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Cami took one look at my face and wisely said nothing. Just handed me a bottle of water and a set of car keys from behind the register. “Figured you’d need these.”
I blinked. “How did you?—?”
She smirked. “Love, I know a woman fleeing a crime scene when I see one.”
The joke didn’t land. Not with the way my chest ached. Not with the lump burning the back of my throat.
I took the keys, murmured something like thanks, and walked out into the evening. My SUV was parked a block down—silver, sun-warmed, and mercifully out of sight of the reporters still sniffing around the front.
I slid into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and let the silence wrap around me.
And then I pulled out my phone.
On my way back.
Everything okay?
I stared at his name—Cipher—just that one word, that alias, that armor—and felt something splinter in me all over again.
Define “okay.”
Did you pack to stay awhile?
I gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white.
No.
Understood.
That was all he said.
No questions. No pressure.
He knew. Somehow, he knew.
I dropped the phone in the passenger seat, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb.
Whatever that had been upstairs—ambush, betrayal, well-meaning nightmare—I was done with it.
For now, at least.
Let them keep their secrets. Their pity. Their carefully prepared monologues.
I was going back to the one person who didn’t try to fix me. The one who saw the fire and didn’t flinch.
And if the world wanted to burn around me?
He’d stand in the smoke. With me.
18
ELIAS
Vivi’s footsteps echoed through Dominion Hall’s marble halls, a rhythm that hit me like a pulse. I was at my desk, screens glowing with Jessa’s half-cracked digital trail, but the second I heard her, my focus shattered. My cock twitched, already hard, her scent still burned into me from this morning. But something was off. The air felt heavy, like a storm brewing, and when she stepped into my suite, her green eyes glinted with a fire too sharp, too wild.
She dropped her bag, jeans hugging her ass like a sin, my black T-shirt slipping off one shoulder, exposing a bruise I’d left last night. Her curls were a damp, tangled mess, and her grin was wicked, but it didn’t reach her eyes. My demon stirred, sensing a crack in her armor, a shadow she wasn’t showing.
“You’re back,” I said, voice rough, standing to meet her. “How was Jessa?”