บททั้งหมดของ Encore with the Devil: บทที่ 91 - บทที่ 100

I don’t burn the castle down.I come close, though.Turns out, baking in Bianca’s kitchen is a full‑contact sport.“Flour,” she says, handing Sofie a measuring cup.Sofie hears: *dump entire bag in one spot on the counter.*“Stir,” Bianca orders.Sofie hears: *fling batter with enthusiastic circular motions.*By the time the muffins go into the oven, the three of us are dusted in white like we just walked out of a very low‑budget snowstorm.Bianca looks at me, at the sugar crusted on my forearms, and sighs.“You’re worse than her,” she says.“She gets it from me,” I say.“You keep saying that like it’s a good thing,” she mutters, but there’s a tiny smile at the corner of her mouth.Sofie holds up her hands.“Sticky!” she announces.“Yes,” I say. “Because you put your whole hand in the bowl, traitor.”She beams.“Good muffins,” she says, utterly certain.We dump her in a bath after the muffins go in, Bianca clucking the whole time about syrup hair and sugar ants.By the time I emerge,

There’s a difference between agreeing to stay and accepting it.I agreed.Acceptance is…pending.The rest of the day crawls and sprints at the same time.Bianca keeps feeding me.Ava keeps side‑eyeing my water intake.Jace keeps disappearing into rooms with screens and reappearing with new frown lines.Kael keeps vanishing into his office and reemerging like a stormfront every few hours, glancing at Sofie as if reassuring himself she’s still here before going back to whatever fires he’s putting outOn the surface, it almost looks normal.A house.A kid.Meals.Underneath, it hums like a live wire.By late afternoon, my skin feels too tight.I can’t sit, can’t write, can’t play. Every time I look at the piano, I hear his voice saying “cage,” and every time I look at the door, I hear him saying “bullet.”I need air.Real, outside air.Not just the tempered smell of lemon oil and expensive HVAC.So when Bianca says, “I’ll keep her for nap,” and scoops a yawning, sticky‑fingered Sofie up

By the next evening, the house has settled into a strange rhythm that feels suspiciously like routine.Which I hate.Wake.Coffee.Vitals.Security briefing with Jace sounds like a cross between a crime podcast and a weather report.Studio.Lunch.Sofie chaos.Therapy.Dinner.Piano.Lurked‑at by one mafia wolf with excellent bone structure and terrible boundaries.On the surface, it almost looks like a retreat.Underneath, it’s still a cage.I tell myself I’m only playing along so I can gather intel for my eventual, fiery escape.I tell myself a lot of things.By the time night falls, my throat aches in that familiar way—too much humming, not enough proper rest.Ava would kill me if she knew.Bianca shepherds Sofie off to bed with promises of a story and exactly one song that is not the lullaby.I wander toward the studio because I don’t know what else to do with my hands.Or my head.Or my anger.The console room lights are low when I walk in, a soft glow over the boards and screens

By the time the house smells like tomatoes and garlic instead of lemon oil and tension, my brain is buzzing from more than just caffeine.Watching Kael fumble his way through helping Bianca and Sofie make sauce is…disorienting.He’s terrible at it.He cuts vegetables too precisely, like he’s dissecting a threat.He keeps trying to wipe the counter every time Sofie splashes tomato on it, and Bianca keeps slapping his hand away.“Sauce is messy,” she scolds. “Let it be messy.”“You’re getting it on the floor,” he says.“That’s what mops are for,” she replies. “Go check your emails if you’re going to cry about stains.”Sofie, apron askew, flour on her cheek, waves a wooden spoon like a wand.“Glary sauce!” she chants.He looks more rattled by her joy than by any gunfire I’ve seen him talk about.It should make me feel safer, seeing him like this.It doesn’t.It just makes him more human.And humans are harder to hate.Which is a problem.After lunch, the house falls into a post‑meal lull

By the time Jace drags me into the war room, my rage list is three pages long, and my hand cramps.The “war room” is technically just another office off the main hall—smaller than Kael’s, cluttered with monitors, maps, and enough wires to strangle an entire boy band. It smells like coffee, stress, and the faint ozone of overheated electronics.Screens line one wall: city maps, financial charts, grainy camera feeds, a paused frame of my face under stage lights.I hate that one.Jace sits behind a secondary desk, and glasses perched low on his nose, tapping rapidly on a keyboard. He looks up when I enter, flicks his gaze to the notebook in my hand, and nods approvingly.“Good,” he says. “You brought ammunition.”“This is not a gun,” I say, holding up the notebook.“Depends who’s reading,” he replies.Kael stands by the main screen, hands in his pockets, expression grim. He doesn’t look away from the monitor when I step in.I plant myself by the table, cross my arms.“You said you were g