2. Soren
SOREN
When Officer Vale had told me he would walk me up to my apartment to ensure everything was fine, I’d insisted he didn’t have to. He decided to do it anyway, and as I stood in the middle of my bedroom, hyperventilating, I was relieved he hadn’t left after all.
“No, no, no.”
I stumbled over to the chest of drawers, where the top one stood open. Empty. I pulled open the next. Then the next. My hands were shaking so badly I could hardly grip the handles.
“Soren,” Officer Vale said behind me.
I ignored him and dropped to my knees, reaching into the back of the bottom drawer, where I had tucked the small velvet jewelry box beneath folded shirts two days ago because Daphne had laughed and told me I was too trusting to survive in California.
My fingers scraped bare wood.
The box was gone. Even the shirts were gone.
“She took it,” I said.
Officer Vale stepped closer. “Took what?”
“My jewelry box.” The closet door stood ajar, and I could see that my suitcases were gone too.
“What was in it?”
“My signet ring,” I said. “The first pair of cufflinks my father gave to me when I had my coming-of-age ceremony. My investiture medal. A brooch my grandmother gave me when I turned eighteen. Letters. Photographs. Things that aren’t worth anything to her.”
And the engagement ring Felipe had used to convince me he loved me.
“Okay. Breathe for me.”
“No, you don’t understand.” I shoved to my feet too quickly and swayed. He reached out, but I stumbled away before he could steady me. “They were mine. They were the only things I had left that were mine. I lost everything. These were all I had left.”
I went to the closet and pushed the door fully open to confirm my suitcases were gone. They’d mostly held clothes—expensive, branded clothes that would fetch a good price even secondhand.
“She took my clothes,” I said with a wheeze.
My chest seized around the words. Air went in, but it did not seem to reach anywhere useful. I grabbed the edge of the closet door, my fingers digging into the cheap painted wood as the room blurred around me.
“Soren.” Officer Vale’s voice reached me through the roaring in my ears. “Look at me.”
I shook my head. “I can’t breathe.”
“You’re breathing. It just feels like you’re not.” His voice stayed low and steady. “Put one hand on your chest and one on your stomach.”
“I don’t want breathing lessons.”
“I don’t care. Do it.”
The soft command got through to me. No wonder I gravitated to him. Everything about him screamed that he was a Daddy, something I’d never thought I would have before Felipe. But Felipe wasn’t a true Daddy. He’d screwed me over.
Officer Vale held my gaze. “Hand on your chest. Hand on your stomach.”
My hand twitched uselessly at my side.
I obeyed because I had obeyed people all my life and because he was speaking to me like a Daddy taking charge. Apparently, ruin had not cured me of my need to let go and let my Daddy assume control.
He’s not your Daddy.
“There you go,” he said. “In through your nose. Slowly.”
“I hate this.”
“Good. Hate it while you breathe.”
A sound escaped me that was almost a laugh and almost a sob. I dragged air in through my nose. It came too fast and shallow.
“Again,” he said. “Slower.”
“I can’t.”
“You can because you’re doing it.”
I was. Barely. Badly. But I was.
The room stopped tilting by degrees. When the worst of the panic eased, it left me so exhausted that my knees threatened to fold. I hadn’t had a panic attack like this in a long time. Usually, I was triggered by tight spaces.
Officer Vale exhaled through his nose as he guided me to sit on the bed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
I sniffed. “Because if you’re kind to me, I’m going to cry.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “You can cry.”
“I absolutely cannot.”
“Pretty sure you can.”
“Princes do not cry in front of police officers.”
“Soren.”
“What?”
“My shift ended, remember? You’re not in front of a police officer right now. You’re in front of me, Aaron, and I’m telling you that you can cry.”
I pressed the heel of my hand to my mouth, but the first sob got out anyway. Then the next. Then all of them, ugly and hot and humiliating, breaking through me faster than I could swallow them down. I bent forward, one arm clamped around my stomach, and tried to make myself small.
It did not work.
There was just too much.
Too much shame. Too much loss. Too much terror. Too many people who had smiled while taking pieces of me away. My title. My country. My money. My belongings. My memories. My name, even, because here it made people laugh, stare, or ask if I had missed a dose of medication.
Aaron did not try to touch me or comfort me, which I was grateful for. The last thing I needed to do was crawl into his lap simply because he was the first person to have shown me kindness since moving to this godforsaken country.
“We’ll file a report,” he said. “We’ll check security cameras, talk to the landlord and your neighbors to see if anyone saw her leave with your suitcases.”
I wiped my face with the heel of my hand. “What am I supposed to do now? I can’t stay here. This was Daphne’s apartment, and she allowed me to stay in the guest room.”
“What about family?” he asked.
I shook my head. “They disowned me.”
“That’s too bad. I know of a safe place I can take you for the night.”
I was shaking my head before he finished. “No.”
“Soren—”
“No.” I stood so fast my vision swam. “I am done. Do you understand? Done. No more helpful strangers. No more friendly smiles. No more people who know a place, or have a friend, or can get me settled, or just need me to trust them for one night. Everyone wants something. Everyone takes something. I have nothing left, so I’m sorry, but whatever this is, whatever arrangement you think you can make, I decline. ”
Aaron took one step closer, then stopped. “You have every reason to feel the way you do. You’ve had a hell of a night, and from what I can tell, it’s been that way for a while. But I have been nothing but honest with you since I sat down across from you at the station. Haven’t I?”
I swallowed.
“You showed me your messages,” he continued.
“I spoke to the restaurant manager, and I must tell you, he was a very prejudiced person who wanted to press charges simply because of, well, your race, but I got the charges dropped. I brought you here because you said this was where you were staying. I walked you up because I had a feeling those friends of yours were up to no good, and I wanted to know you were safe.”
My throat tightened again.
“I’m not asking you to trust the whole world,” he said. “I’m asking you to trust that I am not Daphne nor anyone else who has wronged you. Let me help you.”
That wasn’t fair. He was so Daddy-coded that he knew exactly what to say. How was this fair when he was a walking, talking cheat sheet to get to a boy’s soft spot?
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“To a place called Halo House.”
I blinked at him. The name sounded pretty, at least. “Halo House?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“A safe home for members of the LGBTQ plus community who need stability.”
I stared at him. Somehow, he had pieced together that I was gay. I didn’t bother to deny it. The entirety of Belvaria had known I was gay. It was one of the reasons for the court’s objection to my being the crown prince—my inability to produce an heir the old-fashioned way.
I narrowed my eyes and straightened my back as suspicion, driven by my recent predicament, hit me. “Is that a euphemism for a house full of desperate young men run by an older gentleman?” I pulled myself a little straighter, scandalized despite being the one saying it. “Officer Vale!”
For the first time that night, he looked genuinely startled. “Soren, Halo House is not a brothel.”
I recoiled. “Then what is it? Because your tone implies a brothel.”
“It’s literally a house—a safe one. The owner, Phoenix, provides a place to land for people who need help getting back on their feet. Food, a room, guidance, structure. Some stay a few nights. Some longer. Depends on what they need.”
“And what’s the catch?”
“No catch. Phoenix owns a business that allows him to run the house, and usually, past inhabitants of the house give back. He’s helped hundreds of people.”
“What business?”
Aaron studied me for a beat, then nodded as though deciding honesty would serve better than comfort.
“Phoenix owns a nightclub. Some of his angels—the residents—work there if they want a job and it’s a good fit.
They do legal work. Bartending, kitchen, cleaning, office help. Nothing like what you’re thinking.”
“I wasn’t thinking anything.”
“Nobody will make you work there if you don’t want to.
In fact, you don’t even have to stay beyond tonight.
It can be just a place to lay your head and get your bearings back.
Tomorrow we’ll go to the station and document what was stolen from you.
Afterward, you can decide where to go from there, but for now, at least meet Phoenix. How does that sound?”
I glanced at the empty closet. “I don’t have anything.”
“We’ll deal with that.”
“No, I mean I don’t have anything.” I looked at him, my eyes pricking again. “My passport was in the suitcase. My clothes. My documents. Everything.”
“I promise you I’ll do everything I can to find your belongings.”
I dropped my gaze to the floor, my shoulders slumping. “I’m so tired,” I whispered.
“Then will you let me take you somewhere you can sleep?”
I wanted to argue—truly, I did—but who else was I going to trust?
“Okay.”