Page 54

The room goes still. Even the walls seem to lean in.

Elias opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “It’s… technically art?”

“Technically art,” she repeats.

“There's lighting,” he adds helpfully.

Riven’s sitting nearby, back stiff against the wall like he’s hoping if he stays still enough, he’ll go invisible. But Luna’s not done. Oh no. She’s just warming up.

Her gaze sweeps the room, eyes narrowed to slits. “Okay. Who else has inappropriate pictures of me as their background?”

The silence that follows is the kind that only happens in a room full of men with too much power and too few survival instincts.

Riven doesn’t speak. He just shoves his phone face-down between his thighs, like maybe his crotch will absorb the evidence through sheer panic. Ambrose—fucking Ambrose—casually tucks his phone into his back pocket like he’s not currently imagining her body in six different angles and high-res clarity. He’s doing that thing with his mouth again, the twitch of a smirk that’s allI already won this, but let’s pretend we’re playing fair.

And then there’s Caspian.

Caspian, who’s so broken and guilty lately he practically glows in the dark with it, just offers Luna a sheepish, cracked smile. He lifts his phone, flips it around, and shows her the screen.

Cats. Cartoon cats in wizard hats, floating in tea cups. The most wholesome, aggressively innocent wallpaper known to man.

“See?” he says, voice soft, tentative. “I swapped it after the…uh…sobbing incident. Emotional support felines.”

Luna blinks at him.

Then blinks at the rest of us.

Then turns to me, arms crossing her chest like a damn war goddess, voice low and lethal. “Silas. Folder. Gone. Now.”

“I deleted it this morning!” I say too fast.

Elias snorts. “Liar.”

“Iwasgoing to delete it this morning,” I amend, sheepishly, “But then she smiled at me while walking past, and I felt spiritually obligated to preserve history—”

Luna storms toward me. I squeak.

And all of us—every last Sin in this room—scatter like demons in daylight.

But not before I scream over my shoulder: “IF I’M BURNING, YOU’RE ALL BURNING WITH ME!”

The moment Luna tugs on the bond, it’s like being caught mid-fall and yanked back by a cord around my ribs. One secondI’m halfway through a dramatic dive for the hallway—freedom within reach—and the next, I’m snapping upright like a cursed puppet. Elias, who had been right behind me, stumbles into the wall with a strangled gasp, eyes wide and betrayed. That damn pull she does—it’s not even aggressive, justabsolute. It doesn’t ask. It takes.

I twist around, already scowling, and there she is. Standing in the middle of the living room with a laundry basket forgotten at her feet, barefoot and weaponized with that deceptively soft smile. Her gaze flicks from me to the others, and she lifts her phone with a single finger like it’s a loaded weapon.

“Couch. All of you. Shirts off,” she says.

Elias actually chokes. “I—what?” His voice goes embarrassingly high-pitched.

She shrugs, walking a slow circle around us like a predator among startled prey. “You want to keep your little Luna nudes? Then sit formine.”

It’s not a question. It’s a declaration of war.

At the far edge of the room, Riven’s still clinging to the doorframe like it’s the only thing anchoring him to reality. He hasn’t moved, but his glare could set fire to the drywall. She tilts her head, addressing him like a queen speaking to her most disobedient knight.

“Riven. Sit. Or I’ll make you.”

That gets him. He doesn’t speak—but the way his jaw locks says enough. A muscle twitches in his cheek as he storms forward, already peeling off his shirt with the reluctant fury of a man being dragged into hell.