The room fell quiet for a beat, four Thornes and the woman we’d all quietly decided was ours to protect gathered around a table while winter pressed against the windows. Outside, the world was white and still. Inside, the edges of danger tightened like a noose. And none of us knew that before the sun set again, the noose would pull.
Hard.
CHAPTER 54
Harmony
The rest of the morning moved in a strange kind of quiet. Not peaceful or restless. Just something in between, like the world was holding its breath with me. Pierre and Becket left the house to sweep the ridge again. Eric stayed glued to my side; every movement of his body angled toward mine, like he could absorb danger before it reached me. But inside me, there was a pulse of dread. An uncomfortable tug beneath my ribs. The feeling I was being watched, even when no one was there. It was the kind of dread you inherit from a criminal father who leaves enemies in his wake. Little did Marcel know; it would be me who broke the last straw that led to his arrest.
“Sunshine,” Eric murmured. “Breathe.”
I listened but the air felt tight. I stepped toward the window overlooking the orchard. Snow had stopped falling, leaving the world white and hushed, branches heavy with ice. Footprints still scarred the outer rows; Becket hadn’t smoothed them yet. Just seeing them made my stomach twist.
“He shouldn’t be able to get this close,” I whispered.
Eric’s hand slid across my lower back. “He won’t again.”
But something in me tugged toward the trees. Like a thread that had been pulled for so many years finally snapping taut.
“I need air,” I murmured.
Eric stiffened instantly. “Harmony?—”
“Just the porch,” I promised. “I’m not going far.”
He hesitated… and then nodded. “I’m going with you.”
I stepped outside. The cold hit hard but my lungs opened. For a moment, I thought maybe that was it. Maybe it was just the heaviness inside me loosening. And then I heard it. A sound that didn’t belong to the quiet. A stumbling step. A low, broken exhale like someone was gasping for air. I heard the crunch of branches shifting with weight rather than wind.
Eric’s arm snapped in front of me. “Get behind me.”
But my feet had already moved. Because I knew that sound. Knew it in the marrow of me. A figure staggered between the orchard rows. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Snow clung to his clothes, streaked with red across his shirt, his hands. My breath punched out of my chest.
“Olivier?”
He lifted his head.
And the world tilted.
His face was battered with a swollen cheekbone, split brow, blood drying at the corner of his mouth. His eyes, the same eyes I grew up avoiding, fearing, hoping to please, were glassy, unfocused, filled with something I’d never seen from him before. Terror. Real terror. He stumbled again, and instinct overrode fear. I ran to him.
“Harmony,” his voice cracked, barely a whisper. “Harm… run.”
I caught his weight as he collapsed to his knees, his hands gripping my arms with desperate, shaking strength.
“He’s using my channels,” Olivier gasped. “Your old, encrypted relays, the ones you masked for Dad. He found them.He’s riding them now. That’s how he sees everything,” he cried. “I tried to keep him away, Harm.”
Eric grabbed my shoulder,pulling me back, but Olivier clung to me harder.
“Don’t touch her!” he choked. “He’ll hear. He’ll know. He’s everywhere,” he muttered, clearly delirious.
My throat closed. “Olivier… who? Who did this to you?”
He shook his head, panic ripping through every word. “Ravenhill isn’t who you think,” he whispered. “He was supposed to scare you, just scare you, but he turned on me he. . .he wants. . .”
His breath hitched, body shuddering. “Please… Harm… I’m your brother. I’m the only one who tried to protect you. I didn’t want. . .” His grip tightened. “I didn’t want you to die.”
Something in me shattered.
