Callum took another sip of his whiskey as her eyes fluttered to his then back to the floor.
“He’s spiraling. Ever since Brooker died he’s been spiraling, and I’m scared. I’ve never seen him this close to breaking. Hedidbreak.”
She was right, he’d noticed it too. The tremor in Greyson’s hand that’d gotten worse over the past months. The way he was always looking over his shoulder as if he was hiding something, the haunted look that came more frequent behind his blue eyes. Callum saw all of it.
The last thing Greyson had said to him replayed in his mind.
‘If anything happens to me, make them suffer.’
An uneasy feeling pricked at the back of Callum’s neck at the thought. It was as if Greyson had expected this, expected something to go wrong. He knew he had secrets, knew there were things he spoke of to no one—but whatever he was hiding now, it was eating him.
Callum forced himself to refocus on the words that were flowing from Lira.
“. . . I can’t believe he would take his mask off, that he was stupid enough to let her see his face.”
A soft smile hooked a corner of Callum’s lips as he caught Lira’s eyes from across his desk.
“I recall you taking your mask off for me once,” he said, lowering into his chair and lifting the glass to his lips.
Lira inhaled a sharp breath, her eyes never leaving his from over the cut crystal.
“That was different,” she breathed. “I was in love with you.”
His stomach hollowed as his heart gasped in his chest.
Was.
The word was sharper than Callum expected, slicing through every organ with no regard for his survival.
Silence saturated the air between them as they stared back at each other, memories of that night five years ago rushing back in vivid detail. The way the alcohol had dissolved boundaries, how his fingers had trembled as they’d reached for her mask, how she’d whispered “Yes” before he could even ask the question. The forbidden intimacy of removing it, of revealing the face beneath—the most sacred taboo in Heart society.
And then her hands on his mask in return, gentle but sure. The terrifying vulnerability of being truly seen for the first time since childhood. How the air had seemed to crystallize between them in that moment of mutual revelation.
Her face had been more beautiful than he’d imagined—high cheekbones scattered with freckles, full lips split by a small scar in the left corner, eyes that caught the light like rays of sun on a calm sea. He’d traced the contours with his fingertips, committing to memory what he knew he should never have been allowed to see.
Then her mouth on his, hesitant at first, then hungry. It’d been a weekend of stolen moments, reckless and drunk on the feeling of skin against skin with no barriers, no masks. Callum’s hands had roamed every inch of her, memorizing the dips and curves he knew he could never touch again.
He remembered the breathy sounds she made as he trailed open mouthed kisses down her throat, the way she arched into him when he finally sank into her. They’d moved together, sweat slicked and panting, her nails scoring lines down his back as he drove her closer to the edge.
The feeling had been branded into Callum’s soul, the way his heart had clenched then expanded to the point of shattering when she looked up at him through thick, dark lashes and told him she loved him.
Her fingers had traced patterns on his chest as the morning sunlight dripped in through the window and painted her golden. They’d stayed there for hours, days, whispering confessions and promises. Planning for a future they could never have. Callum had let himself believe it, just for a moment.
But reality had crashed back in with the new week, destroying every hope for them. Greyson would never forgive him. It was the one rule, theonlyrule their friendship had.
Lira was off limits.
So Callum had done what he always did—he pushed her away. Told her it meant nothing, that it was just sex and adrenaline. That he didn’t want her.
Every word of it had been a lie.
His heart belonged to her, every beat it took she owned. He knew, with bone deep certainty, that he would never love another woman.
Greyson was right to tell him to stay away from her. Callum knew he was only trying to protect his sister from the savagery that plagued the edges of his world.
Lira deserved better than him.
Callum had spent every day since trying to ignore the ache in his chest whenever she was near, even when she wasn’t.
