“Fine. Who’s coming?”
They don’t answer immediately. There’s a silent conversation that passes between them, unsettling in how quickly it resolves.
“I’ll take you,” Jace relents.
Kieran doesn’t argue. Silas just nods once. No jealousy. No tension. It’s like this was predetermined, and I’m just now catching on to the rules they’ve set. Honestly, I’m not sure their rules actually apply to me… I think I have my own.
“Don’t break anything while you’re gone.” Kieran leans forward, grinning at me and Jace.
“Just hearts,” I reply, rolling my eyes.
I follow Jace through the garage door, my mind echoing with the sound of three phones vibrating from my HimLock message. It feels like a promise I haven’t decided whether to accept or exploit.
The truth rattles my bones as Jace opens the door to his SUV. I glance to the left and see my car sitting in their garage… among all their toys. Bikes and tools and shit I will never touch. I can change a tire, but if anything else happens, I will pay someone else to fix it.
The thing is… I don’t love the idea of chaperones. I’ve lived too long answering only to myself. But I know Daniel hasn’t finished escalating, and pretending otherwise would be sloppy. Temporary oversight isn’t a cage. It’s leverage.
I’ll deal with Daniel soon. Just not today. Today is for watching patterns. Timing. Choosing the right moment…
And the bigger question—the one I keep circling and not touching—is what I say to the guys when I tell them I need to go to work and they ask what I do. Because“I kill people for a living”isn’t a week-one confession, even when said men are already orbiting me like I’m the center of a private universe.
Not yet.
For now, I’ll let the fantasy breathe and allow the attention to feel good. I’ll let myself revel in the way they move around me like I matter.
Nothing is ever this simple…
But I’m going to enjoy it before it stops being easy.
This apartment doesn’t feel like mine anymore.
I stop just inside the door, far enough for Jace to close it behind us, but I don’t go any further. My body knows something is off before my brain does.
The air is wrong. The quiet is worse. Like the apartment has learned a new version of silence while I was gone and won’t bother teaching it to me.
Jace stays close enough to cover me, yet far enough back not to crowd me. He doesn’t touch me or ask why I stop, but the tension rolls off him anyway, a low electrical hum that keeps my spine straight and my hands steady.
I move slowly, studious eyes searching every inch of the floor before my gaze slides up the walls. It’s all wrong, but everything is in order… except for the lack of debris from the hole in the wall Jace made with some part of Daniel.
That hole is also conveniently missing… repaired.
I shake it off and head to my closet first, snatching a duffel bag from the top shelf. It’s only slightly messy, but it’s exactly the way I left it. Drawers shut. Shoes lined up… Okay, maybe I didn’t leave it like this. Roo did, though. She organized while she was looking for something to wear the night we went out…
The night I should have killed Daniel.
I grab a little of everything, creating a capsule wardrobe in my duffel. It’s difficult to anticipate what I’ll need when I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few days. But if I need anything more, I’ll buy it or get it from Roo.
I set my stuff at the end of my bed and go to the bathroom next. Nothing is out of place. I frown at my toothbrush and toss it into the empty trash. My makeup is open on the clean counter, and I contemplate tossing it too. Everything feels tainted. The towels are folded the way I always leave them, but even they don’t sit right on the shelf.
It’s just… off. Colder somehow. Maybe suffocating is the right word? Like the walls are holding their breath against their will. I can’t really explain it other than being wrong.
I turn toward the inset shelf behind my bathroom door to grab my vitamins, and I hear Jace speak. His voice is quiet. Careful. He’s on the phone.
“Eris,” he calls from my kitchen. “Come here.”
“One second.” I drop my toiletries into an over-the-shoulder bag I keep tucked under my sink. “Almost done.”
I take one last look around, noting nothing unusual, and leave my room, taking my bags with me to the living room.
