Magnus pushed to his feet. “Sera, this isn’t—”
“An accusation,” she finished. “Yes, you were very clear about that.”
The words tasted metallic in her mouth. Not because they were sharp, but because they were restricted. She’d chosenthem carefully, pared them down to something that couldn’t be argued with or softened into reassurance.
She sensed Magnus’s attention lock on her, Alaric’s silence widening like a held breath. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them rushed to fill the space she’d just carvedout.
Good.
She wanted them to sit in it. To understand exactly how exposed she was standing here in nothing but Alaric’s shirt. How conscious her calm had become and how much effort it was taking not to let the hurt climb into her voice.
She lifted her chin a fraction, not in challenge, but in refusal.If they were going to reduce her to language and process, she would meet them there fully awake.
Her gaze shifted to Alaric.She didn’t rush the question. She let it exist between them first, before she gave it shape.”You’re going to contain me?”
He didn’t move.
That was answer enough.
Sera took one step forward, not into the room so much as into the truth of it. Into the space where pretending stopped being useful.The movement pulled her awareness sharply intoher ownbody.
She stood before them wearing Alaric’s shirt.The realization landed with a flash of bitter irony. His shirt, heavy and unmistakably his, hanging down her thighs, the sleeves loose around her wrists. Little else beneath it. No armor. No distance. Just fabric that still carried his heat, his scent, the memory of his hands on herskin.
She hated the part of herself that noticed it now. Hated the way a corner of her mind wanted to rip it off, wanted to stand there bare and unprotected just to prove she wasn’t something he owned. Or worse, that shewas.
The urge had nothing to do with seduction and everything to do with defiance.
Instead she stayed exactly where she was, spine straight, shoulders squared, using the shirt like a choice rather than a vulnerability. Letting them see her as she was. Letting them think what they wanted.
Inside, it took everything she had to keep her emotions contained.
Two men stood in front of her who could dismantle companies, erase records, end lives without ever touching a weapon. Men used to being obeyed. Used to being feared. And she was standing between them dressed in the aftermath of a night she hadn’t yet decidedhow to regret.
She refused to let thatshow.
Her pulse beat hard, fast, but her voice stayed steady. Her face stayed composed. If she broke now, it wouldn’t just be grief or anger spilling out.It would be power she’d never getback.
She focused on Alaric. On his position as Underboss. On what others feared about him and what she refused to let affect her. “Do you plan to erase me if you don’t like some tiny piece of what Magnus finds?” she asked quietly, steady as stone.
Magnus opened his mouth.
“Leave,” Alaric said without even looking athim.
The word hit like a door slamming in a hallway.
Magnus hesitated.
“Now.”
Sera watched Magnus stiffen. Apparently, he didn’t like being dismissed at all, least of all in his brother’s house. And he didn’t like being cut off in front of a woman he’d just reduced to a risk profile without even pretending to soften theblow.
He nodded once, sharp and curt, and left withoutanotherword.
Only after the door closed did the full shape of itland.
Magnus had never said hername.
Not once while he reduced her to vectors and pathways and exposure. Not once while he outlined isolation and mitigation as if they were neutral acts. She hadn’t noticed in the moment because she’d been busy standing upright inside his analysis.
