I almost smile. “My disobedience,” I murmur instead. “There you are.”
Her brow pulls in for half a second. She hates that—being claimed like that. And some deep, primal part of mewantsher off balance.
I drag a chair from the corner—the dark green leather one by the books—and set it across from the bed, far enough to give her space, close enough to make it clear she doesn’t actually have any. I sit and lean back, ankle resting on my knee, hands loose. Not looming. Not threatening.
Let her think this is a conversation.
She tilts her head. “So this is the part where you try to convince me you’re the nice one?”
I huff a quiet laugh. “No. That would be Saint. He’s the one who likes to dress violence up in scripture and apology.”
“And which one are you?” she asks. She’s fast. She doesn’t hesitate. “Executioner?”
“King.”
Her mouth tightens. A beat of silence hangs between us, bright and thin like wire.
I watch the way she holds herself. She’s pretending to be curled in, vulnerable, knees hugged in like a scared girl, chin on bone. But her weight is in the balls of her feet. Her shoulders are forward but not hunched. Her hands are loose, ready. She’s angled to spring left, not right. Away from me, toward the door, not the window.
That’s wrong, my dreadful disobedience.
The window’s reinforced. The door has me. But you don’t know that yet…
Or do you?
“Why am I here?” she asks. Her voice doesn’t shake. She wants it to come out bored. It lands sharp.
“Because you broke into one of my secured properties,” I say calmly. “Because you accessed documents you should not have known existed. Because you touched product that did not belong to you. Because you made contact—uninvited—with one of my men.”
“‘Made contact,’” she repeats, disgust curling around the words. “Is that what you call finding your guy with his throat open on a warehouse floor?”
I let that sit for a moment. Her eyes watch me for reaction. She’s hunting truth the same way I am.
“I call that evidence,” I answer.
Her chin lifts, just slightly. “Evidence ofwhat? That you kill anyone who annoys you and dump them like rubbish? You’reveryscary, congratulations.”
She’s trying to sting. She’s trying to prod until I show her teeth. She thinks anger means honesty. And, I supoose it usually does.
Which is why she’s not getting any.
“Owen,” I say instead, softly.
Her eyes flash, jaw clenching like she’s biting back a retort.
There it is.
Everything inside her goes very still, all at once. The agitation, the frantic calculation, the restlessness under her skin—it all threads down tight, like a snare pulled quick around the throat of some animal. She doesn’t speak.
Not yet.
“Owen Calloway,” I continue, voice even. “Your brother.”
She snaps. Mask dropping immediately, snarling the words. “You don’t get to say his name.”
I lean back a fraction more, studying her. “You think if I don’t say it, it makes him yours alone?”
“He wasmine,” she bites out. “Notyours. Nottheirs.Mine.”
