That wasn’t a door she closed.
That was a line she crossed.
And baby, I owned everything on this side.
I pushed off the doorframe and strolled away, the silence behind me thick as smoke.
Didn’t look back. Didn’t need to.
I knew her.
She’d dig in, barricade herself behind that pretty little door like she could hold the line. Like she could outlast me.
Adorable.
She thought she had the upper hand—thought she held the cards.
Sweetheart, I built the goddamn deck.
The kitchen was dim, the marble cool beneath my fingertips as I poured myself two fingers of whiskey. The amber swirled over ice, smooth and precise—just like me. The glass clinked, sharp and deliberate, the sound slicing through the quiet like a whisper that knew all your secrets.
It would reach her.
Oh, it would crawl beneath the door and curl around her spine like smoke.
She’d hear it.
She’d feel it.
My presence. My patience. My power.
Then came the television.
I didn’t even check the channel. Just turned it on, turned it up. Not loud enough to be jarring—no, no, that was too obvious. Just enough to invade.
Celebrity gossip. Red carpet bullshit. Perfect.
Noise with teeth.
Empty, stupid, sugar-coated sound that would wrap around her like a silk noose. Normalcy. Comfort. Distraction.
A hollow world she couldn’t touch.
“In other news, it appears as though the engagement between NHL star Hades Sinclair and Callista Moore,” a voice chirped from the screen. “Terribly disappointing if you asked me. He seemed absolutely in love with her.”
I barked a quiet laugh into my glass.
Callista Moore.
My first misdirection back in my rookie years.
Everyone thought she was the one I wanted. That she ran and left me wounded.
But Callista was never the endgame.
She was just the mask I wore to get to the one who mattered.
I leaned against the counter, let the chill of the glass bleed into my palm as I sipped.
