Chapter 5 – Lydia - Beneath the Surface
I don't sleep after the club.
I try. Strip off the dress. Wash the paint off my mouth. Crawl between linen sheets that still smell like someone else's detergent and mistakes. But my body won’t settle, and my thoughts... they’re moving too fast to pin down.
I pull the curtains closed and leave the lights on. That should help, but it doesn’t. The memory replays.
Dom’s hand on the small of my back.
Silas watching me through the crowd.
The contract signed in sweat and nervous ink.
I can still feel the press of their eyes. One used me like a tool. The other saw something I didn’t mean to show.
And now, everything around me feels like exposure
I walk barefoot across the cold tile floor and reach for the bourbon. I don’t usually drink alone. It feels like begging the night to win.
But tonight, I want the edge taken off.
The first sip burns, but I don’t flinch. I welcome it.
I turn toward the window. I don’t open the curtain. I just stand there, the weight of the glass close enough to lean against. My reflection watches me, hollow-eyed and barefoot, hair mussed like I’ve been running from something.
Maybe I have.
Outside, Miramont glows like it’s bleeding light. There’s no moon tonight—just the skeletal shine of high-rises, streetlamps, and the smog-soft haze that settles over the city like resignation.
And somewhere out there, I feel it.
Him.
Not just Dom, not Drazen.
Silas.
I don’t see him. But my skin tightens like he’s watching. Like there’s a line drawn between us, and even if I can't trace it with my fingers, it still tugs.
He didn’t speak to me at the club. Not directly. Not really. But his absence of words said too much. That calm, predatory stillness. That almost-respectful kind of threat.
He knows.
Not everything. But enough.
I close my eyes.
And for half a second, I wish he’d come to my door.
That’s the part that scares me more than anything.
The glass still sweats in my hand. The second sip goes down easier, not because the burn fades, but because I’ve started to like it.
I should go to bed.
But my body resists anything that looks like surrender.
Instead, I pull the curtain back just enough to look.
The street is empty.
Of course it is.
But my eyes search anyway, along the edges of the alley, the rooftops across the street, the places most people forget to check.
Nothing.
Still, I feel it. The pressure behind the emptiness.
Like something unseen breathing just a little too close.
I don’t know if I want him there, or if I want proof that I’m still in control. The worst part is how closely those two things bleed into each other.
The bourbon’s nearly gone. I set the glass on the windowsill and walk away before I start believing it’s company.
Back in the bedroom, I change into a silk camisole.
The slinky black fabric is barely a whisper across my skin.
It’s ironic, adorning myself like this. Yet, when I sit on the edge of the bed, I trace the scar beneath my collarbone.
It’s small, old, mostly faded… but it’s mine.
A reminder of when I learned that loyalty has teeth.
That trust is forever a rose with a serpent beneath its petals.
Voss gave me the first scar.
Drazen promises more.
And Silas? I don’t know what he’s offering. But it’s surely not mercy.
I lie back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The light above the bed flickers; it’s either cheap wiring to blame for it, or maybe the building remembering too much.
I think about the sound of Silas’s voice. Not what he said. Just the way it felt. Like pressure applied with precision.
He never asked me for anything. That’s what makes it worse.
Dom asks. Drazen demands. Silas just watches. And somehow, that gets under my skin faster than the rest.
Because he sees the cracks.
Because he doesn’t speak to the mask. I think he may want the person underneath it.
Could I even survive that?
The sheets don’t warm. I lie still for too long, trying to breathe slower, trying to make my muscles forget the way they tense every time I close my eyes.
But nothing inside me is still. I feel it under my skin—this pacing thing, like a heartbeat out of rhythm. No threats in the room, no command in my ear, and yet the anxiety lingers. That’s how I know it isn’t fear.
It’s him.
My body remembers Silas like a temperature I can’t shake. I’ve felt men look at me before: some with hunger, some with disdain. Silas doesn’t look like he wants to consume me.
He looks like he already has.
Not physically. Not yet. But in the places no one else bothers with. The parts of me I try not to leave uncovered, even when I’m naked.
It’s been hours since the club. Since I left Dom in his throne of polished cruelty and walked the corridor like it didn’t cost me something. Since I passed that corner booth where Silas first saw me and caught the glint of recognition behind his eyes.
I reach for the glass again, only to find it empty.
I get up. Not dressed for company. Not caring.
I cross the room and stand at the window again, drawn by something I can’t name. A thread. A pull. I open the curtain fully this time. Lean one hand on the glass.
Still nothing.
No figure in the alley. No shape against the rooftop. But the weight of presence hasn’t left. I can’t explain it. My body just knows when it’s being seen.
And it doesn’t feel like Drazen.
I’ve learned to spot his eyes, for better or for worse. His eyes are invasive. Hungry. Impatient. They strip you, then get bored once you stop resisting.
Silas’s gaze feels… different.
Colder, but more patient. Less conquest, more calculation. Like he’s learning something by letting me be.
That terrifies me more than violence ever did.
I trace a circle into the glass with one fingertip. My breath fogs the spot, but the shape remains.
My pulse is fast now, even though I’m not moving. The air feels charged, like it’s listening. I don’t know if he’s out there, but I speak anyway.
“I know you’re watching.”
The words vanish into the pane. But they taste real in my mouth.
I back away from the window. Not in retreat. Just to see what stays with me when I leave.
He does.
I don’t turn off the lights.
It’s a mistake, maybe. But I leave them on because I want to feel something watching. Or maybe because I want to pretend like I'm not hiding.
I walk back to the bed, but I don’t lie down. I sit at the edge, spine straight, hands in my lap like I’m waiting for confession.
I think about opening the window. Not because of the heat, but because the space feels spent, every breath recycled. Like Drazen’s fingerprints might still be in it. Like Dom’s scent lingers in the cushion seams.
But if I open the window, what happens if he’s really out there?
If I give the dark that invitation, I don’t know if I’ll survive what walks through it.
The buzz of my phone interrupts the thought. Abrupt and unexpected.
I snap toward it too fast. Adrenaline before logic.
Blocked number.
No message.
I stare at it until the screen fades.
Then I lock it and set it face-down. No use chasing ghosts with tools built for lies.
The mirror across from the bed catches me in full.
I rarely look straight at myself when I’m alone. Mirrors are made for performance, not honesty.
But tonight, I stand.
I walk to it.
The camisole clings in all the right places, but it’s not about seduction. It’s about ritual. Control. The lace is an armor I stitched out of years of pretending I wanted to be wanted.
I watch myself lift the hem and run one hand across my stomach. Not to touch. To remember.
The last person who kissed me here wasn’t gentle.
He wanted power, not permission.
Silas hasn’t touched me.
But I think he would ask.
Not out loud.
Not with questions.
But in that way he looks at me. The way he… waits. Like the hunt isn’t about the pouncing, and rather about the way you breathe right before you move.
I lean forward, palms flat against the mirror.
And then I close my eyes.
I don’t pretend anymore.
Not tonight.
The glass is cold under my hands.
That should pull me back into myself, anchor me in the present, but it doesn’t. It only deepens the contrast. The difference between skin and surface, between being alive and just performing it.
I drop my hands. The loft presses in—thick, unmoving. I move back toward the bed, but I don’t climb in. I stand at the edge again and stare down at the mattress like it might open up and swallow me whole if I let it.
There’s a part of me that wants it to.
But another part—stronger, meaner—wants to feel everything.
I sit again. Let my knees part. Let my spine curl. I run a hand up my thigh, not for comfort, but because it’s mine. I’ve spent too long letting men like Drazen decide where my skin ends and his begins.
Not tonight.
Tonight, I set the rules. Even if I’m the only one who adheres to them.
I press my palm to the inside of my leg and breathe through the rising heat. I let myself feel the tension, the ache, the pull that’s been building between us.
I should push the thought away.
I don’t.
I want him here.
I want him pressed against the wall behind me, one hand at my hip, the other in my hair, his mouth at my ear—not whispering sweet things, but truths. Ugly ones. Ones that don’t care if I flinch.
I want the weight of someone who doesn’t want to own me.
Just to see me.
I slide my hand higher. Not to finish anything. Not yet. Just to claim the feeling that’s mine. The one I’ve denied longer than I care to admit.
My throat makes a sound I don’t recognize.
But I don’t stop.
And when I open my eyes again, the city lights through the window looks like fire behind stained glass.
And I still feel watched.
But this time, I let it happen.
Because this—this burn under my skin, this storm clawing at my ribs, this ache that doesn’t beg for release but recognition—this doesn’t belong to Drazen.
Or Dom.
Or Voss.
It’s mine.
And maybe… Maybe it’s his too.