We pass Zay’s room at the far end, the door cracked just enough to show a slice of darkness I recognize too well, before turning toward the small staircase tucked into the wall a little further down.
The private wing feels like stepping into a different house entirely.
Cleaner. Colder.
The air goes still, the lighting dimmer, the floors muffling sound instead of carrying it. The walls shift to a darker tone that seems to swallow movement whole.
Two locked doors face each other across the hall, names carved cleanly across the top: Asher’s. And Xavier’s.
Asher walks straight to Xavier’s and stops, his hand hovering at the handle, the silence tightening around us like a held breath.
“You’ll stay here,” he says, voice low. “Door locked. Don’t open it for anyone but me, Jackie, or Zay.”
His hand hovers over the doorknob like he’s bracing for something to jump out from behind it.
Then he pushes it open. It’s dark inside. And still. Not empty—just waiting.
“I’ll check perimeter,” Asher says. “Five minutes.”
I nod, but I don’t move.
Not until his footsteps fade down the hall.
Only then do I step inside.
It feels like stepping into a lung that forgot how to breathe.
The air is warm and still, heavy with a familiar undertone—dark cologne, cedar-wood, the faint smear of smoke.
It smells like him.
Like his shirt against my skin the night he dragged me out of that alley, like the curve of his throat when he leaned too close, like the inside of his car after he sped through the city without looking anywhere but at me.
My chest tightens as I close the door behind me.
The room is exactly what I imagined and nothing like it.
Colors press inward—charcoal, blue-black, ink—pulling the air taut. The furniture sits in disciplined lines, every edge quiet and controlled, the kind of precision that belongs to a man who does not know how to do anything halfway.
It should steady me. It doesn’t. Only the bed breaks that order.
Enormous. Low.
Wrapped in dark linen that looks impossibly soft.
The sheets are rumpled, creased in a way that says someone left quickly, that ashen scent clinging to the fabric.
The thought hits hard, but my feet still move—slow, careful, like the room might crack if I breathe wrong.
It feels like trespassing. My fingers skim the dresser.
Smooth. Cool. Certain.
Then my gaze catches on the chair, and I catch my breath, refusing to breathe more than I need to.
His shirt hangs there like an exhale he forgot to finish—dark grey, softened by years of wear, still shaped faintly by the cut of his shoulders.
It looks lived-in. Trusted.
