Page 2 of My End (Iron Fiends #10)

Tilly

The blue in the painting wasn’t right. It leaned too heavily toward teal.

I dipped my brush again, mixed in a touch more purple, and swept it across the curve of the jaw I’d been building up for the past hour.

The abstract portrait on the canvas was starting to make sense now.

That moment was always my favorite when the madness turned to something more. Something that breathed.

I stepped back, nudged the toe of my sock against a paint-splattered drop cloth, and tilted my head. Still not right. Maybe I needed to layer in orange instead.

The morning light poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my studio and cut bright angles across the wooden floors. Boone had outdone himself when he set this place up for me. One room for sketching, one for painting, and a bedroom that I could disappear into whenever the world got too loud.

I was grateful, truly. Boone had always taken care of me.

After Mom died seven years ago, I wasn’t sure where I belonged. Then, when Boone’s dad passed away two years back, the mansion had felt… empty. Like a museum no one visited anymore. So, when Boone told me he wanted me here—for protection, for his image, and for our family—I didn’t question it.

I didn’t like politics. Or press. Or being asked things that didn’t have easy answers. I liked color. Texture. The way emotions could live in brushstrokes.

I set the brush down and stretched, my arms lifting high overhead until my shoulder popped. The oversized paint-streaked t-shirt I was wearing rode up a little, and I tugged it down before I padded barefoot across the studio to the window.

I wasn’t looking for anything. I just liked watching the breeze play in the hedges.

But something caught my eye.

A motorcycle.

Not just any motorcycle.

It was a sleek, black crotch rocket that cut up the drive like it had every right to be there.

I squinted and leaned a little closer to the glass. A man swung off the bike who was tall, muscular, and wrapped in a tight black T-shirt with dark jeans. His arms bulged, thick, and the fabric stretched across a chest that looked like it had been carved out of stone.

He wore sunglasses. His hair was dark and buzzed short, but the beard made him look… wild. Rugged. Dangerous.

Not like the rest of the staff.

Not like anyone Boone usually hired.

Jim came out of the gatehouse all business. I saw him pat the man down, and the man didn’t flinch. Didn’t react. He just stood there, calm and cool, like he could take Jim apart in three seconds flat but didn’t feel like bothering.

I pressed my hand to the glass, and my heart ticked a little faster.

Something about him hit wrong and right at the same time.

Like stepping into cold water that you know will feel amazing once you get used to it.

He wasn’t one of Boone’s politician friends.

He wasn’t one of the house staff.

He wasn’t…

He looked up.

Directly at me.

I gasped and stumbled back a step with my hand still on the glass.

His sunglasses were gone. His eyes, dark, sharp, and utterly unreadable, locked onto mine like he already knew every secret I’d ever painted into a canvas.

I didn’t move.

I didn’t breathe.

He didn’t look at me like a staff member. Like someone told to be polite.

He looked at me like I was a puzzle he wasn’t sure he wanted to solve, or maybe like he already had the pieces.

I exhaled slowly with my heart still stammering like a teenager who just got noticed.

“Get a grip, Tilly,” I muttered and brushed a lock of light brown hair out of my face.

I peeked again with just a quick glance. Jim was still talking to him now on the front steps.

And the man, he didn’t talk much. Just nodded. Eyes always moving. Watching. Cataloging.

I’d never painted men like that before. In shadows. With angles and charcoal eyes.

I turned away from the window finally and crossed the studio again while trying to focus.

I stood in front of the canvas, and all I could think about was the stranger in black.

The man who looked like sin dipped in ink.

The man who made me forget which blue I was chasing.

And I had a feeling I hadn’t seen the last of him.

Not even close.