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"Pretty," I echo, allowing my gaze to drift over her. "Yes. Quiet?" I smirk faintly, remembering how she moaned when I touched her. "You haven't given me that once."

She rises from the bed as I slide the Patek Philippe onto my wrist.

"You're lying," she says simply, no accusation, just certainty.

I walk toward the door, pausing just before I cross the threshold. "Don't forget to eat. Another delivery should be here soon."

"Don't shut me out." Her voice follows me, insistent.

I look at her then. Really look. Her chest rising and falling with tight, deliberate breaths. Her jaw set. Her fistsclenched. Not because she's afraid—but because she doesn't want me to know she's rattled.

And because I'm a bastard—I give her something else instead. Something unexpected.

"There's a room at the end of the hall. Use it for your art."

She blinks, momentarily thrown. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"You're giving me a studio?" Disbelief colors her voice.

"I'm giving you a space to keep your hands busy and your head quiet." I keep my tone neutral, matter-of-fact.

Her mouth opens, but I cut her off with a tilt of my head. "You said you wanted freedom. This is the only version of it you're going to get."

She's silent. And for the first time since she opened her mouth, she doesn't seem to know what to say. The surprise in her eyes is worth every dollar the supplies cost me.

I turn away before she can find the words. I don't look back. I don't let myself hesitate. But as I move through the hall, something gnaws at the edge of my thoughts—quiet, persistent, sharp.

The room I gave her? It's not just about keeping her busy. It's about keeping her here. Because if she's painting, she's not running. If she's focused, she's not slipping through the cracks. And if she's creating something—something she loves, something that feels like hers—maybe she'll start to forget the fact that she was never supposed to belong in the first place.

Or maybe I'll forget this growing need to protect her.

The elevator doors close behind me, sealing the silence in like a coffin. I don't speak. Don't look at anyone as I walk through the garage—just head toward the back where the lights are low and the walls close in, a pocket of shadow I've always preferred.

The bike waits for me there, matte black and humming quiet power even before I press the ignition. I pull on my jacket without thinking, the movements muscle memory after years of practice. Gloves. Helmet. Grip. Each item another layer of armor against whatever's waiting for me out there.

This is the only place I feel it—stillness inside the motion. The contradiction that somehow makes perfect sense.

I swing my leg over, shift my weight, fire the engine. The sound rips through the quiet like a blade, but it doesn't startle me. It never does. The vibration travels up my legs, my spine, settling somewhere behind my ribs—a reminder that control is physical as much as mental.

I take the exit fast. Merge without blinking. The morning traffic parts around me as I weave between cars, the only evidence of my passing a fleeting disturbance in the air.

And I head straight for the one place I know I'll get what I need.

The PI's office is across the river—tucked into a nondescript building between a shuttered nightclub and a parking garage no one uses anymore. No signage. No neighbors. The kind of place built for men who want information and never want to explain how they got it.

Her file will be waiting. I want to see it for myself. I want to hold it. Feel the weight of it in my hand. Her life. Her history. Everything she didn't say.

Luna Laurent.

She didn't lie about her name. She just didn't tell me the one that mattered.

She broke the rules. And now I have a feeling I'm about to break mine.

Twenty-Three

BECKETT