for women."

I sighed. I had dealt with worse. I had faced Aunt Cornelia’s scorn every waking day and the suffocating weight of a society that did not want women to have opinions.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a stack of bills. I set them on the counter between us.

He looked at the money. He looked at me. He did not move. I added another stack.

He unfolded his arms. He leaned forward, his eyes flicking to the door, to the window, to the street beyond. Then he swept the money into his palm and tucked it into his vest pocket.

"Back room," he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "Third cabinet. Files are in there, if they have not been thrown out."

"If they have not been thrown out?"

He shrugged. "We cannot keep everything. Space is limited."

Space is limited. As if the past could be discarded so easily when it no longer fit.

The room was small, windowless, lit by a single gas lamp that hissed and flickered.

I found the third cabinet. Thurston Holdings was stamped across the front in faded ink. The drawer stuck when I pulled it, and I had to yank it hard to get it open.

Inside were the remains of a company. Old newsprint, yellowed and brittle. Legal documents, the ink faded. A photograph of a man I did not recognize—Thurston, perhaps, or someone who worked for him. A ledger with pages so fragile I was afraid to touch them.

I spread the contents across the table and began to read through the articles first.

"THURSTON HOLDINGS COLLAPSES."

"SHIPPING MAGNATE ENDS LIFE."

The headlines were the same across every paper. Utterly empty of anything that mattered.

The dust settled on my sleeves.

I tried to lean my forehead against the table, but stopped a millimeter short when I saw the literal crust of gray-black grime coating the wood. I let out a long, pathetic groan instead, hovering because I did not trust the surface not to have typhoid.

What I would give for Google. Or a half-decent search function. Or literally any technology invented after the light bulb and Clorox wipe.

Instead, I was squinting at newsprint that crumbled if I breathed on it too hard. Every time I turned a page, a fresh cloud of gilded age skin cells and dust puffed into my face, and I was ninety percent sure I was inhaling a dormant strain of the plague.

I tried to piece together the fall of a shipping empire from articles that all said the same thing—no details, no context, just the polite, suffocating silence of men who knew exactly where the bodies were buried and had collectively agreed to keep their mouths shut.

I looked down at my hands and nearly gagged. My gloves were now stained a greasy black at the tip. I could feel the dampness of the industrial-strength filth seeping through the fabric, clinging to my skin like a second.

My cuticles were probably crying, and I still had nothing but a headache.

I saw a mention of a correspondence from an anonymous party in the bankruptcy notes. My fingers were inches from the page when the shadow hit the table. I was so focused on the words that I did not hear the footsteps.

I looked up.

A man stood in the doorway, his hat in his hands, his smile a thin line of amusement.

"Eleanor," he purred. It was smooth, cultured, and held the kind of casual ownership that made my skin crawl. "What a delightful surprise to find you in such... rustic surroundings."

Fuck. Fuck. Double fuck.

I kept my face a mask of bored indifference, though my heart was currently trying to exit through my ribs.

"Mr. Vanderbilt." I did not stand. I did not smile. "I did not expect to see you here."

"Clearly." He stepped into the room, and the space seemed to shrink.

"I was reviewing some old business records. A tedious necessity of family holdings." His eyes drifted to the papers on the table. "And you? What brings a lady of your standing to a place like this?"

I tilted my head. "Curiosity."

He waited for more. I did not give it.

"Thurston Holdings." He leaned in, and I caught the scent of expensive tobacco and something metallic—like old coins. "A tragic business. The late Mr. Thurston was... weak. He didn’t understand that in New York, you don’t just lose your money. You lose your right to exist."

He looked at me then, his eyes tracking the line of my throat with predatory hunger.

"Does Casimir know you’re playing in the dirt, Eleanor? Or are you finding that the Guggenheim protection doesn’t cover the things you find in the dark?"

I met his eyes. "Can a woman not have her own interest, Mr. Vanderbilt? Or does everything I do need to be approved by a man?"

The question hung in the air between us. I watched him process it, watched him try to find the angle, the weakness, the crack in my armor.

He found nothing.

Keep going. Do not let him see you hesitate.

"I do not answer to anyone about where I go or what I read."

I gathered the rest of the papers into my bag.

My fingers trembled slightly, but I kept them busy with the folds of newsprint, hoping he would not notice. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

I stood, smoothing my skirts, and looked at him with the same cold amusement he had tried to wield against me. Inside, my heart was pounding so hard I was certain he could hear it.

"Now, if you will excuse me, I have research to finish."

He said nothing.

I walked past him, my shoulder brushing his coat. He didn’t move an inch to let me through. At the door, I made the mistake of looking back.

He was standing in the center of that cramped, dusty room, lit by the flickering hiss of the gas lamp. He looked like a vulture waiting for a heart to stop beating. He tilted his hat, his smile never reaching those flat, obsidian eyes.

"The past has a long memory, Eleanor. And some men never forget what was taken from them."

He paused, the silence stretching until I could hear the clock ticking on the wall.

"Give my regards to Casimir. I’m sure he’ll be fascinated to hear about your sudden interest in history. It would be such a shame if your little research project ended as poorly as Mr. Thurston’s did."

I didn’t run. I waited until I was three doors down before I let my legs turn to jelly.

My heart was a drum kit, and my brain was screaming.

Why him? Of all the people in this godforsaken city, why did I have to run into that one parasite who enjoys the taste of blood?