It’s the same one, the one I didn’t open the last time I was here. My pulse stutters, sharp and uneven, and I stop short as if an invisible line has been drawn between us. I don’t touch it. I don’t even step closer.
Khai’s voice slips back into my mind, tight with fury, stretched thin at the edges,unravelling. The sound of it had been more frightening than the crash, more telling than the rage he tried to choke down before it turned on him instead.
None of it made sense. Not the violence. Not the restraint that followed. Not the way everything had been cleaned, controlled, erased.
And this, whatever waits inside that envelope, is the reason.
I know it without opening it. I know it in the pit of my stomach, in the way my skin prickles with warning. Some truths aren’t meant to be uncovered gently.
Whatever is inside that envelope isn’t good.
And worse, some part of me is terrified it explainshim.
“Khai?” I call softly.
My voice barely disturbs the air.
No answer.
The penthouse responds with silence, thick, heavy, watchful. It presses in around me, and I retreat a step before I realize I’m moving. Unease crawls up my spine, slow and deliberate. I don’t like not knowing where he is.
What unsettles me more is how instinctive the thought feels.
I turn toward the windows, craving space, air, something that doesn’t feel curated by his hands. Below, the city lies dark and sprawling, a constellation of lights glittering against the night. Alive. Oblivious. Somewhere down there is my apartment. My job. My life before tonight.
It feels impossibly far away. Like something I dreamed once and then woke from.
A movement behind me pulls my attention sharp and fast.
I turn.
Jaxon is leaning against the counter, arms crossed, posture relaxed in a way that isn’t. His expression is unreadable, eyes steady, assessing, like he’s been there longer than I’m comfortable with.
Watching.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says calmly. “He stepped out to make a call.”
Something about the way he says it, careful, measured, puts me on edge.
“What was that earlier about?” I ask, keeping my voice even despite the tightness in my chest. “The shouting.”
Jaxon studies me for a moment too long. Long enough to make it clear he’s weighing something. Then he shrugs, casual on the surface.
“Family.”
The word lands wrong. Heavy. Loaded. I want to push, to pry it open and see what he’s really saying, but his tone isn’t an invitation, it’s a boundary. One I instinctively understand not to cross.
So I pivot.
“What’s in the envelope?”
His jaw tightens. Just for a fraction of a second, but it’s enough. His gaze flicks toward the island, toward that quiet, waiting thing, before returning to me. Assessing. Measuring.
“You should talk to him,” he says carefully. “When he’s ready.”
“When I’m ready,” I murmur, the words barely more than breath. Because as much as I want answers, there’s a deeper fear curling in my stomach, of what the truth might cost me once I know it.
A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “Yeah. That too.”
