Chapter 2

The man who had seemed pale, almost fragile just minutes ago, now regards me with a cold, unreadable expression. His eyes, once warm and expressive, are shuttered, as if hiding secrets I’ll never be privy to. It’s as though the vulnerable Rowan I thought I saw was nothing but a trick of the light, a mirage dissolving into something harder, colder.

“Lynette Gold,” he says, his tone sharp and formal, sending a pang of confusion through me.

I flinch, his use of my full name landing like a slap. He shuts the door behind him with an eerie gentleness, the soft click reverberating through the room. As he strides toward me, his movements are deliberate, his gait slow and almost predatory. There’s an elegance to him, but it’s laced with an unspoken menace, as though he’s testing how close he can get without setting me off.

“Yes, Lynette,” I say, my voice unsteady as I watch him closely. “Remind me, why is my last name being used here?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he walks past me, and the faintest breeze stirs the air between us, carrying his scent. I inhale instinctively, and my body tenses.

Rosewood. Sage. Cinnamon.

It’s intoxicating, alluring, a mix that clings to the air like a spell. But my mind rebels. Rowan hates sage, and rosewood has always made him sneeze. Cinnamon—yes, maybe on rare occasions—but never this blend, never this overwhelming, magnetic combination.

My heart skips a beat as confusion tangles with the growing unease in my chest. Something is wrong.

Still reeling, I watch him as he circles his desk, every step deliberate, measured, like a man who knows the weight of every move he makes. He lowers himself into his chair slowly, yet his posture is rigid, as though the seat is made of nails.

And then he smiles.

It’s not the smile I know. Rowan’s smile used to be warm, disarming, something that could light up a room. This one is too quick, too wide. His lips, usually a soft, natural pink, are now a deeper hue—carnation, almost artificial. It’s a small detail, but it sticks out like a thorn, jarring and unnatural.

“Take a seat,” he says, his voice smooth but distant, like a hand guiding me into the dark.

The invitation sounds more like a dismissal, but I obey, sinking into the chair opposite him. My muscles are tight, my nerves frayed. My eyes never leave his face as my mind struggles to reconcile the Rowan I once knew with the stranger before me.

“You’re back,” he says, his tone careful, calculated. “How’s your health now?”

I blink, momentarily caught off guard by the shift in conversation. “The monks said I need to take it easy, or the sickness might return. After a few months, I’ll be fully cleared. They’re sending me herbs regularly.”

“You should’ve stayed,” he replies, his voice dropping an octave, turning colder. “Six more months, and you’d have been fully healed.”

There’s something cryptic in his words, a weight beneath them that I can’t decipher. My fingers grip the armrests of the chair as frustration bubbles to the surface.

“I was worried about you, Rowan,” I snap, my voice trembling with a mix of anger and hurt. “You cut off all communication with me. What did you expect me to do? If you’re tired of our friendship, you should have made a clean cut instead of making me feel like shit.”

His expression remains impassive, his gaze sharp.

“And you couldn’t even bother to tell me…” My voice falters, and I clench my fists to steady myself. “You couldn’t even tell me about your prodigal brother returning. Only for him to—” My throat tightens, the words catching. “Only for him to die.”

The room falls into silence, the weight of my words hanging between us like a storm cloud.

Rowan doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch. He sits there, staring at me with that same unnerving calm, his eyes giving nothing away. A chill ripples through my body, raising goosebumps on my arms despite the warmth of the room. “He didn’t die,” he says, his voice sharp enough to slice through glass. “He was murdered. In my house.”

The words land heavily, leaving a knot in my stomach. My breath catches, and I rub my arm nervously, guilt blooming like a bruise across my chest. Still, his eyes—so frigid, so detached—send a new wave of unease crashing over me. There’s a wall between us, thick and impenetrable, and I feel like I’m standing outside it on a stormy winter night, battered by a cold that refuses to relent.

But then I see it—a flicker of self-loathing buried beneath his icy exterior. It’s there for just a moment before he turns away. My heart clenches, and I press gently, trying to break through. “So, you want to avenge him?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. His eyes harden, his expression becoming distant as if he’s staring at something I can’t see. The silence stretches, heavy and oppressive, until he finally turns his back to me, his movements slow, deliberate. He begins sorting through the papers on his desk, the rustle of pages a faint, almost hollow sound.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t look at me. It’s like I’ve ceased to exist.

But I notice the tremors. His hands shake ever so slightly as he arranges the documents, his veins standing out against his pale skin like angry rivers. There’s a tension in his shoulders, a quiet fury barely contained, and I feel it radiating from him like heat from a dying ember.

I lean back in my chair, my mind swirling with confusion. My gaze lingers on him, studying every movement, every detail, searching for answers in the man I thought I knew.

“Rowan,” I say softly, shifting the conversation. “The temple was… peaceful. Different. It helped me heal.” My words are light, meant to ease the tension, but inside, I’m unraveling.

His responses are careful, measured, as if he’s picking each word from a list. He asks me questions, but they feel shallow, detached. As I speak, I notice his hands. Rowan’s always been left-handed, his movements unmistakably fluid, but now he switches between hands with ease. His fingers tap against the desk—precise, rhythmic, calculated. Not the absent, unconscious drumming I’ve always associated with him.

Something’s terribly wrong.

The air between us feels heavy, charged with an unspoken tension I can’t name. My chest tightens with each passing second as I watch him. His posture, his tone, his mannerisms—they’re all familiar, yet wrong in ways I can’t quite put into words.

The conversation drags on for thirty more minutes, each second feeling like an eternity. When he finally stands, it feels abrupt, like the slamming of a door. The movement signals the end, and I rise hesitantly, glancing at him as he towers over his desk.

I lean in to kiss his cheek lightly, a gesture as natural as breathing after all these years. But he doesn’t react. Not a flinch, not the usual stiffness I’d come to expect from Rowan, who always struggled to accept my affection.

“So,” I say, my voice soft, tinged with hope. “See you Friday? Maybe we can catch up properly?”

He nods once, his cherry-blonde hair shifting slightly with the movement, the gesture stiff and mechanical. “Sure,” he says, his tone distant, detached. “I’ll call you. Goodbye, Lynette. Thanks for stopping by.”

The word goodbye lodges itself in my chest like a splinter. I swallow against the lump in my throat, nodding as I grab my bag. “Always,” I murmur, turning toward the door.

As I step into the hallway, the sound of my heels clicking against the floor fills the silence. But something gnaws at the back of my mind, a persistent thought I can’t shake.

He didn’t call me Dynamite.

The nickname he’s used for years—a name that was ours. Not once during the entire conversation did he use it.

By the time I slide into my car, pulling my scarf around my neck and adjusting my sunglasses, the thought has spiraled into a realization. My heart pounds as the pieces fall into place, each one sharper than the last.

The eyes that stared at me across that desk—they weren’t violet. They were darker, an intense amethyst hue that felt foreign, unfamiliar. Rowan’s eyes have always been a lighter shade.

I grip the steering wheel, my knuckles whitening as a shiver races through me.

That man… isn’t Rowan.