Ben slowed as we approached the gate. It opened before we reached it, black metal sliding away from the drive with the same smooth obedience as every other door in Tobias’s world.
Tobias turned his hand palm-up on the seat between us.
An offer, not a demand.
His hand was elegant, long-fingered, pale against the dark upholstery, the kind of hand that looked like it belonged on piano keys, expensive glassware, or curled around the back of my neck. The kind of hand that had held me still. The kind of hand that had wiped tears from my face. The kind of hand that had fastened cuffs, treated rope burns, and brought me pleasure. It was also the kind of hand that killed.
The duality of Tobias Kelly was not subtle.
It was not even really duality, I thought. There were not two separate men. Not a good one and a bad one, not a monster wearing a caretaker’s skin or a caretaker corrupted by monstrosity.
He was all of it at once.
Singular.
He was the man who had locked me in a room and the man who brought me extra blankets because he knew I got cold. The man who could look at Mark’s limp body like a logistical issue and then look at me like I was the only thing in the world capable of hurting him.
And I—
I did not know what that made me.
But I took his hand anyway.
Tobias gently squeezed the back of my hand as the car rolled through the gate.
The house was less imposing than the main estate, with more weathered timber and less glass. The path down toward the beach was visible beyond the house, narrow and pale as it wound between rocks and old driftwood. The ocean was even closer than I expected, close enough that when Ben parked and turned off the engine, the whole world seemed filled with the sound of it.
Ben glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Welcome to the murder-free vacation home.”
“Ben,” Tobias groaned.
“What? That’s reassuring.”
I gave a small, surprised laugh, which Ben caught and grinned as if he had just won something.
The laugh died before it could become anything bigger, but not fast enough. Not before Tobias looked at me and his expression shifted in that specific way I had started to recognize with inconvenient accuracy, as if every accidental bit of softness from me entered him like sunlight.
I looked at the door handle.
“Can I get out?”
“Yes,” Tobias said.
I waited.
His brows drew together faintly before it dawned on him. “You may open the door yourself.”
“Wow,” I muttered. “Freedom is taxing.”
Ben snorted from the front seat as I opened the door and stepped out into the salty air. I took a step toward the path to the beach before I remembered myself.
Tobias was beside me a moment later. “Not yet,” he said softly.
I bristled. “I wasn’t going to run.”
“I know, precious, and I know you want the water. I’m not going to keep you from it, but I need to check the conditions before we head down there. Why don’t we bring our things inside first?”
Ben was already getting luggage from the trunk, pretending not to watch us with the deeply obvious discretion of a man who watched everything.
