She came out once. Barefoot. Silent. I caught her in the reflection of the glass behind the weight rack. Her shape. Her stillness. Her curiosity.
I didn’t turn. Didn’t slow. Just kept running. Harder.Faster.Letting her see what I didwith the parts of myself that should’ve been used on her.
I ran until the belt whined. Until the soles of my shoes smoked slightly from the friction. Until my lungs burned.
Then I stopped.
Breath even.
Face blank.
I walked straight to the shower.
The water was cold. Sharp. Didn’t matter. I let it slice me. Let it ground me. Then I grabbed myself. Hard. Rough. Not for pleasure. Not to come. To remember. Toown.
When it happened, it was fast. A grunt tore from my throat like the punchline to everything I hadn’t said since she walked back into my life. I didn’t clean up. Didn’t shut the door. Just stepped out.
It wasn’t release.
It wasrefusal.
I didn’t come for pleasure—I came to keep myself fromtaking her.A warning. A leash only I could hold. Let the steam flood into the hallway. If she’d been listening?
Good.
Let her hear what it sounded like when control cracked—and I still refused to touch her.
The alert came at 2:13 a.m. I was in the study. Lights low. Whiskey untouched beside me. No music. Just silence humming against the windows. The phone buzzed once. Then again. Not hers.Mine.
The secondary device. The one synced to everything she used to own. I didn’t move right away. Finished reading the paragraph on the screen in front of me. Then I reached for the phone.
UNKNOWN
“She’s yours. But you still don’t know why she came.”
I blinked once.
Scrolled down.
There were attachments.
A photo of Camille. Not posed. Not soft. Surveillance grain.
A contract. Half-scanned. Cropped.
A message thread. Number blocked.
But the voice was clear.
Selene.
And Cloe.
I read it once. Top to bottom. Didn’t react. Read it again. Slower. Not just the content. Thetimestamps.Her first message to Selene was sent two hours before the photo she forwarded to me. Two hours.
I stared at that gap like it might close if I looked hard enough. But it didn’t. She reached for Selene first. She warned the woman who made her a weapon… before she warned the man who kept her breathing.
She could’ve come to me.
