CHAPTER FORTY ONE

"Some questions deserve an answer. Some questions deserve an interruption."MYRAThe garden went very quiet.Luca's question just sat there between us, taking up all the air, and I had absolutely no idea what to do with it. My mouth was open slightly. I could feel it. I probably looked like someone had just asked me to solve a math problem in a language I didn't speak.Are you in love with him?The honest answer was that I didn't know. And I mean that in the most genuine, non-evasive way possible. It wasn't that I was hiding something from my brother. It was that I genuinely, truly did not know what was happening inside me when it came to Zyran Theon, and putting the word love on top of it felt like trying to label something that was still forming. Still figuring out what it was.What I did know was this — the last few days had been different. Good different. The kind of different that sneaked up on you and settled into your chest before you had the chance to question it.After that f

Last Updated : 2026-06-06

CHAPTER FORTY TWO

CHAPTER FORTY TWO"Trauma doesn't announce itself. It just walks around a corner and finds you."MYRAI didn't have a plan when I left the house.That was the honest truth. I'd walked out of that front door on pure feeling, which was probably not my smartest move given everything Zyran had said about the security situation, but I'd been so full of frustration and hurt and that suffocating feeling of walls closing in that staying inside one more minute felt impossible.So I'd walked.The evening air was cool and the street outside the estate was quiet and I just followed it, hands in my jacket pockets, letting my feet make the decisions while my brain slowly came down from the argument. The city existed around me in that comfortable background way it always did — traffic sounds, distant music from somewhere, the smell of food from a restaurant I passed on the corner.I knew Marcus or someone was probably behind me. Zyran wouldn't have just let me walk out without coverage, that wasn't

Last Updated : 2026-06-07

CHAPTER FORTY THREE

"The scariest thing about old wounds is how quickly they reopen."MYRAHe left.That was the thing I kept coming back to in the hours afterward. He didn't touch me. Didn't follow me. Didn't do anything except say those words and then stand there a moment longer with that smile, letting them settle, and then simply turn and walk away like he'd accomplished exactly what he came to do.Which he had.That was the thing about Jeremy that I'd never been able to explain to anyone, the thing that made people who hadn't experienced it look at you with that slightly confused expression when you tried to describe why you were still scared of someone who had technically never put you in the hospital. He didn't need to do much. He'd spent months learning exactly where to press and how hard and he never forgot what he'd learned. All he needed was a few minutes and the right words and he could undo weeks of progress in one clean move.Still pretending you're worth something?I stood in that parking

Last Updated : 2026-06-08

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

"Shame is the lie that says the things that were done to you are proof of what you are."MYRAI knew he was looking into it.I didn't ask him to confirm it. Didn't bring it up at breakfast the next morning or the morning after that. I just knew, the way you know things about a person once you've been living in their space long enough to read their rhythms. Zyran had gone quiet in a specific way — not the usual controlled quiet but something with more weight to it, something that sat behind his eyes when he looked at me and made me want to look somewhere else.He was finding things out.The thought made my stomach turn in a way I couldn't fully explain. It wasn't fear exactly. It was closer to that particular feeling of having someone walk into a room you've kept locked for a long time. Not because you're dangerous. Just because you're ashamed of the mess inside.I'd spent a long time building a very careful version of myself. Not fake, exactly. Just — edited. The version of Myra that

Last Updated : 2026-06-09

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

"The cruelest thing about a ghost is that it knows exactly which doors to walk through."MYRA"Oh, how gorgeous," she said, setting it on the kitchen island. "Someone must really love you, Mrs. Theon."I looked up from my coffee.The arrangement was stunning, objectively. Tall white lilies this time, mixed with something soft and trailing and pale green, put together by someone who knew what they were doing. The kind of flowers that cost enough to make a statement. The kind that arrived in proper florist packaging with a ribbon and a sealed card in a small envelope.Elena was smiling at it the way my mother would have smiled at it. The way any normal person would smile at an extravagant flower delivery to a newlywed woman."Did a card come with it?" I asked. My voice came out even. I was proud of that."Right here." She handed me the envelope, still smiling, already turning back toward the stove.I looked at the envelope in my hand.My name on the front in handwriting I recognized imm

Last Updated : 2026-06-10

CHAPTER FORTY SIX

"The thing about silence is that it tells you everything the words won't."ZYRANShe knocked twice before I registered it.I was in the middle of a call with our contact in the financial district about Sokolov's recent asset movements, and I almost let it go, almost held up a finger and mouthed one minute the way I would with anyone else. But something about the knock itself stopped me. The sound of it. Uncertain in a way Myra's knock wasn't usually uncertain."I'll call you back," I said, and hung up before he could respond."Come in."She opened the door and stood in the frame for a moment before stepping inside, and I read her in the first three seconds the way I'd learned to read her — the slight tension across her shoulders, the careful stillness of her face that meant she was working to keep it that way, the hands that she'd tucked into her cardigan pocket probably because she didn't trust what they were doing otherwise.Something had happened."Sit down," I said, keeping my voi

Last Updated : 2026-06-11