LOGINLily-Rose did not run.She only put space between her body and Sienna’s hands. In the Hale hall that space felt loud. Reed stood dirty from the road. Cole was at her shoulder. Jax watched from the wall like he had already seen this crack coming. Mara looked satisfied.Sienna did not follow the step at once.“Lily.”“Don’t.” Lily-Rose’s voice was low. “Don’t put your hand on my face like I’m still only yours.”Sienna’s eyes darkened. Want was still there. So was control.“You are still under the claim.”“I was a job.”“You were a job first.” Sienna’s throat moved. “I still want you. That part is not acting.”Lily-Rose hated that her body answered. Heat went through her like a traitor. She could still feel last night on the west-room floor. She could still feel the kiss at the table. Now both memories had dirt on them.Reed spoke without looking away from Sienna.“You walked her out of one house on Hale’s order.”“I walked her out because the door was already open,” Sienna said. “Hale s
They heard the truck before they saw it.Cole was on his feet first. Sienna did not stand as fast. Lily-Rose felt the sound in her chest and already knew the engine.Reed.Mara wiped her mouth with a napkin like a guest had arrived on time.“Bring him to the gate. Not the table. Not yet.”Two Hale men went out. Through the front window Lily-Rose saw the dark truck stop short of the fence. Reed got out alone. No bag in his hand. Dust on his clothes. His eyes found the porch, then Lily-Rose in the glass.He looked at her like he needed proof she was still standing.Mara walked out. Sienna followed. Lily-Rose came because Sienna’s glance said stay close. Cole took her back.Reed stopped at the closed gate.“I’m here for them.”Mara’s voice carried in the morning air.“You’re here because you followed a debt onto Hale ground. That makes you a question, not a guest.”Reed’s eyes moved to Sienna.“She with you by choice?”Lily-Rose answered before Sienna could.“I walked.”Reed’s shoulders
Lily-Rose woke on the floor with her back still against the door.Her body was sore in a small, mean way. Not from being taken. From being left wanting. The west room was grey. Someone was already moving in the hall.A knock came. Not Sienna’s two knocks. One hard knock.“Downstairs,” Mara said through the wood. “Wash. Eat. Then the table. Both of you.”Lily-Rose stood, washed with the cold water in the basin, and pulled her clothes straight. She did not look soft. She did not look slept.Cole was at the bottom of the stairs. His eyes checked her face first, then her hands, like he needed to know she was still herself.“You held,” he said.“I shut the door.”“That’s holding.”Sienna came down from the east side a minute later. They saw each other in the open hall and did not touch. The air between them went tight anyway. Lily-Rose’s mouth remembered the crack in the door. Sienna’s eyes said she remembered it too.Mara watched that look and seemed pleased in a cold way.“Good. Hunger s
The west room had a bed, a chair, and a door with no lock on her side.Lily-Rose sat on the bed and looked at her hand. The one that had been on Sienna’s jaw. The skin there still felt used. The house had taken that touch and then pulled them apart like the touch was the whole point.Cole had been sent downstairs.Jax was somewhere she could not see.Sienna was on the other side of the hall.Lily-Rose heard a door close. East. Not far.She stood up. Sat down. Stood up again.Mara’s rule was simple.No hall without a knock answered.If they broke it, the next price got named in front of Jimmy.Lily-Rose pressed her forehead to the wood of her own door.She did not knock.Her body wanted the east room.Her pride wanted not to give Hale that picture.Both wants sat in her at once and made her sick with heat.Footsteps passed. Slow. Not Sienna’s. A man’s. They stopped outside her door long enough for her breath to stop with them. Then they moved on.Lily-Rose’s mouth went dry.She backed
Lily-Rose heard Sienna before she saw her.Not a word.A breath. Cut short.She stopped at the half-open door with her hand on the frame. Mara’s rule sat in her mouth: don’t call her name. Walk in. Sit where you are told.The room was larger than the last one. Long table. Two chairs pulled out. A window with the curtain half drawn. Sienna sat in the far chair with her back straight and her wrists on the table, not tied, but placed. Like someone had told her where her hands were allowed to rest.A man stood behind her. Not Jimmy. Not Jax. Older. Quiet. One hand near Sienna’s shoulder, not touching it.Sienna’s eyes found Lily-Rose at once.The look was a warning and a claim in the same second.Don’t run.Don’t speak first.Don’t make this look weak.Lily-Rose walked in.Mara closed the door behind her. The click was small and final.“Sit,” Mara said.Lily-Rose sat in the empty chair. The table was the only thing between her and Sienna. Close enough to see the pulse in Sienna’s throat.
The door stayed shut.Lily-Rose stood in the middle of the small room and listened for Sienna’s steps. They faded down the Hale hall and then were gone. Cole did not move from the door. Jax did not move from the wall.No one spoke at first.Lily-Rose’s wrist still felt Sienna’s fingers. Her mouth still remembered last night. Her chest now held a different thing: Sienna had walked out first, and Jax was the man left in the room.She looked at him properly.This was not the Jax from Jimmy’s yard.Not the man who kept distance and heat in the same body.This one stood like he already knew the house rules.“You told them about me,” she said.“Yes.”“You told them about Reed and Cole.”“Yes.”“You told them Sienna took what used to turn around me.”Jax’s voice stayed low.“I told them what was already true. I didn’t invent the leaving. I didn’t invent the cabin. I didn’t invent her hand on you.”Cole’s eyes cut to him.“You sold the map.”Jax did not deny it.“I survived. Jimmy wanted her







