It sickens me.
He was mine. Now, he’s hers. My own sister. The betrayal burns, fuel for my fire.
Across the room, Damian Baylock stands apart from the gathering clusters, his glass untouched. He’s watching the room the way men like him always do—his tedium plain on his face until he glances my way. I feel the weight of his attention now without needing mirrors or reflections.
This time, I meet his eyes.
He doesn’t look away.
The clock begins its countdown. Ten. Nine. The room swells with noise, laughter rising, voices overlapping. Eight. Seven. Confetti cannons are readied. Six. Five.
Damian lifts his glass slightly—not a toast, not an invitation. An acknowledgment.
I return it with the faintest tilt of my chin.
Four. Three.
Jason kisses Faith just before the crowd surges, as if to prove something. She laughs against his mouth, unaware that she’s already standing on fault lines.
Two. One.
Midnight.
The room explodes into cheers. Masks shift. Couples kiss. Strangers embrace. The moment fractures into a hundred private celebrations. I stay exactly where I am. The noise crests and begins to fade, and Damian turns away first when someone accosts him.
The seed is planted.
On the terrace, the cold slaps my skin awake. A light snow drifts lazily beyond the stone railing, quiet and untouched. I press my palms against the cold and breathe. My reflection in the glass doors looks calm. Collected.
Inside, I see Damian again, closer now, his attention angled toward the space I vacated. He looks around. For me? Perhaps.
He can be the hunter. I am the prey that wants to be caught.
I stay outside just long enough to be missed, then slip back inside through a different door. The house accommodates this easily, like it’s designed for wicked games. I pass Jason once more, close enough that his hand tightens around Faith’s waist.
He knows something is wrong. He just doesn’t know what.
2
DAMIAN
I smellantiseptic long before I smell champagne. It’s all alcohol to me.
That’s how I know I’m not meant to be here.
The Baylock New Year’s Eve masquerade has been happening longer than I’ve been alive, possibly longer than anyone remembers. It’s tradition. It’s legacy. It’s my mother’s favorite word—duty—wrapped in crystal chandeliers and catered excess. I’ve survived it every year by reminding myself that it ends.
Tonight is no different.
I stand near the edge of the ballroom with a glass I haven’t touched, mask balanced on my face out of obligation rather than enthusiasm, and catalog exits the way I do when I walk into an emergency department. Old habits. You don’t spend decades working on trauma cases without learning how to assess a room.
There are many ways this one could bleed.
I’d rather be at the hospital. I always would. That’s the rebellious streak my mother insists on calling a phase, as if I haven’t beenan attending physician for years. As if saving lives at three in the morning is something one simply grows out of.
In fairness to her, I left for a while. My ex-wife, Amber, insisted. Said it wasn’t appropriate. Said it embarrassed her when people asked what I did, and I didn’t give the answer they expected. That it made people imagine me elbow-deep in guts. So, I tried—briefly—to be the man everyone wanted. The philanthropist. The board member. The heir.
I hated every minute of it. Thank God for my divorce lawyer.
