I roll my shoulders, grounding myself for the conversations that need to happen once Eris is inside and settled.
“Good,” I say to Silas, pausing at the garage door to meet his cold blue eyes head-on. “She needs to learn what happens when you mistake proximity for ownership.”
Silas’s mouth curves into a cruel smile.
“She will.”
Jace pulls his SUV into their garage, and again, I’m surprised to see my car sitting pretty two bays down. The sight makes me snort, but I frown when Jace groans in annoyance.
Their ex is parked outside the loft, posing in the driver’s seat of a Porsche something. I don’t really care for cars, so it doesn’t make a fuck to me what it’s called.
She doesn’t even allow the garage door time to close us safely away from the outside world. It’s about a fourth of the way down when she pops inside, and the closure stops immediately.
Jace cuts the engine, but he doesn’t acknowledge she’s here at all. He gets out first, calm and deliberate, then opens my door like it’s instinct. As if he’s done this a hundred times and always will.
Heels click against the concrete like a scream cutting through the silence. She walks through the garage as if she owns it, eyes locked on Jace, until they flick to me and harden.
The look she gives me isn’t surprise.
It’s an assessment.
Again…
I’m too tired to put up with her bullshit.
Kieran and Silas appear from the interior door a second later, both of them stopping short when they clock her attention on me.
I’m not watching her; I’m watching them.
Silas moves first, wordless, lifting my backpack and messenger bag from the backseat. Kieran grabs my duffels. They set everything down near the loft entrance, but they don’t go inside.
No.
They hover.
Not threatening, though they let their presence be known as they creep closer.
She doesn’t like that.
Her gaze snaps back to Jace. “You finally came home.”
He doesn’t answer.
But I do.
“What was your name again?” I ask pleasantly. “I didn’t catch it before.”
Her eyes flick back to me, cloudy with irritation. “I didn’t give it.”
I nod as if that explains everything.
“Funny,” I say, giving her a humorless smile. “You know so much about me. But I don’t know who you are. Hardly seems fair when you keep showing up unannounced.”
She rolls her tongue over her teeth.
And for just a second, my mind flashes to Roo’s text from this morning. Screenshots. Public records. Social circles mapped like constellations. A name attached to patterns, money, and a history of never being told no.
Callie St. James.
