Page 58 of Haunted (Blackwood Brothers #1)

XAVIER

Two months later…

T he private dining room at Meridian overlooks Ravenwood’s glittering harbor, but my attention stays fixed on Mira beside me.

Over two months since the Hunt, and she still takes my breath away.

While she’s gone back to work, she has turned her attention to investigating smaller criminals—mainly those from my tip-offs—and is gaining traction as one of the best investigative journalists Ravenwood has ever seen.

Tonight, she wears the emerald dress I chose—it clings to every curve I’ve memorized with my hands and mouth.

“Happy birthday, brother,” I raise my glass to Knox, who grins like the devil he is.

“Twenty-nine and still prettier than all of you,” Knox shoots back, his arm draped possessively around Bianca’s shoulders. She rolls her eyes but leans into his touch— a response that would have been impossible ten weeks ago.

“That’s debatable,” Vane counters from across the table, his fingers tracing patterns on Lia’s bare arm. She shivers at his touch, and I catch the way his pupils dilate in response.

Landon simply smirks, saying nothing, while Sadie sits perfectly still beside him, hands folded in her lap. But I notice how she automatically leans away when the server approaches—a learned behavior from whatever psychological games my most calculating brother has been playing.

“So,” Knox continues, cutting into his steak with unnecessary aggression, “are we going to pretend this is normal? Four claimed women at a family dinner?”

“Define normal,” I reply, my hand finding Mira’s thigh beneath the table. She doesn’t flinch anymore—another sign of how completely she’s adapted to my touch.

Bianca snorts. “Normal went out the window the night you dragged me kicking and screaming through that maze.”

“You weren’t exactly complaining by the end,” Knox points out, and Bianca’s cheeks flush crimson.

“Asshole,” she mutters.

Lia speaks up for the first time tonight, her voice soft but steady. “At least Knox didn’t spend months stalking you beforehand so he knew you better than you knew yourself so he could break you down.”

All eyes turn to Vane, who doesn’t look remotely apologetic. “You needed to be broken down. Look how beautifully you respond now.”

The casual cruelty in his tone is detectable, but I recognize the satisfaction underneath. My brothers are as hooked as I am—they express it differently.

Mira’s fingers find mine beneath the table, squeezing gently. Two months ago, this gesture would have been impossible. Now, it’s instinct.

“What about you, Sadie?” Mira asks. “How are you adjusting?”

Sadie glances nervously at Landon before answering. “Learning. Always learning with him.”

Landon’s smile is razor-sharp. “She’s an excellent student. Very... dedicated to her studies.”

I feel Mira’s tension spike beside me at Sadie’s carefully neutral response.

She knows what I know—that Landon is the most dangerous of us all.

Where Knox uses brute force and Vane employs calculated cruelty, Landon operates on an almost surgical level.

He doesn’t only break his victims; he rebuilds them into his vision.

Sadie’s posture tells the whole story. The way she holds herself perfectly straight, hands positioned on her napkin, eyes downcast unless directly addressed. This isn’t a natural submission—it’s programmed behavior.

“Sadie,” I say carefully, drawing Landon’s ice-blue gaze to me. “How’s your work going? Still freelancing?”

A flicker crosses Sadie’s features—so quick I almost miss it. Intelligence sparks in her dark eyes before she schools her expression back to careful neutrality.

“I’ve transitioned to more specialized projects,” she says, her voice measured. “Corporate security consulting, mostly. The kind that requires discretion.”

Landon’s hand moves to the back of her neck, fingers curling around the base of her skull in what looks like affection. “Sadie’s been instrumental in upgrading our digital infrastructure. Haven’t you, sweetheart?”

Sadie’s jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. “It’s challenging work,” she continues. “Complex systems require... creative solutions.”

“She’s being modest,” Landon interjects. “Last week, she designed an encryption protocol that even I couldn’t crack. Fascinating mind.”

Knox raises an eyebrow. “Sounds like you’re putting her to work.”

“We all have our talents,” Sadie replies before Landon can speak. “Some people paint—” she glances at Bianca, “—some people investigate—” her eyes flick to Mira, “—and some people solve problems.”

Mira’s grip on my hand tightens. She hears it, too.

“What kind of problems?” Vane asks with casual interest, pausing his systematic destruction of Lia’s composure.

Landon’s smile spreads slowly across his face. “The kind that disappears without a trace. Sadie has such elegant solutions.”

Sadie meets my gaze directly for the first time tonight, and what I see there makes everything click into place. She’s not compliant—she’s complicit. The careful posture, the measured responses, and the way she defers to Landon while subtly asserting her own capabilities .

She’s not broken. She’s evolved.

“Fascinating,” I murmur, genuinely impressed despite myself. “And here I thought Landon was the strategist in this relationship.”

“Oh, he is,” Sadie says, her hand covering Landon’s where it rests on her neck. “But every good strategist needs quality intelligence. I provide perspective he can’t access alone.”

The restaurant’s ambient noise fades as the implications settle over our table. My brother hasn’t merely claimed a brilliant hacker—he’s created a partner.

“Remember when we used to discuss business over dinner?” Knox asks, refilling his wine glass. “Now we’re analyzing relationship dynamics like we’re in some twisted therapy session.”

Vane snorts. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. When’s the last time you actually relaxed at one of these dinners?”

Knox considers this, stroking Bianca’s shoulder. “Fair point. Usually, I’m calculating who might stab me in the back before dessert.”

“Metaphorically or literally?” Bianca asks.

“Both,” all four brothers answer simultaneously, making the women laugh.

Lia shakes her head in amusement. “Do you realize you synchronized? That’s either terrifying or endearing.”

“Definitely terrifying,” Mira mutters against my ear, making me chuckle.

“Says the woman who organized my sock drawer last week,” I counter, and she blushes beautifully .

“It was chaos in there,” she defends. “How were you finding anything?”

Landon smirks. “Xavier’s always been organizationally challenged. Remember when we found those contracts stuffed in his gym bag?”

“That was one time,” I protest.

“It was twelve contracts worth forty million dollars,” Vane adds gleefully.

“In a gym bag that you’d been using for three weeks,” Knox finishes.

Mira stares at me in horror. “Please tell me you’ve improved since then.”

“I have competent people handling my organization now,” I say smoothly.

“Knox made me catalog his weapons collection. Apparently, I have an eye for detail ,” Bianca says.

“You color-coded my ammunition,” Knox says with obvious pride. “By caliber AND manufacturer.”

“It was meditative,” Bianca admits.

Sadie speaks up. “I’ve been working on a digital asset management system for all of you. Cross-referenced by date, value, and risk assessment.”

“See?” Landon says, kissing her temple. “Brilliant.”

Lia raises her glass. “To the prey—apparently, we’re all enablers now.”

“To the prey,” we echo, and the synchronization doesn’t feel strange. It feels right.

This result is what I never expected from the Hunt. Actual partners sitting at our table, laughing at our worst habits and somehow making them better .

The winter night air carries a bite as we walk from Meridian toward my building, Mira’s hand tucked into the crook of my arm. She’s traded her heels for the flats she keeps in her purse—a practical habit that somehow endears me more than it should.

“Your brothers seemed relaxed tonight,” she observes, pulling my jacket tighter around her shoulders. “Happier, maybe?”

I consider this as we pass under the streetlights. “Knox hasn’t started a fight in three weeks. That might be a record.”

“Bianca’s good for him,” Mira says. “She doesn’t take his shit, but she doesn’t try to change him either.”

This is what I’ve come to love about Mira’s mind—how she sees people, really sees them. Not the surface, not the fear, but the complicated truth underneath.

“And Sadie,” I continue. “I expected Landon to break her completely, but she’s... adapting.”

“She’s surviving,” Mira corrects, and there’s weight in her voice. “There’s a difference.”

I stop walking and turn to face her fully. “Do you feel like you’re merely surviving?”

Mira’s smile is soft and genuine. “No. Not anymore.”

She reaches up, fingertips tracing the line of my jaw.

“The first week, maybe,” she admits. “When I was still fighting for what I wanted. But now?”

“Now?”

“Now I wake up every morning grateful you caught me in that maze.”

The admission hits me harder than it should. I’ve heard her say she loves me and watched her surrender completely in my bed and in the private rooms at Purgatory. Still, this quiet confession feels more intimate than anything we’ve shared in public.

“Even knowing what I am?” I ask.

Mira’s laugh is warm against the cool air. “Especially knowing what you are. You’ve never lied to me, Xavier. Not about the darkness, not about what loving you means. That’s more honesty than I’ve gotten from anyone else in my life.”

I pull her closer, breathing in the scent of her hair. “I never thought I’d want someone to see the real me.”

“I know,” she whispers against my chest. “But I do see you, and I’m still here.”

The words wrap around the tightness in my chest, loosening it. This is love, I realize—not just possession or obsession, but this quiet certainty that someone knows your worst parts and chooses to stay anyway.