Sharp. Sudden.Final.
I flinched.
Wolfe looked up from where he sat in the chair across the room. No reaction. No tension. Just a shift. He stood slowly. Moved without sound. Opened the door. I couldn’t see who it was. But I heard them.
A voice I knew better than my own.
Wolfe said it first.
Low. Measured.
“Want?”
Then silence.
Then—
Barron.
His voice was hoarse.
Ragged.
Almost broken.
“Need.”
I gripped the mug tighter. Wolfe stepped aside.
And Barron Lawlor walked in.
He looked different. Not in the way he dressed. Not in the way he moved. But in the way he didn’t speak. His silence felt older than Wolfe’s. Like it had been stitched into him instead of sharpened.
He didn’t look at me right away. Didn’t acknowledge the mug in my hand. The robe. The way my legs curled slightly inward like my body already knew something was coming.
He looked at Wolfe. Only Wolfe.
They didn’t speak. But something passed between them. Something sharp. Something final. Then Wolfe turned to me.
“Go to the bedroom.”
Just that.
Not a command.
A direction.
I didn’t speak. Didn’t ask. I set the mug down. Turned. Walked barefoot down the hallway. The robe brushed the backs of my knees with every step. My heart beat too loud to ignore.
I didn’t close the door. I waited.
When they entered, neither man said a word.
Barron stepped in first. Stopped just inside. Wolfe followed. Didn’t cross the threshold. Didn’t sit. Didn’t move. He stoodagainst the doorframe like a verdict. And Barron finally looked at me.
My chest tightened. Not from shame. From the weight of it. His gaze didn’t linger. Didn’t wander. It dropped. To the robe. To the spot where the tie cinched just beneath my ribs.
And then—slowly—he walked to me.
