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DK mutters a curse under his breath, jaw tightening again.

“He can handle it,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “And by the time Timothy’s fit and ready, we’ll have the Barons back in a good place.”

I make it sound certain.

Maybe because right now, certainty is worth more than truth.

My gaze drifts back through the glass. Back to the girl I can still taste on my tongue. The sensation hasn’t eased since we left that room—the soft sounds she made, the warmth of her skin under my hands, the way she melted into my touch like she’d been waiting for it. It was reckless as hell to do anything with her while DK wasn’t there, but I don’t regret it.

If anything, I want more.

Every time I get near her, something electric wakes up under my skin. A live wire humming hotter and louder the closer I am. The urge to push her, test her, see how far she’ll go before she snaps—or drags something worse out of me first.

There’s nothing about Arianette that says stop. If anything, she always edges closer to the flame. She asks for more with those dark eyes. With the way she breathes. With the way she looks at me like she wants every locked door in me kicked open.

I thought showing her Billy’s hand would be enough of a warning. A gift with teeth. Proof of what these hands can do when I stop holding back. The damage I’m capable of. The kind of violence that lives close to the surface.

Most girls would have run. Nettie only looked fascinated. Hungry, even.

She isn’t like anyone else.

The thought hits me harder every time I look at her.

She's been hunted. Taken. Broken in ways that would destroy most people. She’s been to hell and back, stripped her of her freedom, her sense of safety shattered, and still… she wakes up every single day and chooses to keep fighting. Not just for herself, but for us. For the men she’s bound to.

That’s what makes her different.

Inside the room, Timothy shifts against the raised hospital bed, drawing my attention back to him. He looks rough. His beard has grown dark and uneven along his jaw, several days of stubble turning him harsher somehow. Less businessman and more survivor. His skin is pale beneath it, almost bloodless under the hospital lights. Shadows sink deep under his eyes, and the lines at the corners of them seem sharper now. Wires run from his chest to the monitor beside him. Tubes trail from his arm. Machines keep count of every breath like they don’t trust him to keep taking them on his own.

His lips move, and Arianette leans closer, nearly hovering over him to catch the words. He says something else, voice too quiet to carry beyond the room. Then his eyes flutter shut mid-thought, sleep pulling him under before he can finish.

She doesn’t move right away.

Her thumb brushes once over the inside of his wrist, a small private gesture, and then she rises. When she steps into the hallway a moment later, the three of us straighten. Her eyes are wet, but she isn’t crying.

Whatever softness had been there burned itself out in that room and left something harder behind. DK’s hoodie hangs from her narrow shoulders, oversized enough that the sleeves swallow most of her hands. The hood bunches at her neck, making her look smaller than she is.

But there’s nothing small about the way she carries herself now.

“Are you okay?” DK asks first, already moving toward her. “Did he say anything?”

“I’m fine,” she says, voice level and firm. She wipes beneath one eye with the heel of her hand like the moisture annoys her more than anything else. Then she lifts her chin and looks directly at us. “Take me to see Mateo.”

The hallway stills around us.

Even Graves turns fully toward her now. “Baroness,” he begins. “The Princes have it under control.”

“No.” She cuts him off without raising her voice. “I’m done waiting. I’m done being protected from things no one else seems willing to explain.”

“He knows something.” Her gaze moves across all of us, then lands on me last. “About me. About what happened when I was gone, and I want to hear it.”

DK glances at me, then back at her. “You sure about this?”

“Yes.”

There isn’t a tremor in her voice or uncertainty. Only resolve.

“I want answers,” she says. “And I think it’s time someone gave them to me.”