I look up, my breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat, and gray eyes stare back at me.
Drake Moses.
The charcoal suit is replaced with an impeccable black one. The buttons at the collar are popped open and his tie is loosened. Not much, but I can tell he’s been under a lot of pressure lately. Shadow darkens his chin with stubble that wasn't there the last time I saw him.
My stomach does something complicated, a twist that's equal parts terror and something else I refuse to name.
"What are you doing here?" The words come out breathless, and I hate myself for sounding so small when I should sound fierce.
His eyes drop from my face, sliding down over the thin fabric of my tank top with a deliberate slowness that makes heat bloom across my skin despite the chill of the October night. I feel my nipples tighten further under his gaze, traitors that they are, and I watch his jaw clench as he takes in the evidence of my body's response to his presence.
A sound escapes his throat, low and rough, something that might be a growl, but I honestly can’t hear him over the rush of blood in my ears.
“Katriana.”
But I hear my name on his lips just fine. The sound of his voice vibrates through the air between us and settles low in my belly, warm and unwelcome yet impossible to ignore.
I don't try to hide my reaction. There's no point. The thin cotton conceals nothing, and the way his eyes darken as they trace the peaks of my breasts tells me he's seen everything there is to see. Something defiant rises in my chest, a refusal to cower or cover myself like I've done something wrong by existing in my own apartment in my own pajamas.
Let him look. Let him see what he's not going to have.
"Kat?" Gemma's voice crackles through the phone still pressed to my ear, distant and worried. "Kat, what's happening? Who's there?"
Drake's gaze flicks to the phone, then back to my face. He releases the bat with a casual twist of his wrist that makes the wood spin in my grip, and then he's pushing past me into my apartment like he has every right to be here.
"I'll call you back," I manage, and I end the call before Gemma can protest.
Drake Moses stands in the middle of my living room, and suddenly the space feels impossibly small. He's too big for this room, too polished, too everything. His presence swallows the worn couch and the wobbly coffee table and the water stains on the ceiling, making them look even shabbier by comparison. His eyes move over every surface with the efficiency of a man cataloguing inventory, missing nothing, judging everything.
I'm suddenly aware of the pile of bills on the kitchen counter, the secondhand furniture, the books stacked on every available surface because I can't afford proper shelves. The evidence of a life scraped down to survival, laid bare for a man who probably spends more on a single suit than I make in a month.
Heat crawls up my neck that has nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with shame.
"How did you find out where I live?" I keep the bat raised, though we both know it's useless against him. "And how did you get into my building? The front door is supposed to be locked."
He turns to face me, and the weight of his attention pins me in place like a butterfly on a board. "You wrote a wish."
The words hit me like a bucket of ice water, dousing the heat of my embarrassment and replacing it with cold shock. The whoosh of air that leaves my lungs feels like the carpet being yanked out from under my feet and I’m left wobbling.
"How do you know about that?" My voice comes out as a whisper, all the breath stolen from my lungs by the impossibility of what he's just said.
Drake reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. The red envelope is gone, but I recognize the paper instantly.
My stomach plummets to my knees. He has my wish. He's read my wish. He knows exactly how desperate I am, how pathetic, how completely and utterly out of options.
"I'm here to grant it."
The words hang in the air between us, heavy with implication. I feel my grip tighten on the bat until the wood bites into my palms.
"Grant it." I repeat the words like they're in a language I don't speak, trying to make sense of syllables that refuse to form meaning. "You're telling me you're part of the... what did Madison call it? The secret society that grants wishes?"
"The Red Letter Syndicate." His voice is level, patient, like he's explaining something simple to a child who's being particularly slow. "And yes. I am."
"Jonah's never mentioned that or I would have never bothered. Then again, he never talked about his family or anyone else but himself so there’s that." The accusation falls from my lips before I can stop it, sharp and bitter and carrying the weight of every broken promise his family name represents.
Something flickers in his eyes. It’s there and gone so fast I might have imagined it. "Doesn't surprise me, but I can’t imagine why he would tell anyone in the first place. And why?”
Curiosity moves over his tight expression.
