Every muscle in my body locks. I can’t see him yet, but I can feel him and I am damn sure it’s a man. A chill crawls up the back of my neck.
No movement. No sound. Just my own heartbeat hammering in my ears. I stand there for what feels like a full minute, my breath coming short and fast. The candle still flickers, steady and harmless. Maybe it was the neighbors. Or the old building settling again. Maybe the sound was mine—a creak of floorboard, a breath caught wrong.
Get a grip, Kira. You’ve been awake too long.
I’ve seen what sleep deprivation does to people—hallucinations, paranoia, the mind twisting shadows into faces. I’ve told patients the same thing a hundred times. So why does the apartment feel like it’s holding its breath?
I run a hand through my hair, force out a laugh that doesn’t sound real. “Jesus, maybe I need the blackout after all.”
The joke lands flat in the dark.
I sit on the couch, letting my body remember the fatigue instead of the fear and I unlock my bra, getting ready to go under the shower and wash this day away.
“I’d let you keep going,” a voice says smoothly, “but things might escalate in a direction I didn’t plan for.”
My body freezes before my brain catches up. The voice isn’t my brother’s.
CHAPTER THREE
Kira
For a second, I freeze, pulse roaring in my ears. There’s someone in here, watching me.
Instinct takes over. I spin, slam my hand against the wall behind me, and flick the light switch. The room flares to life in harsh yellow, too bright after the dark. And he’s there. Leaning casually against the arm of my couch like he’s been waiting.
Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in black that fits him too well to be random. His jacket hangs open, shirt unbuttoned just enough to reveal the kind of body that belongs in a very different kind of room. His hair is dark, messy in a way that looks deliberate, and his eyes—God, those eyes—are the kind of cold gray that burns.
For one disoriented second, my mind short-circuits. Because he’s beautiful.Dangerouslyso. The kind of beauty that doesn’t belong in apartments like mine. Then the fear hits.
“What the hell—” I stumble backward, grab my coffee mug from the table, and throw it as hard as I can.
He moves before it leaves my hand. Just steps sideways, effortless, like he knew what I’d do before I did it. The mug explodes against the wall, porcelain shattering across the floor.
He doesn’t flinch, or even look at the wreckage. His gaze stays on me.
Every cell in my body screams to run. I clutch the blanket from the back of the couch and yank it around my almost naked self, my hands shaking. “Get out!” My voice cracks. “Get out or I’ll?—”
He raises a brow, calm as stone. “You’ll what?”
His voice is low, too smooth and threaded with something dark—a faint accent there, hard to place, like it’s been blended over time. It does things to my nerves I don’t want to admit.
“Who are you?” I manage.
He doesn’t answer. Just studies me like I’m a puzzle he’s deciding whether to solve.
The silence stretches too long. I can hear the faint hum of the refrigerator, the candle sputtering. My mind races through every possible explanation—wrong apartment, hallucination, dream—but none fit the man standing there.
I take a step toward the door, but he moves first, just enough to block my path, the light catching on the faint line of a scar near his throat.
“Don’t,” he says softly.
“Don’t what?”
“Run.”
My hand tightens around the blanket until my knuckles ache. “You broke into my home. What do you expect me to do? Offer you coffee?”
His eyes flicker with something that almost looks like amusement. “You already threw the mug.”
