Hope and grief twist together until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Loving Trey—even for such a short time—made me whole in a way I never knew I was broken. He saw me. He chose me. He protected me when no one else ever had.
Now he’s gone…and I feel like I’m fading with him.
Just another haunting drifting through someone else’s darkness.
I lower my forehead to the edge of the tub, letting the water hide my trembling.
“If there’s a piece of you in me,” I whisper, my voice barely more than breath, “be stronger than I am. Be strong…like your father.”
Outside, the city roars endlessly.
Inside, fear coils tighter in my chest.
Because beneath the luxury, beneath the guarded walls and armed men, I can feel it.
Something is coming.
The way Johnathon watches me. The way every move feels calculated. The way this place feels less like refuge and more like a waiting room.
Danger is closing in, and the only thing keeping me together is the fragile hope that somewhere, somehow, the man I love is still breathing…still fighting…searching for me.
I step out of the bedroom wrapped in a thick white robe, the fabric heavy against my skin. My hair is twisted into a towel, damp curls already escaping at the nape of my neck. Artemis and Klause fall into place at my sides without a sound.
The apartment smells different.
I slow at the edge of the living space.
The table has been set.
Not lavishly—but deliberately. Two plates sit opposite one another, each covered with a polished silver dome. A single glass of water waits at one chair. Mine. Steam curls faintly from beneath the metal, as if even the heat has been measured.
Johnathon stands by the windows, his back to me, phone pressed to his ear. The city spills behind him in sheets of neon light, reflected faintly in the glass. His voice is low.
“No. She won’t be moved again, for now.”
A pause.
“Yes. Alive.”
Another pause. Longer.
“Good.”
He ends the call and turns.
His gaze flicks over me once—robe, towel, dogs—and moves on. There’s no interest in it. No reaction at all. Just assessment.
“Sit.”
He doesn’t gesture. He doesn’t need to.
I cross the room and take the chair opposite him. Artemis lowers herself at my feet. Klause positions his body behind my leg.
Johnathon lifts the dome from my plate first.
Food chosen for efficiency, not comfort. Protein. Vegetables. Something pale and filling. No indulgence. No spice. Enough to sustain me. Nothing more.
