I DARE YOU!

CHAPTER 5

CYRUS

She actually came.

I heard the door before I saw her. That soft click I was already addicted to. The one that meant she wasn’t running.

I didn’t turn around. Kept my back to her, staring out the study window. The estate was dark. The garden lights made the hedges look like teeth. My reflection in the glass was a stranger. Jaw tight. Knuckles white around a whiskey glass I hadn’t touched in ten minutes.

“Put your phone on the desk. Now.”

My voice came out low. Flat. The voice I used when I was dismantling companies and men. The voice that made CFOs forget how to breathe.

I heard her inhale. Sharp. Startled.

Good. She should be.

“Excuse me?”

Did she just say that to me ? 

I turned. Slow. Controlled. Every movement was a choice.

She was still in the robe. Wearing slippers. Hair still damp. But her chin was up. That new defiance was back in her eyes. The one that had poured wine on me and dared me to flinch.

“You heard me.” I nodded to the black glass desk. “Phone on the Desk Now.”

Her eyes narrowed. She wasn’t scared. She was calculating. Weighing me. “Why?”

“Because I said so.”

“Not good enough.”

The whiskey glass creaked in my grip. No one talked to me like that. No one breathed wrong without consequences. Except her. She walked in here like she owned the air.

“You got a text.” It wasn’t a question.

Her whole body went still. Just for a second. But I saw it. The flicker. The confirmation.

“How did you—”

“Didn’t.” I cut her off. “But your face just told me everything I need to know.”

She didn’t deny it. Didn’t lie. That was new too. The old Lisa would’ve folded. Would’ve apologized for having a phone.

“What did it say?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Lying to me is a bad idea, Lisa.”

“Then stop asking questions you won’t like the answers to, Brother.”

That word. Again. Deliberate. A knife she kept twisting just to see if I’d bleed.

I set the glass down. Too hard. Whiskey sloshed over the rim. “The phone. Last time I ask.”

She stared at me for three heartbeats. Then she moved. Slow. Like she was walking toward a lion with her throat bared. She set the phone face-up on the desk. The screen was still lit.

I saw it.

*Unknown:* _I saw what you did at dinner, Lisa. Cute trick with the wine. But you’re playing with fire. He burns people like you for fun. Run while you still can._

Rage hit first. Hot. Clean. Someone was threatening her. Meaning the bastard or bítch is in the house.

Then something colder. Uglier.

He burns people like you for fun.

They meant me.

I picked up her phone. The case was cheap. Cracked in the corner. Nothing like the diamond-encrusted trash Vanessa carried. 

“Who sent this?”

“I don’t know. Unknown number.”

“Who knows about the wine?”

Her eyes flashed. “Everyone at that table, Cyrus. I wasn’t exactly subtle.”

“You think this is a joke?”

“No.” Her voice dropped. Finally, something real. “I think someone wants me scared of you.”

“Are you?”

She stepped closer. Not away. Closer. The robe whispered around her ankles. I could smell her now. Clean. No perfume. Just her.

“Should I be?” she whispered.

"Yes,you should be.

I set her phone down. My hand was shaking. I hid it by making a fist.

“Someone in that house is watching you.” The words tasted like ash. “And they’re using me to do it.”

“Or maybe they’re warning me about you.” She tilted her head. “Are they wrong?”

I looked at her. Really looked. A year ago, she would’ve crumbled under this. A year ago, she would’ve begged me to fix it. 

Now she was standing in my study at midnight, barefoot and furious, asking me if I was the monster in her story.

“Maybe not,” I said. Honest. Brutal. “But I didn’t send that text.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“Because you don’t warn people. You just destroy them.”

The words hit harder than they should have. Because she was right. Because she saw me. All of me. And she still walked in here.

I ran a hand through my hair. Felt like I was losing control of something I never had to begin with.

“Delete it,” I said.

“No.”

“Lis—”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do.” Her voice didn’t shake. “Not unless you tell me why you wanted me here.”

I stared at her. At the way she said you. Like it was a challenge. Like it was a lifeline.

Why did I want her here?

To scare her? To protect her? To figure out why the sight of her made my chest feel like it was caving in?

“I don’t know,” I admitted. The truth tasted like blood.

She blinked. That was the first crack. The first sign she hadn’t expected honesty.

“Okay,” she said softly. “Then I’ll stay until you do.”

She walked past me. Not to the door. To the leather chair by the fireplace. She sat. Crossed her legs. The robe parted just enough to be dangerous.

And she waited.

Like she had all the time in the world. Like she knew I was the one trapped.

My phone buzzed on the desk. 

Unknown number.

I picked it up.

*Unknown:* She’s in your study, isn’t she? Tick tock, King. You don’t have long before she learns what you really are.

My blood went cold.

I looked up. Lisa was watching me. Saw my face change. Saw everything.

“Who is it?” she asked.

I locked the phone. Sl

id it into my pocket. “No one.”

“Cyrus.”

“Go back to your room, Lisa.”

“No.”she said

“Now.”

“Make me.” she dared

Two words. That’s all it took.

The devil she woke up wasn’t hungry anymore.

He was starving. 

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