Chapter 5 Cloe
CLOE
I woke before the sun. The blanket was tangled around my legs. My neck ached from sleeping too still. My back ached from sleeping at all. The apartment was silent. The kind of quiet that feels like being watched.
I sat up slowly. Every bruise protested. The hoodie clung to my back like a secret I hadn’t earned. I stood. I didn’t know why. There was nowhere to go. Nothing to do. But I moved anyway.
I cracked two eggs into the pan. The shell split wrong and one yolk bled out across the burner. I didn’t clean it up. Just watched it sizzle. The oil hissed. Too hot. I didn’t lower the flame. Didn’t care.
The eggs burned before I could flip them. The pan smoked. I dumped them straight into the sink and ran the water until the steam blinded me.
There was a time Wolfe made me eggs. Three in the morning. My thighs still red from his hands. My lips still swollen from how he took my mouth without asking. He cracked them clean, like a man who didn’t believe in mess. No wasted motion. No clumsy yolk.
He made me sit on the counter in his shirt—bare legs swinging while the pan hissed behind him. His hand never left me. A touch on my thigh. A thumb along my wrist. His body between me and the edge of the counter like he was the wall and the world all at once.
You get food when I say you do, he told me once—not cruel. Not cold.
Just final.
And then he kissed my throat.
I remembered the plate. The way he fed me the first bite like it was his name I was tasting. Now? Now I stood in his kitchen. Barefoot. Hollow. Starving. And I didn’t know if I was allowed to eat.
The air smelled like clean linen and coffee beans. Neutral. Sterile. Like grief dressed in expensive clothes.
I reached for a mug from the cabinet—my hand shook so hard it knocked two others. I froze. Waited. No sound from the hall. No voice telling me to be quiet. No footsteps coming to see what I’d broken. Just silence again. The kind that made you ache.
When the water boiled, I poured it over the teabag with shaking hands. Held the coffee cup to my chest like it might settle the tremble in my bones. But I couldn’t lift it to drink. Not yet.
I sat at the island. The chair was cold. The mug burned against my palms. I stared at the dark hallway and wondered if I should knock. Should ask if I was still welcome. But I already knew the answer. Because this wasn’t welcome. This was consequence.
The tea went cold while I sat there. Then I stood. Put the cup in the sink. And breathed like it hurt. Because everything still did. And normal was never going to come back. I thought I was alone. Until I wasn’t.
I stepped into the living room, barefoot, hoodie still damp at the cuffs, and stopped cold. Wolfe was already there. Sitting at the kitchen table. Phone in his hand. Sleeves rolled. Hair perfect in that way that looked unplanned but wasn’t.
He didn’t look up. Didn’t say anything. But I felt it. That crackle in the air. Like lightning had been stored in the walls.
He was reading something on the screen. Completely still. One thumb moving slowly. Precisely. Like everything he touched mattered more than what breathed around him.
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. I stood there too long like an idiot then sat. The chair across from him groaned slightly beneath my weight. The sound felt obscene in the silence.
I looked at him.
Really looked.
His sleeves were rolled. Shirt crisp. Collar open like he’d been dressed for hours. He looked like he’d stepped out of a boardroom, not the bedroom I used to sleep in.
The shirt he wore—navy, tailored, expensive—was one I picked out once. Casually. I like you in darker blues, I’d said. He’d bought five variations the next week.
He didn’t seem to remember.
Or maybe he did—and just didn’t care.
Now I watched his hand flex around the edge of the phone. Smooth, measured. Like everything in him had been trained to operate at a level below emotional.
He didn’t look at me.
Not once.
Some part of me wanted him to yell.
To throw the glass. To growl. To crack open so I could see that something under all that silence still burned for me.
But he didn’t give me that. He just sat there. Unmoved. Unreachable. Untouched.
I wanted to ask—
What are you thinking?
Do you hate me?
Do you still want me?
If I reached for you, would you recoil?
Or worse… would you let me?
But I didn’t ask. Because if I opened my mouth, I was afraid the wrong thing would spill out. So I stayed still and stared at the man who used to command me with a whisper.
Now he didn’t need to say anything at all. He didn’t react. Didn’t glance. Just kept scrolling.
The screen’s glow flickered over his knuckles. I folded my hands in my lap. My pulse was too loud. I wanted to ask something. Anything really. But I couldn’t find a question that didn’t feel stupid. So I settled for the only thing that felt safe.
“Thank you… for letting me stay.”
That was the moment he looked up. Just his eyes. Cold. Sharp. Final.
“I didn’t.”
One sentence.
Flat.
Like it didn’t matter to him whether I heard it or not.
I swallowed hard. “Then why—”
He set the phone down.
Slow.
Precise.
Looked at me like I was something under glass.
“You’re here,” he said, “because you’re unfinished.”
I didn’t understand. Not yet. But my stomach knew what it meant before my brain did. The shift. The power. The pressure.
He hadn’t brought me home to comfort me. He’d brought me back to finish what I’d interrupted. To show me what it meant to stay. And what it cost to return.
“You don’t get the same rules anymore.”
His voice was quiet. Almost calm. Like he was reading something off a card he’d memorized days ago. Like this wasn’t personal. But it was. Every word felt personal.
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. He leaned back in the chair and looked at me like he was deciding whether to throw me out or feed me.
“I gave you choices,” he said. “You wasted them.”
My throat tightened.
He didn’t wait.
“No more second chances. No more protection. No more comfort.”
He said the last word like it disgusted him.
I wanted to argue. To say he didn’t have to do this. But I knew better. And I knew him. So I just sat there, my hands knotted in my lap, the shame curling tighter around my spine.
“You want to stay here?” he asked.
I nodded, barely.
“Then you’ll follow the rules.”
My spine straightened. Not out of defiance. Out of instinct.
His voice was calm, but the tension beneath it pressed like a blade to the side of my throat. Wolfe never yelled. He didn’t need to.
“You don’t leave the apartment unless I tell you to,” he said.
His tone never changed.
“You don’t enter my room. You don’t touch what isn’t offered. You don’t speak unless it matters.”
I swallowed hard.
He didn’t stop. “You don’t use my name without permission.”
That one made my chest cave in a little.
“Why?” I asked, before I could stop it.
He raised a brow. Not cruel. Just curious.
“You want to keep it?” he asked. “Then earn it.”
I dropped my eyes. My hands trembled in my lap. This wasn’t a conversation. It was a sentence being read aloud. And I couldn’t breathe through it.
“I’m not asking for much,” he added. “Just the truth. The whole of you. Nothing less.”
The words hit like soft violence.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I whispered.
His eyes didn’t flicker.
“I do.”
Then he leaned in.
Close.
Low.
“This isn’t about who you are, Cloe. This is about what you are.”
I didn’t ask. Didn’t speak. Because deep down? I already knew. I was what he chose to keep. Or destroy. And he hadn’t decided yet.
He said it like the rules were already written. Like they didn’t need to be spoken aloud. But he kept going anyway.
“No lies. Not one. Not about what you feel. Not about what you’ve done. Not about what you want.”
I swallowed. It burned.
“You don’t get to use Camille as a shield. Not anymore.”
That hit harder than anything else. I blinked fast. Once. Twice.
He kept going.
“You don’t get to run to Barron. Or Loyal. Or anyone else when it gets hard. You ran to the world once, and it nearly got you killed.” He paused. “Next time, it won’t nearly.”
I opened my mouth.“Wolfe—”
He raised a hand.
I froze.
He didn’t have to say another word. Then he said one anyway. “You can go.”
I stared at him. Heart stopped.
“You’ve proven you’re good at that,” he said. “Leaving.” The air thinned. “I’m not going to chain you to the floor, Cloe.” My name in his mouth was worse than silence. “I’m not going to chase you next time.”
He stood. Walked around the table. Stopped behind me. His breath slid down the back of my neck like smoke. “If you want to stay, you stay on your knees.” He leaned closer. Not touching. Not threatening. Just final. “Otherwise, the door’s open.”
I didn’t move.
Because I couldn’t tell the difference anymore—between staying and surrendering.
He turned back toward the hallway. I thought he was going to leave. Then I heard my voice break into the silence—uninvited.
“You don’t have to do this. I’m not your responsibility.”
He stopped. Just stood there, spine straight, arms loose at his sides like he was weighing the cost of breaking something.
His voice came quiet. Controlled. Precise. “You’re not my responsibility.” Then softer. “You’re my property.”
The words hollowed me. Not because they were new. But because they weren’t. Because I used to want that. Used to ache for it.
I’d once whispered I belong to you like a prayer between his hands—offered it like surrender, hoping it would be enough to keep him. And now that it was back etched in something colder, stripped of reverence and laced with warning.
He didn’t wait for my reaction. Didn’t smirk. Didn’t soften. Just turned toward the hallway and started to walk. And then I did something stupid. Something I didn’t mean to say aloud.
I whispered, “She wouldn’t have let this happen.”
He froze. Only for a breath. Then turned halfway. Not enough to face me. Just enough to warn me.
“Don’t,” he said. “You don’t get to say her name like that.”
I went still. Completely still. Because I knew I’d crossed something. Something invisible and final.
I thought about Camille. Her laugh. Her warmth. The way she made everything feel less sharp. I should’ve read the letter. I should’ve clung to what little of her I had left. Instead—I said something meant to wound.
And the worst part? It didn’t even land. Because Wolfe had already buried that part of himself. And I wasn’t allowed to dig it back up.
That one hit harder. Because it wasn’t a threat. It was a correction. And he meant every word. He didn’t wait for me to respond. Didn’t ask if I understood. He just walked down the hall.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was loaded. And I sat there like someone waiting for the sentence to fall.
I didn’t ask again.
Not until later. Not until I’d stared at the blank wall long enough to remember the way my phone had felt in my hand. The last thing that tethered me to anyone outside this place.
To Selene.
To fear.
To something I didn’t control.
I turned toward the kitchen. Wolfe was pouring something into a glass. Ice clicked. I spoke before I could stop myself. “My phone… what happened to it?”
He didn’t look up. Didn’t pause. Just said, “Gone.” Then he turned to face me fully. Set the glass down. “Broken. Smashed. You don’t need it.”
I swallowed. The way he said it—like it was obvious. Like it was handled. But something in me shifted. Because he didn’t say it was lost. He said I didn’t need it. And that wasn’t the same thing.
I didn’t ask again.
Because I was afraid of the answer. And afraid of what I might find if I went looking for it.
* * *
I didn’t mean to look for it. Not at first. I told myself I was thirsty.
That I just needed water. That the hallway didn’t feel as dark as it used to.
But my feet didn’t go to the kitchen. They went to the study.
To the drawer in the desk. The one Wolfe never used when I lived here.
The one I’d seen him open earlier. Briefly. Barely. But I remembered.
The drawer smelled faintly like cedar and cologne.
His.
It wasn’t just a place he kept things. It was a place he touched. And now I was touching it too.
The air felt thicker as I slid it open—like I was peeling back a wound he hadn’t let scab yet. My fingers brushed the edge of the charger.
The phone lay face down, screen black, case cracked. There were smudges on the glass. Mine. A fingerprint over the camera lens. One that had pressed there during a message I never got to send.
I didn’t touch it. Didn’t even breathe. Beside it was another device. Identical. Newer. His. Unlocked. The screen was open to my messages. Every conversation. Every file. Every thread.
Selene.
Me.
Wolfe.
Like a map of everything I’d thought I’d hidden. Everything I’d ever tried to protect.
He hadn’t smashed it. He hadn’t thrown it away. He’d just taken it. Quietly. Effortlessly. And never given it back.
I closed the drawer. Not gently. Not with anger. Just finality. He hadn’t lied when he said I didn’t need it. He just hadn’t told me why.