The room exhales with her, but my body doesn’t. I can’t. Dean’s thumbprint still burns invisible and red-hot into my skin, and the silence between his steady breaths feels like a secret he’s daring me to choke on.
Kate turns her attention back to her eggs, tearing into them with a little too much force. She’s trying to play it off, but I can feel the suspicion like a splinter she can’t dig out.
Dean doesn’t look at me again. Doesn’t need to. His control threads through every quiet clink of silverware, every swallow, and every nerve screams inside me.
And maybe that’s the worst part.
Because when Kate laughs again—lighter, easier, talking about some party she’s planning when she gets back to the city—my relief doesn’t feel like relief at all. It feels like something else. Something darker.
Like we’ve just crossed a line no one else in this room even knows exists.
The Visitor From Z
Iknow the second the car pulls up outside. The engine doesn’t idle like a neighbour’s. Too smooth. Too quiet. The kind of sound that doesn’t belong in this neighbourhood at all.
Brooklyn is still in the kitchen, rinsing dishes with Kate, laughing too hard at something that isn’t funny. Her laughter always sounds different when she’s trying to hide.
But I hear a knock.
Sharp. Twice.
Not polite.
My blood goes cold before I even open the door. Because I know the rhythm. I know it in my bones.
Rafe.
He leans against the frame when I swing it open, cigarette hanging lazily from his mouth, eyes gleaming like the devil himself just walked up my driveway. His suit is too sharp for daylight, and his grin is too wide.
“Dean,” he says, like we’re old friends instead of two men who’ve bled each other enough to know better. “Didn’t think I’d find you playing house.”
His eyes flick past my shoulder. Into the kitchen. Toward her.
I blocked his view, but not fast enough.
I see the shift in his smile.
And I know right then this is the start of a war I can’t hide her from.
Rafe doesn’t wait for an invitation. He brushes past me, smoke trailing in like a storm cloud. I should throw him out. I should put him on the ground and make sure he never stands again. But the kitchen door swings open at the wrong moment, and Brooklyn’s head tilts around the corner.
Her eyes meet his.
For one second, the world stops.
His smile sharpens.
Her breath stutters.
I step into his path so fast the cigarette falls from his lips.
“Not here,” I snarl. “Not her.”
Rafe smirks slowly and cutting. “Her, huh? That’s interesting. Considering the kinds of places you and I do business, I didn’t think you kept… attachments.”
Brooklyn’s hand is white-knuckled on the doorframe. She doesn’t know what to do—whether to back away or to step closer. I see her chest rise too fast, her pulse jumping in her throat, and, fuck, she doesn’t realise she’s showing him just how tempting she is.
“Kitchen,” I bite out, not taking my eyes off Rafe. “Now.”
