CHAPTER 3: Straight Into Lies

The penthouse was exactly how I expected a billionaire's place to look. All glass and stone, polished grey floors, matte white walls. After all the noise in New Orleans, the silence here felt expensive.

Ronan dropped my bags by the door and looked around, his shoulders dropping an inch.

"It's yours for as long as you need it, Nir. Make yourself at home. I'm going to check the kitchen and see what we have for dinner. Go ahead and explore."

I wandered toward a side table near the hallway. A silver frame caught my eye. I picked it up.

It was a photo of Ronan and Adrian. They were younger, standing in front of a brick building, both laughing. Ronan looked relaxed in it, nothing like the guarded man I had seen at the airport. I stared at Adrian's boyish handsomeness, longer than I should have.

That was the man I'd spent months talking to on the phone. The one who knew my favorite colors and the things that kept me up at night.

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out. I felt my stomach turn.

Private caller.

I hesitated, then answered. But I didn't say anything. I just waited without speaking.

"Nirvana? Nirvana. I know you're there. You think you can just run away? You think your brother is going to pay what you owe me?"

My mother's voice was thin. I could hear ice clinking in a glass. My throat tightened. I tried to speak, to tell her to leave me alone. But the words felt heavy on my lips.

When I opened my mouth to finally speak, the line crackled, her words dipping in and out until the call cut off abruptly.

I was still staring at the screen when Ronan walked back in. He stopped when he saw my face. "Who was it?"

"Katerina. She knows I left." My voice trembled. "Ronan, what if she comes here? She sounded so sure of herself."

Ronan took the phone from me, his face hardening.

The thought of my mother separating me from Ronan again brought tears to my eyes. I did not want to return to her.

Ronan stepped closer and put his hands on my shoulders. "She isn't coming here, Nirvana. I’m going to handle her. Do you understand me?"

"But I don't want to be a burden," I whispered.

"You aren't a burden. You’re family. Now, go to your room. It’s the last door on the right. Your things are already inside. Just lie down for a bit. I’ll make some calls."

I headed down the hall. But before I reached my door, I heard the front door open. I heard boots on the concrete. And then that cologne, familiar in a way that made my stomach tighten.

I stayed by my door and listened.

"She's in her room. We just came in," Ronan said.

"You're a fool, Ronan." Adrian's voice was nothing like the one from the phone. It was hard and rough. "What were you thinking, bringing her here now?"

"She was in trouble. Katerina was ruining her piece by piece. I couldn't just leave her there. What was I supposed to do?", Ronan said in a hush tone.

"You should have told me.”, Adrian snapped. Then I heard him pace. “ The timing is a disaster. Bringing her here is a liability we don't need."

"She's my sister, Adrian." Ronan argued.

"She's a distraction.”, Adrian countered. “She doesn't belong here. She's soft, she spends her days with a paintbrush. The second things get difficult she's going to break. And when she does, you'll be the one picking up the pieces while the rest of us pay for it."

I leaned back against the wall. Soft. A liability. The man who once told me I was the strongest person he'd ever met was calling me a weakness to my brother's face.

"She's staying," Ronan said firmly. "I don't need your permission to protect my family."

"Keep her in that room then. I don't want her wandering around. I've got things to handle at the docks."

The front door shut.

Ronan checked on me once before stepping out to handle paperwork, reminding me to keep the door locked. The second I was sure he was gone, I walked out into the dark living room.

A leather jacket was draped over the back of a chair. Adrian's. I reached out and touched the rough leather. It was cold and smelled of rain and something metallic. There was a patch on the shoulder, a silver skull with wings. I pulled my hand back.

A faint scraping sound came from the balcony.

I walked to the glass doors. A small black box sat on the outdoor table. It hadn't been there when we arrived. I slid the door open and grabbed it. The cardboard was cold. When I pulled the lid off and my breath caught.

Inside was a single white rose. The petals were scorched, the edges black and brittle. A small handwritten note was tucked into the stem.

"Welcome to New York, Muse. We've been waiting for a new masterpiece."

I dropped the box. The rose hit the floor and broke apart. I looked out over the railing but the streets were just a blur of taxis and noise. Someone knew I was here. Someone knew my name.

I hurried back inside and locked the door. My hands were shaking as I reached for my phone.

The front door opened before I could dial.

It wasn't Ronan.

Adrian stood in the doorway, his silhouette filling the frame. He looked at me, then at the broken rose on the balcony floor behind me, then back at me.

"I told you to stay in your room," he said quietly.

"Someone was on the balcony." I held out the note.

He crossed the room, ignored the note, and checked the glass door first. Then he stepped onto the balcony. He looked over the edge and came back inside. Then hlocked the door and pulled the curtains shut. The room went nearly dark. He turned to me and held out his hand.

I gave him the note. He read it and crushed it in his fist.

"Is it my mother?"

"It's not your mother, Nirvana."

"Then who? Adrian, what is actually going on here?"

He didn't answer. He stepped closer until my back hit the glass door behind me. His hand came up to my neck, his thumb tracing my jaw slowly.

"You're asking too many questions," he murmured.

I forgot about the rose. I forgot about everything.

"You told Ronan I was a liability," I said. My voice came out softer than I wanted. "You said I was soft."

"I said a lot of things to keep my head straight."

His forehead dropped against mine. "But you're standing here in my space, and I can't think about anything else."

He kissed me before I could respond. It wasn't gentle. It was everything he'd been holding back since he walked through that door, and I stopped fighting it the second his hands found my waist.

In that moment, the note didn't matter. The rose didn't matter.

But when he finally pulled back and looked at me in the dark, what I saw in his eyes wasn't relief.

It was fear.

And Adrian Cross didn't look like a man who was afraid of anything.