Behind me, Ian lets out a slow breath, almost a laugh. “Told him you’d do that. And he said—and I’m quoting—‘I know, it’s fine.’” Ian pauses, smirking. “So, full disclosure. He knew. Walked right into that haymaker like a champ.”
Andrei says nothing. His jaw is already starting to darken, but there’s a flicker of something like respect in his eyes. Or maybe just resignation.
A car pulls up outside. The slam of doors.
When I look at Ian, there’s something in his expression I don’t like.
“Now, listen,” he starts. “You might feel the need to punch me when you see who that is. But you need to focus on what’s important here.” A pause. Then he points at Andrei. “He got Sophia face to face with extreme, high-level fucking evil.”
Andrei gapes. “What the fuck, man?”
“Shh, peasant.” Ian waves a hand at him dismissively, then looks back at me. “Just… breathe through your nose. Count to ten. Think of fluffy bunnies. Or Sophia’s ass. Whatever works.”
I glare at him.
“I’m just saying. Prepare yourself.”
The tension coils tighter in my gut as footsteps approach the door. Whatever’s coming, it’s bad enough that even Ian’s trying to brace me for it.
There’s a knock on the door, and somehow between punching Andrei and listening to Ian’s sarcasm I missed that Sophia came down the goddamn stairs, and now she’s opening the front door.
Every trained instinct I have crystallizes into something cold and absolute before I've fully processed what I'm looking at.
Rowan fucking Capello.
Standing there, silver-templed and unhurried, wearing the particular stillness of a man who has never once needed to announce his presence in any room he’s entered. He stands close enough to Sophia that the space between them feels deliberate—calculated. The positioning of someone who has done his research and wants you to know it.
The air in the room changes. Thickens. Like the moment before a blade leaves its sheath.
I’m across the room before I’ve even decided to move.
My hand finds Sophia's arm, pulling her behind me in one clean motion, and I plant myself between her and the man who has been the architect of my entire life and ready to carve out his liver if he even so much as looks at her wrong.
"Nazareth," he says.
“I know a debt is due,” I say, quiet. The most dangerous register I own—low, flat, and dripping with the promise of violence. “But come close to her again and I’ll rip every tooth from your skull while you’re still breathing… then feed them to you one by one.”
The silence that follows is razor-sharp. A single beat stretching into eternity.
“Duly noted,” Rowan says calmly.
I take one step closer, voice dropping even lower. “Say it like you mean it.”
"I mean it." His eyes hold mine, steady. "You've built something worth protecting. I'm not here to threaten it."
Behind me, I feel Sophia's hand find the back of my shirt, fingers curling into the fabric—not pulling me back, just present, anchoring.
Rowan walks inside like he belongs between these walls, looks at Ian. Nods. I don’t miss it, the look between them, the silent acknowledgement of them knowing something the rest of us don’t.
I slam the door hard enough to rattle the frame, wrap my arm around Sophia’s waist, and pull her in, placing a kiss on her temple before lowering my lips to her ear. “I need you to go upstairs. Lock the door. And do not open for anyone except me.”
I squeeze her one more time, feeling the shape of her curve to mine, then let go, never taking my eyes off Rowan as she moves up the stairs. One move…one wrong goddamn move, and today’s date will be engraved on his motherfucking tombstone.
Only when I hear the bedroom door shut upstairs and the lock click into place do I move.
I step into the living room, every sense sharpened, watching Rowan take a seat by the window like he owns the fucking house. The late light cuts across his silver temples, casting long shadows that make him look carved from something colder than stone.
He settles in with deliberate calm, crossing one leg over the other, adjusting his cuff with the same unhurried precision he’s used to ruin lives for decades.
