Page 99 of Lavish

“Was that smell here before?” I asked tightly.

“Nope.”

“We’ve got wood rot in the walls,” Carlus added, voice calm, like he was reading me a bedtime story. “Water damage too. Roof’s leaking in at least three places.”

“I don’t—” I blinked, trying to smooth over the confusion cracking through my mask.

“You bypassed the inspection. An inspector would have caught this.” The disappointment on his face actually had me feeling atinybit bad.

“Fontaine gave you a curated tour,” Carlus told me. “Didn’t think the old woman had it in her to be a snake.”

I stared at the bubbling paint on the corner of the ceiling. My throat tightened. “It shouldn’t be too hard to fix.” I was determined to make this work. Jenese couldn’t take this from me too.

But Miles was watching me. “Serena, how the hell have youbeen in business making wild decisions like this?”

I flinched at his scolding tone.

Carlus motioned with his head, subtle but tight. “Follow me.”

We ducked around a stack of drywall and stepped into the dining room. The space had been gutted down to the studs, one whole wall stripped open. Light spilled in through the broken windows, casting stripes over the dusty floors.

He pointed to the far wall. The wiring snaking through the beams looked like it hadn’t been touched since the fifties. Old cloth-covered wires, frayed at the edges. Burn marks traced a jagged scar up one of the studs.

“Old wiring,” Carlus said. “Almost sparked a fire. We shut it off before anything caught.”

I stepped toward the scorched stud—heels crunching on loose debris—and reached out to it.

“Don’t—” Miles caught my wrist.

A sudden whooshing sound filled the air, like a gust of wind. The sound of a sharp crack, like flint striking steel, reverberated through the room, making the old wood tremble.

The exposed panel was suddenly illuminated by a violent arc of searing blue light, the intense heat making the metal sing with a high-pitched whine. A snake-like hiss preceded a blindingflash of white-hot light from the wires, showering the air with glowing embers.

Miles yanked me back from the exposed wall, just as another shower of fiery sparks, sizzling and spitting, filled the air. I stumbled into him, and he wrapped both arms around me, shielding me.

“Shit!” Carlus cursed, already rushing toward the panel. “Thought it was off—guess we missed a breaker and someone plugged something up. Y’all okay?”

All I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears and Miles’s breath, fast and shaky, brushing the collar of my shirt.

His arms were still locked around me, his body flush against mine.

“I’m not dumb,” I said quietly.

“No one said you were.”

“I’m not going to stand here and let you talk down to me like I’m some rookie.”

His eyes narrowed. “Then don’t act like one.”

That cut, because he wasn’t wrong. And I hated that he wasn’t wrong.

My jaw tensed, but the silence between us stretched—too long, too loud. I could feel it building in my throat, a confession I didn’t want to say out loud, but it was already there.

“I didn’t vet it properly,” I admitted finally, the words tight and bitter. “Not the way I usually would.”

Miles blinked, surprised, maybe, that I admitted it. Or maybe that I sounded like I hated myself more than he ever could.

“I was rushed,” I continued. “Pushed into making a move before I was ready. I needed something—anything—to replace the Harrington estate. You were right, I lost it.”