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Another flicker crosses Tyler’s face. It’s neither relief nor anger. It’s something closer to disappointment.

“Yeah,” Tyler says at last, tucking a strand of hair back behind his ear with an exaggeratedly casual shrug. “The stalking was creeping me out. I’m glad it’s over.”

I tilt my head slightly, watching him. He’s lying, or at least… not telling the whole truth. My eyes meet Lucas’s, and he gives a tiny shake of his head. A silent message: don’t.

So I don’t.

It isn’t my business, not really. Even if curiosity is eating me alive.

I’ve got enough problems of my own without adding Tyler and Viktor’s emotional disaster to the list. And unfortunately, Tristan is still sitting comfortably at the top of mine.

Chapter 6

MAKSIM

The studio smells of oil, turpentine, and something faintly metallic. It breathes with me.

It always has.

Every inhale I take is returned in paint fumes, dry dust of old charcoal, and the faint ghost of smoke from incense burned down to nothing. The air is thick, intimate, and familiar.

It’s the only room in my father’s mansion that feels like mine. No one comes here unless I allow it. Even the staff avoid it. The floors are splattered with dried paint in violent constellations. The tall windows are half-covered with gauze curtains that let in thin ribbons of winter light. Canvases are stacked against the walls, some finished, some abandoned mid-thought. Some are clawed apart in fits of rage I barely remember. Jars of brushes sit on every flat surface. Some are hardened with old paint, some still wet.

This is my sanctuary and proof that I exist. Proof that something inside me is real. This is also where I’m allowed to be unwell.

I’ve been staring at the blank canvas in front of me for three hours. It’s white. Obnoxiously white, and I feel like it’s mocking me.

My eyes burn, but I don’t blink. I don’t move. If I move, I’ll lose the fragile thread of something forming in my mind. If I breathe wrong, it might disappear entirely.

My fingers twitch at my sides. The urge to destroy something creeps under my skin restlessly. My mind races too fast and not at all, a contradiction that makes my skull feel too tight.

Paint something.

Anything.

But there’s nothing.

My head feels too loud. Thoughts crash into each other, violent and useless, shattering before they can become something I can hold. Images flicker—color, shadow, shape—but none of them stay. None of them matter.

Because none of them are him.

My gaze drifts to the far corner of the room.

The covered canvas.

It stands slightly apart from the others, draped with a dark curtain like it’s in mourning. I don’t need to uncover it to know what’s there. I know every line, every shadow, every detail burned into it. I could paint it again from memory with my eyes closed.

I force my eyes back to the empty canvas.

Paint something else.

Something new.

Something that isn’t him.

My eyes flick to the newest painting propped against the opposite wall—the one still wet in places, varnish catching the light like a slick of oil.

It’s a painting of Julian’s car.