Chapter 71

Lila’s POV

The moment Drew stepped into my apartment, it was like the ground shifted under my feet.

It wasn’t just that he was there, tall, broad, filling the doorway like some immovable force. It was how he was there. His face was pale, tight, his eyes scanning until they locked on me.

And then it was like nothing else in the room existed.

The officers, Mrs. Williams, the notebook lying half open on the table, even the echo of Max’s venom still clinging to my walls didn't matter. None of it mattered.

His gaze pinned me. Raw, unblinking, burning with something I didn’t recognize.

He didn’t ask about Max. He didn’t ask about the broken picture frame on the floor that broke when Max pushed me or the bruise forming on my wrist.

He only asked one thing.

“Are you alright?”

It wasn’t casual. It wasn’t rehearsed like when people toss the phrase into conversation. It was stripped bare, like the words had been carved out of him against his will.

And for a heartbeat, I forgot how to breathe.

The younger officer coughed, clearly thrown by Drew’s sudden arrival and also irritated at being brushed off. He stepped forward, gesturing toward him with his pen. “Sir, and you are?”

Before Drew could speak, I jumped in, my voice too quick, like something that was rehearsed. “He’s my boss. Drew Sinclair. We’re working together… even on Max’s case.”

The officer blinked, clearly unconvinced, but nodded and scribbled something in his notes. Drew didn’t even glance at him. His eyes never left me.

They asked one last round of routine questions, their words washing over me like static. Mrs. Williams chimed in once or twice, confirming what she had heard and seen. My answers came broken, uneven, but they wrote them down anyway.

Finally, they said they would patrol the area through the night and reassured me to call immediately if Max returned, before stepping out into the hall.

The silence they left behind was heavier than before.

Mrs. Williams lingered. Her eyes darted between Drew and me, and then she chuckled softly, shaking her head. “He doesn’t act like just your boss, Lila. He looks more like your boyfriend.”

Blood rushed to my face. “Mrs. Williams.”

She raised her brows knowingly, tightening her scarf around her shoulders. “Don’t deny it. I’ve lived long enough to know what I just saw. That’s not a boss’s look, sweetheart. That’s a man’s look.”

I swallowed, my chest tightening, but before I could reply, she patted my hand gently and slipped out. “I’ll let you two… sort yourselves out.” she said before walking to the door and pulling it closed behind her.

And then it was just us.

The quiet between us wasn’t simple silence. It was charged, alive, like standing too close to a storm.

When I turned, Drew was still staring at me. His jaw was clenched so tightly a muscle ticked in his cheek. His hands were balled into fists at his sides, the veins along his forearms taut.

“What happened?” His voice was low, sharp. Not calm but still controlled. The kind of control that feels like it’s moments away from shattering.

I hesitated, because for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t sure what part of the truth to give him. But the weight of his stare pressed the words out of me.

“I came home and Max was here. In my apartment.” My voice cracked on the last word.

Drew’s expression didn’t change, but his stillness became terrifying.

“He was waiting for me,” I whispered. “He… he grabbed me. He said I betrayed him, that I was nothing without him. And then he pushed me, really hard. I…” My hand flew to my stomach out of instinct, the memory making my throat close. “I fell to the ground and if I hadn’t caught myself, if I had hit the wall harder”

I couldn’t finish because I suddenly remembered that Drew didn't know that I was pregnant yet. I had become too comfortable with Drew that I nearly exposed my secret. My breath faltered and even my chest was shaking.

But something in Drew snapped. Colour drained completely from his face.

He moved before I even registered it, ripping his phone from his pocket. His thumb pressed the screen so hard I thought he might crack it.

“Drew?” My voice was thin, uncertain.

He didn’t answer me. He pressed the phone to his ear, his entire body coiled like a predator about to strike.

The line must have connected because suddenly his voice exploded, raw and deadly.

“You had one job!” His roar shook the air, the sheer force of it making me flinch. “One job to watch over her. To keep her safe. And you couldn’t fucking do it?”

My heart stopped. Watch over me?

“I told you she was your top priority,” he continued, his voice slicing through the room. “The only thing that should matter to you. And somehow, he got into her home, laid his hands on her, and you didn’t even notice? What the hell do I pay you for?”

My hand clutched the back of the chair so tightly my knuckles burned.

I wasn’t imagining things all those weeks. The strange glances, the prickling sense of being followed, the headlights that lingered too long behind me on the drive home.

It wasn't just me being paranoid.

It had been real.

Drew had placed people around me. To protect me.

He wasn’t finished.

“You’re done. All of you. Fired.” His words cut like knives, each one more brutal than the last. “Get out. I never want to hear your names again or see you. Since you couldn't protect her I will do it myself and if I see you near her, if you so much as breathe her name, I’ll bury you all in ways you can’t crawl out of.”

The silence after he hung up was so sharp I swore I could hear my heartbeat echo in my ears.

His chest rose and fell violently, his grip still crushing the phone in his hand. He didn’t move, didn’t look at me as though he wasn’t sure what would happen if he did.

And I couldn’t move either.

Because all I could think was Drew did this for me.

He cared enough to surround me with unseen walls, to place people in the shadows, to ensure I wasn’t alone even when I thought I was.

I looked at him now, as he stood in the middle of my living room, his shoulders rising and falling with each ragged breath. Fury still clung to him like smoke, but beneath it I saw something else. Something I couldn’t name.

This was not the Drew Sinclair I knew. The cold, untouchable man who dissected emotions like equations, who carried himself as though nothing could pierce him.

This was a man whose fury was unrestrained, whose anger came not from inconvenience but from fear. For me.

And I didn’t know whether to cry, to thank him, or to run.

I didn’t know whether this made him more dangerous… or the only safe place I had left.

Suddenly Drew looked like a man who would burn the world down for me.