The sound that tore out of me wasn’t really a sob; it was too jagged for that. Ricky startled at the rawness of it.
“Phoenix—hey—are you hurt? Did someone—”
I shook my head hard, tears slipping down my cheeks unchecked. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t.
The worst part wasn’t losing Cole. The worst part was knowing I’d earned it. I forced out a single, wrecked sentence. “I ruined everything.”
“Phoenix, wait—hold on— We have a room for you. There's loads of space.”
But I was already pulling away, stumbling to my feet. I pushed the envelope at him. “I’m sorry,” I choked, backing toward the lobby doors. “I just—I’m sorry.” I didn’t wait for him to stop me. I didn’t look back.
I ran.
Through the lobby, past the glass doors, into the freezing air that sliced at my lungs. I ran until my chest burned and my legs shook, until the world blurred and my breath came out in broken gasps.
The money was gone. Ricky was safe. But none of it mattered in the end because I had traded the only good thing I had for a threat that never should have touched me in the first place.
And now I had nothing.
Not Cole.
Just the knowledge that I had destroyed us before we ever truly began.
I didn’t know I’d walked to Ignatius’s neighborhood until I got there. I didn’t remember crossing half the city. All I knew was that my feet hurt, my fingers were numb, and when I finally looked up, the house in front of me was Ignatius’s—dark stone, sharp lines, the kind of place that looked carved out of old power. The porch light glowed faintly, like it had been left on for someone else entirely.
I didn’t belong here, but my body moved anyway through the open gate, carrying me up the steps before I fully understood where I was. My hand lifted and knocked once, twice, without permission from my brain. The door opened almost immediately.
Ignatius stoodthere in a charcoal coat, a suitcase at his side. Doryu was behind him, adjusting a scarf, both men mid-conversation—until they saw me.
“Phoenix?” Ignatius’s voice dropped, not in anger but in that razor-edged concern he used almost as if I was bleeding. Which I was.
Doryu stepped closer. “You’re shaking. Come inside before you fall over.”
“I—I’m fine,” I lied, badly. My teeth were chattering. “I just—didn’t know where else to go.”
Ignatius simply reached out and steadied me by the shoulders. “Tell me what happened.”
The moment he touched me, everything that had been holding me upright crumbled. The story cracked out of me in broken pieces—Cole finding the envelope, his face when he saw the money, the way he told me to leave, how I ran to the Avalon and gave the cash to Ricky, only to learn Ricky never needed protection in the first place.
“And the man who gave you this money?” Ignatius asked, voice eerily calm.
“He said he worked for—” My breath hitched. “For Cole’s father.” I paused. Or had he?
Ignatius’s expression sharpened instantly, gaze slicing through the air like a blade. “No,” he said flatly. “Absolutely not.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I said no,” he repeated, as if the idea itself insulted him. “Wells may be many things—cowardly, cruel, obsessed with control—but he is not subtle. If he wanted to ruin Cole or manipulate him, he’d do it openly or through lawyers he owns, not by hiring some stranger to bribe the man Cole is sleeping with. He would make you disappear, not encourage you to stay.”
Doryu nodded thoughtfully. “He also wouldn’t risk leaving a trail that implicates him in blackmail. If he wanted information, he’d extract it through intimidation, not money.”
“So—so you don’t think…” I swallowed hard. “You don’t think this man works for him?”
Ignatius let out a sharp, soundless breath—not quite a laugh, not quite a growl. “Phoenix, if Wells really knew who you were to Cole, he’d have buried you, not shoved cash into your hand and told you to spy. Wells is many terrible things, but he is predictable.” His eyes narrowed. “This man is not him. This was someone else’s game.”
“That doesn’t make it better,” I whispered.
“No,” Ignatius said. “It makes it far more concerning.”
