Was it fair? No. But she was ours—I mean—fuck—she was Charles’s little sister.
Cal wanted to sayfuck the code, too. Especially after we took over the island. After we built our empire and proved we could protect what was ours.
He mentioned flying out to California last year to scout the company she worked for. We knew she wasn’t working for a regular marketing firm. We knew all about the vibrating pitchfork toys and shit, but Jace gave a hardno. He wanted her, too, and honestly, the last six years only made him more controlling and cold.
I may be the one people are scared to find themselves alone with in my workroom, but he’s the one who sentences them there.
I shake my head, trying to clear the thought. “I need to go.”
“Silas—”
But I’m already moving. Already heading for the door because if I stay here, I’m going to say something I can’t take back. Do something stupid.
“Where are you going?” Cal calls after me.
I think about the contractor in the basement. The one who’s two days behind schedule and has a very breakable face. A very breakable arm. A very convenient outlet for all this tension coiled tight in my chest.
“To solve a problem,” I say without turning around.
And then I’m gone, leaving Cal at the bar with his drink and his own demons.
Because right now, I need to hit something.
4
JACE
Sienna’s hands move as she talks, her bracelets catching the light, her whole face alive with energy.
“—and I’m thinking we do the full choreography. Like, really commit to it. The girls have been practicing, and I think we can actually pull off the lifts if we?—”
Charles laughs, shaking his head. “Lifts? Babe, your bachelorette party is going to put my bachelor party to shame.”
“That’s the goal,” she says, her grin widening. Then she turns those bright eyes on me. “You think you can handle that, Jace? Your party being upstaged by ours?”
I lean back in my chair, crossing my arms as I tip my head slightly in her direction. “I think I can survive the blow to my ego.”
Charles slides her a teasing look. “We could add lifts to the bachelor party, just to even things out.”
“Hard pass.”
Sienna’s laughter is effortless—low and warm, the kind that fills a space instead of piercing it. She’s the kind of woman who softens everything around her, who makes people want to stand closer. I can see why my brother chose her. She’s disarming, not because she’s naive, but because she sees the best in people. That’s something rare in our world, and rarer still when it lasts.
She’s talking again, describing the choreography, the costumes, the music, her fingers drawing invisible lines in the air like she can already see it on stage. Charles nods when she glances at him, half-listening and fully in love, and I pretend to do the same even though my mind is ten steps ahead—running through the bachelor party details, confirming security rotations, making mental notes of which of his college friends will need babysitting before someone ends up bleeding in one of Silas’s workrooms.
It’s automatic, the way I compartmentalize. The way I let my mind fracture into tasks instead of feelings.
Then Sienna says her name.
“—and Parker said she’d do it! It’s perfect, now we have an even number for the routine?—”
My focus snaps back to her voice, the wordParkerhitting harder than I expect. The thought of her dancing—on stage, in whatever little costume Sienna has dreamed up—slams into me like a body shot. I can already see it: her hips swaying, that defiant chin tilted toward the lights, people staring at her the way they always do. I know I should be used to the thought of men looking at her, but I’m not. I never will be.
Then a movement catches my eye. Parker steps in from the patio, and my pulse stutters in my throat. The noise of the room dulls around her, the chatter dissolving into something distant,irrelevant. Her shoulders are squared like she’s holding herself together by will alone, and her chin is angled just enough to tell me she’s not fine. Not really. Her dress brushes mid-thigh, her hair glints auburn under the warm lights, and she’s looking everywhere but at me.
And then I see Silas.
He’s cutting through the crowd like a blade, jaw clenched, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Cal’s still at the bar, shaking his head as he pours another drink, his movements too slow, too deliberate. I don’t need words to know something went down between them. Betweenherandhim.
