Tired.
But warm.
She gives me the kind of smile people reserve for strangers theywantto be good.
“What did I miss?” Alessio’s voice booms from the front door, still hanging open behind him. We all turn. He’s grinning, bright as sunlight, completely oblivious to the tension clogging the room. “You look like you just came from a funeral.”
If chaos had a little brother with a caffeine problem, it’d be him.
No tact detected.
“Roran,” Maleciandro says, completely ignoring Alessio’s tone as he steps into the room, “I’m leaving with Bay and Alessio. You’ll stay with Chris and Kayla in the meantime.”
I nod without thinking, eyes back on him. But then the realization slams into me like a wave to the chest.
“Wait. When will you be back? You promised to bring my sister.”
He smirks and strides toward the sofa, closing the distance one steady step at a time. Each footfall feels like a small quake—only it isn’t the sort you flee from. It’s the kind that holds you frozen, waiting for the ground to decide how hard it means to shake you.
“Missing me already?” he murmurs.
My pulse spikes. My skin feels like it’s fighting itself just to lean closer. Everything in me sparks like I’ve touched a live wire—and yet I’m standing still. No. He’s no ordinary man. And I hate that some part of me doesn’t mind.
I snort. Or try to. It comes out shaky. Too shaky.
“Missing my sister,” I say, correcting him, because I can’t—for the first time—come up with anything better. I want to stand just to escape the weight of his gaze, especially when I remember how he looked at me earlier. At my legs. My scars.
He chuckles, low and worn out, as if he’s too tired to fully tease. “Pedro’s handling your sister. He’ll find her. But you and I have other things to discuss when I get back.”
“Other things?” I blink. Once. Twice.Whatthings?
Is this the moment he tells me I’ll be working some of his mafia-adjacent job in stilettos and shame?
You dug your grave, now lay in it, Roran.
“Your father. The drug. Your sickness,” he says quietly. “Don’t think I’ll let it go,Ror.”
The nickname knocks me sideways—nobody uses it but my sister. It feels intimate, a door swinging open before I’m ready.
I draw a breath, nodding even though my heart thuds hard enough to bruise. Still, a thought pushes out before I can swallow it, giving me the courage to ask.
“About the drug… can Pedro help with that, too?” I don’t know when the next lapse will hit. I can’t let today happen again.
Something flickers behind Maleciandro’s eyes—concern. Or calculation? I can’t decide. He straightens, glancing at my legs.
“We’ll handle it,” he says, and for a moment the weight in his voice feels like a promise. Then he turns, calling for Bay and Alessio, and the three of them disappear down the hall, leaving only the echo of his promise—and the ghost of that sparking tension—behind.
Kayla slips onto the sofa beside me, silent, watchful. Outside, the sky has fallen fully into night, and for one brief heartbeat, the apartment feels as still as the darkness in the basement.
I hold on to that hush, pray for my sickness to hold, and wait for Pedro’s name—my sister’s name—to come through the door next.
Malec
“We’re almost there,” Bay says, closing the GPS app on her phone.
We both know the road to the beach by heart—could drive it blindfolded—but she insists on keeping the GPS on. Says it’s for avoiding traffic. We both know it’s also an excuse to keep me from sitting behind the wheel, just in case I lose control. That’s how it always has been.
Smart.
