Quiet. Suffocating.
The silence that settles into your bones and rots from the inside out.
I pressed the button with fingers still curled too tight?—
From holding myself together While the woman who ruined me strutted across the wreckage like it was her goddamn runway.
She even smelled like manipulation. Amber. Powder. Victory. She’d come in perfect. Lips blood-red. Eyes starving.
And when she undid that belt,
Let the coat fall open?—
Black lace. Skin. The scent of a woman who kissed me like a confession and stabbed me with the memory of it.
She touched me. Not gently. Not like she missed me. Like she owned the past. Like I should be grateful she survived the betrayal.
Her fingers grazed my chest. Nails tracing along my collarbone. Skin flinching under grief.
She leaned in. Pressed her mouth to my throat. Not a kiss. A warning.
That’s the thing with Selene. She didn’t love. She devoured. She fucked men to remind herself she could. Then came back like we were supposed to forget. Like I was supposed to pretend the blood on her mouth wasn’t mine.
I gripped the wheel harder. Pulled out of the tower garage. Didn’t turn on music. Didn’t answer when the phone buzzed. Just drove.
City lights smeared across the windshield—concrete and glare and something sick underneath it all. My pulse didn’t slow. Not when traffic thinned. Not when the roads quieted.
I didn’t breathe right until I turned into the underground car park. The engine echoed in the concrete. Sharp. Empty. I eased into the spot. Let the car idle. And just stared at the elevator.
Felt her again?—
Not her body. Not her scent. Her threat. Her voice, curling behind my ribs like smoke:
Do you want it?
And still…
I hadn’t answered. I killed the engine. Got out. Didn’t look back. The elevator waited. Still. Quiet. Watching.
Something older rose in me. Not grief. Not guilt. Something with teeth. And it wanted her to bleed.
27
CLOE
I could feelhim watching me. Not with his eyes—not yet. With his silence.
Wolfe hadn’t spoken since the shower. Hadn’t touched me either. But I felt him. Every time I breathed, I felt the weight of his attention.
I stood at the kitchen counter in his robe, the fabric still damp at the collar. My hair clung to the back of my neck. My fingers wrapped around the handle of a mug I hadn’t sipped from. The tea had gone cold. I didn’t move.
The robe smelled like him. Like heat. Like control.
The silence pulsed.
Then—
the doorbell.
