Page 347 of Black Reign

The floorboards creak in the same places. One cabinet door still refuses to close unless you lift it slightly first. The kitchen window sticks halfway up. The fireplace smokes for thirty seconds before the chimney remembers what it is supposed to do.

Xavier could have fixed all of it.

He didn't.

I know why without asking.

He didn't want to turn Papa's house into a Blackwell property.

He wanted to give it back to me.

That realization follows me from room to room until I finally find Xavier in the kitchen opening another bottle of champagne.

I lean against the doorway.

“You left everything.”

He glances over.

“Most things.”

“The cabinet still sticks.”

“I know.”

“The upstairs bathroom still sounds like it's being murdered when you turn on the pipes.”

“I noticed.”

“You could have fixed it.”

“Yes.”

I watch him.

“Why didn't you?”

His hands stop on the bottle.

Then his eyes find mine.

“Because I didn't know which broken things you might want to keep.”

My chest tightens.

There it is again.

The casual devastation.

Xavier Blackwell can say more in one quiet sentence than Ghost managed in ten thousand encrypted messages.

I cross the kitchen.

His gaze follows me.

It has been doing that all day.

Everywhere.