Chapter 27 Cloe
CLOE
I could feel him watching me. Not with his eyes—not yet. With his silence.
Wolfe hadn’t spoken since the shower. Hadn’t touched me either. But I felt him. Every time I breathed, I felt the weight of his attention.
I stood at the kitchen counter in his robe, the fabric still damp at the collar. My hair clung to the back of my neck. My fingers wrapped around the handle of a mug I hadn’t sipped from. The tea had gone cold. I didn’t move.
The robe smelled like him. Like heat. Like control.
The silence pulsed.
Then—
the doorbell.
Sharp. Sudden. Final.
I flinched.
Wolfe looked up from where he sat in the chair across the room. No reaction. No tension. Just a shift. He stood slowly. Moved without sound. Opened the door. I couldn’t see who it was. But I heard them.
A voice I knew better than my own.
Wolfe said it first.
Low. Measured.
“Want?”
Then silence.
Then—
Barron.
His voice was hoarse.
Ragged.
Almost broken.
“Need.”
I gripped the mug tighter. Wolfe stepped aside.
And Barron Lawlor walked in.
He looked different. Not in the way he dressed. Not in the way he moved. But in the way he didn’t speak. His silence felt older than Wolfe’s. Like it had been stitched into him instead of sharpened.
He didn’t look at me right away. Didn’t acknowledge the mug in my hand. The robe. The way my legs curled slightly inward like my body already knew something was coming.
He looked at Wolfe. Only Wolfe.
They didn’t speak. But something passed between them. Something sharp. Something final. Then Wolfe turned to me.
“Go to the bedroom.”
Just that.
Not a command.
A direction.
I didn’t speak. Didn’t ask. I set the mug down. Turned. Walked barefoot down the hallway. The robe brushed the backs of my knees with every step. My heart beat too loud to ignore.
I didn’t close the door. I waited.
When they entered, neither man said a word.
Barron stepped in first. Stopped just inside. Wolfe followed. Didn’t cross the threshold. Didn’t sit. Didn’t move. He stood against the doorframe like a verdict. And Barron finally looked at me.
My chest tightened. Not from shame. From the weight of it. His gaze didn’t linger. Didn’t wander. It dropped. To the robe. To the spot where the tie cinched just beneath my ribs.
And then—slowly—he walked to me.
Not rushed.
Not angry.
Just steady.
And when he reached me—
He didn’t ask.
His fingers touched the knot.
And the robe fell open.
He stared at me like I was the last thing in the world worth touching.
The robe hit the floor. His hands didn’t shake. But mine did. I stood there, bare, exposed. Wolfe behind him. Watching. Breathing. Silent.
Barron stepped forward, his hand rising to cup my cheek, then sliding down slowly to my collarbone. His thumb grazed the edge of a healing bruise, and his jaw flexed like the sight of it carved something open inside him.
“You’re still soft,” he murmured.
Not cruel.
Not mocking.
Just… surprised.
His palm spanned my chest, then drifted down the valley between my breasts. My nipples pebbled beneath the weight of his stare. My thighs clenched on instinct.
He looked down.
“She’s wet already,” he said. Not to me.
To Wolfe.
I didn’t dare look back.
“Touch her,” Wolfe said quietly.
That was all.
Barron groaned low in his throat. The sound rumbled through my chest before his mouth claimed mine.
It wasn’t gentle.
It wasn’t sweet.
It was desperate.
His tongue slid between my lips with a hunger I hadn’t tasted from him before. Not in boardrooms. Not in stares. Not in war.
This wasn’t power.
This was need.
His hands were everywhere. Spanning my hips. Squeezing my ass. Guiding me backward until my knees hit the bed.
He didn’t ask. He didn’t hesitate. He just lowered me. The mattress hit my spine. And Barron followed.
His body pressed into mine—hot, heavy, restrained only by the fabric of his undone shirt. His cock was hard beneath his pants, rubbing against my thigh with each shift.
I reached down to unfasten his belt.
He caught my wrist.
“No,” he said.
“This is mine.”
He didn’t strip me like I was owed. He stripped me like I was sacred. Like worship had to be earned. For him.
He undressed for me like it meant something. Each button undone felt like a confession. Each breath he took before touching me again, a surrender.
His cock was thick. Heavy. Perfect. My body arched toward it before I could stop myself.
He positioned himself between my legs, dragging the blunt head along my slit until I cried out.
“You want this?” he rasped.
“Yes.”
Wolfe didn’t move. Didn’t speak. But I felt his eyes. Watching me.
Watching what I became. Barron pushed inside me in one smooth, devastating thrust.
I gasped.
He groaned.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “So fucking warm.”
His thrusts weren’t fast. They were anchored. Heavy. Intentional.
Every stroke said what his mouth wouldn’t:
I need you to feel me.
I need this to mean something.
I need to exist here.
Tears stung the backs of my eyes. But I didn’t cry. Because this wasn’t shame. This was permission. To want him. To want both of them. To fall apart for the man who built the empire and the one still willing to burn for it.
His hands gripped my hips tighter. My legs locked around his waist. Wolfe stepped forward. Closer. Just enough. And Barron looked up at him. Then down at me. His pace stuttered.
“Say it,” he breathed.
“You need me,” I said.
His thrusts snapped harder.
“Say it again.”
“You need me.”
He came with a shudder. Groaning into my mouth like it was the only place left safe.
When he collapsed against me, I held him. And behind him, Wolfe stood still. Watching me. Breathing me. Choosing to stay. But he did.
Barron stayed. And he meant it.
He gathered his trousers, yanked the zipper.
He didn’t speak right away. He didn’t move. Just sat on the edge of the bed, his chest still heaving, his shirt half-open, the sweat on his skin cooling like surrender.
I sat with the blanket wrapped around my waist, legs curled beneath me, body still throbbing from the way he took me—not like he was entitled, but like he was starving. Like he had waited too long to be allowed to feel anything that wasn’t grief.
Wolfe hadn’t left the doorway. The room pulsed with heat, breath, and silence. Barron finally looked up. His voice wasn’t broken. It was quiet. But it cut.
“She came to the office.”
Wolfe didn’t blink.
“Selene?”
Barron nodded.
“Tonight, after the raid. Place was torn apart. She walked in like it didn’t matter. Like she still belonged.”
He exhaled.
“Trench coat. Heels. Nothing underneath but black lace and audacity.”
Something cracked in Wolfe’s jaw.
“She offered a deal,” Barron continued. “She said if I forgave her—if I took her back publicly—she’d make the investigation disappear. Said she had strings. Said she still owned the narrative.”
Wolfe’s voice came low.
Dead.
“She touched like the blood she spilled wasn’t still on her hands.”
Wolfe exhaled. The kind of breath that sounded too much like grief.
“It always was.”
Barron didn’t answer.
I watched them both. The tension between them wasn’t sharp anymore. It was old.
Wolfe stepped farther into the room.
“Did you consider it?”
Barron turned his head. Met Wolfe’s stare.
“Long enough to feel the bile rise.”
My throat caught. My body tensed. Because when he looked at me—I saw it. He hadn’t just chosen to walk away from Selene. He had crawled through the wreckage of his empire to get to me.
And I didn’t breathe again until Wolfe nodded. Just once. Something passed between them. Not forgiveness. Not reconciliation. Just recognition.
Later. Wolfe stood in the kitchen with the bottle of Barron’s untouched scotch. He poured four glasses. Didn’t ask. Didn’t explain. He just dialed two numbers.
“Get here. Now.”
That was all. An hour later, the door opened. Royal entered first. Grinning like a man walking into a den he already knew how to burn.
Loyal followed. Quieter. Eyes scanning every inch of the room. Every bruise on my skin. Every breath between his brothers.
They didn’t speak to each other. Not right away. But something shifted in the room when they stood there. All four of them. All Lawlors.
I felt it in the air. In the way the silence stopped feeling empty and started feeling loaded. It was like watching a crown rebuild itself out of fire and blood.
Wolfe handed out the glasses. Barron took his without hesitation. Loyal nodded once and accepted it. Royal raised his with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.
We stood in a room with no music, no laughter. Just breath. Just shadows. Just war. Wolfe lifted his glass.
“She came for us once.”
Barron answered:
“She’ll come again.”
Royal clicked his glass softly against Wolfe’s.
“Let her.”
Loyal was the last to speak. His voice was quiet. But it carried.
“We don’t fracture this time.”
Wolfe stared into the amber liquid like it was prophecy.
“Then we bury her.”
There was a pause. Not cold. Not hostile. Just full. Of memory. Of betrayal. Of something older than power.
Loyal stepped forward first. Raised his glass again.
“To the ones who remain.”
This time, when they drank, it wasn’t just strategy. It was blood.
I stood in the doorway, robe clutched tight around my body, and watched it happen. Not just the forming of a plan. The reformation of a kingdom.
Barron glanced over his shoulder at me. His expression unreadable. But his presence was loud.
You were worth staying for.
Royal looked me up and down. But for once, he didn’t speak. Loyal just gave me a nod. One I didn’t understand, but felt in my ribs.
And Wolfe? He didn’t look away. He let me see it. His fury. His promise. And something new. Not possession. But allegiance.
This wasn’t the end. It was the beginning. Of something brutal. Of something righteous. Of war. And I would stay.
Not to survive.
But to build it with them.
A kingdom forged in silence.
And ruled in ruin.