Heat crawls up my neck. “Why would you?—”
“Relax.” He leans in again, mouth near my ear, voice dropping. “I just like to know what might threaten what’s mine.”
Mine.
The word settles over me like a silk noose.
“You don’t need to worry,” I say. “Kai won’t be a problem.”
Noah’s eyes meet mine in the mirror, assessing. Calculating.
“I’m sure,” he says smoothly. Then, softer, almost amused, “Still. Must be strange. Knowing he’s walking free today.”
His fingers trace a slow line down my spine, stopping just short of where it would become too much.
I stand, breaking the contact, turning to face him fully. He doesn’t stop me. Just watches.
“I’m ready,” I say.
His smile returns, perfect and practiced. “Good. I’ll be waiting downstairs.”
He kisses my cheek—light, proprietary—and leaves the room.
The door clicks shut.
I turn back to the mirror.
The woman staring back at me looks flawless.
But beneath the blush, beneath the silk and glass and money, something old and dangerous is waking up.
Kai is free.
And no amount of polish is going to stop the cracks from showing.
The silence he leaves behind is loud.
It presses in on me, thick and suffocating, filling every corner of the bedroom like it knows something I don’t. I stare at my reflection again, fingers curling against the edge of the vanity, knuckles whitening as I try to steady my breathing.
Your brother.
The word still echoes, sharp and wrong.
I reach for my lipstick this time and apply it carefully, tracing the familiar shape of my mouth with a hand that refuses to tremble. Red. Always red. I tell myself it’s confidence. Power. Control.
Kai once told me red made me look like a warning sign.
You don’t wear it for other people, he’d said, voice low, eyes dark with something I didn’t understand back then. You wear it because you like knowing what it does to them.
I cap the lipstick too hard and stand, smoothing my dress down over my hips. Silk slides cool beneath my palms. Expensive. Perfect. A uniform I’ve learned to wear well.
Downstairs, the house opens up into glass and light and echoing space. The living room stretches wide, all clean lines and carefully chosen art, a view of manicured gardens beyond the windows. Everything about this place is designed to impress. To intimidate. To convince you that nothing ugly could ever touch it.
Noah waits near the kitchen island, phone in hand, jacket draped over one arm.
He looks devastating like this—tailored suit hugging his broad shoulders, blond hair catching the light, blue eyes sharp and assessing even when he smiles.
The tattoos along his forearm peek out again as he reaches for his coffee, dark ink against pale skin, a reminder that he isn’t as clean-cut as he pretends.
