Page 117 of Cruel When He Smiles

No one comes running, and no one asks questions. This house was built for noise, built on broken boys and bad decisions. It doesn’t flinch anymore. Just groans under the weight of our damage and waits for the next mess to clean up.

Ten guys, ten secrets, ten different flavors of chaos stitched into a home that shouldn’t work but somehow does.

My coat slides from my shoulder, and I shrug it off with a careless flick, aiming for the bed but watching it crumple onto the floor. I don’t bother picking it up. I don’t bend, don’t adjust, don’t pretend to give a shit. I go straight for the dresser with my jaw clenched so tightly it hurts.

My hands are shaking. I pretend I don’t notice.

I dig my fingers into the edge of the drawer, not pulling it open yet. Instead I try to centre myself against the cool wood and thefamiliar tension that coils there. I’m wound so tightly, I feel like I might snap.

I hate Nate Carter for making me feel things that don’t come with clear names. For looking at me like I’m not a monster, and smiling at me after everything I’ve done to him. I hate that his voice is still in my head, all breathy and shaky, whisperingmine, too.

I yank the top drawer open, then slam it shut again. My fingers drift toward the third one—the one I only touch when everything else stops working. My left hand twitches; hovering, hesitating.

“You really need to work on your awareness.”

My stomach swoops, but I don’t turn around right away. I didn’t notice him, and that… that’s a problem.

With a sigh, I twist around slowly. Killian’s in my deskchair, one leg draped lazily over the other, Zippo lighter flicking open and shut in his hand without a cigarette in sight. He’s been waiting.

Of course he has.

He watches me the way only he can—like a hunter studying something already bleeding. I hate being under his gaze, but I need it. The contradiction makes me sicker.

“Second time you’ve come storming in here, gone so deep in your own head you didn’t realize you weren’t alone,” he says, flicking the lighter shut and my left hand twitches again. He immediately notices. “Don’t.”

I push off the dresser. “I wasn’t—”

He’s up in a flash, all six-three of him slamming into me like a bullet, his hand wrapping around my throat before I can blink. He drives me into the wall, causing books to fall off the shelves and the lamp to shake on the desk. My back hits the plaster, and I suck in a sharp breath as his thumb presses against my windpipe hard enough to remind me who taught me how to breathe.

His eyes are the same blue as our father’s—same downward slant, same glint of something unholy hiding just behind the surface. The only difference is that Killian doesn’t hide it. He never has.

“Breathe,” he says coldly, “before you even think about that drawer.”

My eyes widen. “I wasn’t—”

“Don’t insult me by pretending you weren’t going for it. Third drawer. Right side. Your left hand was twitching before you made it two steps.”

I laugh, breathless. “You stalking me now?”

He bares his teeth in something that’s not a smile. “I’ll break your fucking fingers if you go near that blade.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I croak, my eyes watering as the pressure against my throat stays steady.

“No, but it might be the last,” he says, and it may look like he’s just being an overprotective brother, but Killian doesn’t do overprotective. He does violence, ownership, and brotherhood like a dagger to the gut—sharp, effective, and not always survivable.

I stop resisting and let myself feel the wall against my back, the pressure on my neck, and the tremor in my own chest that I’m trying to deny. He sees it, and he holds me there until the panic crests, then breaks.

I swallow against his palm. “You don’t get it.”

“Then make me get it,” he growls.

I shove him off me, breathing hard, chest heaving as I pace the room, trying to bleed it out of me. “It’s not obsession anymore,” I snap. “It’s worse.”

Killian watches me silently, his eyes tracking me the way they always do. Calculating, but not uncaring.

I drag both hands through my hair, tugging until my scalp burns. “I wanted to break him, Kill. That was the fucking plan.Manipulate him, push him, unravel him just to see what’s underneath. That’s all it was supposed to be.”

“And now?”