Page 114 of Sage Haven

Then he turned for the door.

Unimpressed by my half-truth.

“Reich—” My voice cracked.

He stopped, glancing back.

“—I haven’t heard music since… since coming here,” I said, hating how small I sounded. “If it’s okay, I’d like to.”

His eyes softened. Barely.

But he saidnothing.

He just left.

And as the door clicked shut behind him, I wondered if I’d just handed him another weapon to use against me.

26

REICH

She thinks I wantto control her.

The thought kept circling in my head like a vulture. She couldn’t be more wrong. If only it were that simple. Control was easy. I didn’t need to want it—it was second nature. No, the problem was far worse.

I didn’t trust her. And that was why I had to keep her close. Why I had to keep watching her, questioning her, stripping her down until I found something I could believe in.

But Sage… she was all sharp edges and shadowed glances. Half-truths and practiced silences. I could see the effort it took for her to hold herself together every time I asked for something real. It wasn’t defiance that kept her quiet.

It wassurvival.That made it harder.

Because even knowing that, it didn’t stop me from wanting her.

Not just the feel of her body under my hands—though, fuck, that haunted me too—but something deeper.

I wanted to unravel her. Slowly. Intimately.

I wanted to be the one who pulled her apart and laid every piece bare. I wanted to know her. Every flicker of her rage, every crack in her armor, every last bruise on her soul.

I wanted it all.

The parts she wouldn’t give anyone.

And when she’d looked at me, those bright green eyes brimming with something raw when she asked for my help... something lit up inside me. A spark of hope that maybe I was finally getting through.

But I’d missed something.

Music.

The one thing that had always tethered me to something real. The one thing that had kept me sane when everything else was nothing but static and ruin. My one escape. It had been hers too. I’d seen it in her eyes that night of the festival and at the House of Music.

She craved it.

Needed it.

Just like I did.

When I left her room, my pulse was wild, like I’d already lost something I hadn’t earned yet. I had no choice but to lean into instinct. This was my way in. My way to earn her words, her truths. Music was the door I had to walk through.