Chapter Twenty-Six Emmy
Chapter Twenty-Six
Emmy
The room feels wrong the moment he’s gone.
Not quiet, suspended. As if the walls themselves are holding their breath, waiting for him to return and set everything back into motion. The air is thick with what he left behind, heavy and restless.
I sit on the edge of the bed, his shirt still clinging to my skin, the fabric steeped in him.
His scent wraps around me, familiar and dangerous, and my pulse refuses to settle.
My body hasn’t caught up to his absence; my skin remembers him too vividly, remembers the weight of his hands, the way they anchored me as if letting go was never an option.
And that’s the problem.
I miss him already.
The realization lands softly at first, almost harmless, then spreads like a bruise beneath the surface, dark and aching. I press my palms into the mattress, grounding myself, forcing a slow, measured breath. Wanting him was effortless. Leaning into him felt instinctive, inevitable.
Understanding what that means is anything but.
I stand and begin to pace, my bare feet soundless against the floor.
His bedroom is immaculate, too immaculate.
Every surface is deliberate, every object placed with precision, as if disorder is something he refuses to tolerate.
There’s nothing here that doesn’t belong exactly where he decided it should be.
Even the windows feel controlled.
Floor-to-ceiling glass stretches before me, not an invitation but a warning. The height is dizzying, the view distant and unreachable, a reminder of how far removed this space is from the world below. From everything familiar. From escape.
My phone waits on the bedside table, exactly where he left it. I pick it up, half-expecting something, anything. There’s nothing. No missed calls. No messages.
I type a message out to Tate quickly, letting her know I won’t be at work.
Emmy:
Hey, I’m taking a few days off. Need some time to unwind and relax.
A lie, smooth and harmless on the surface. I set the phone back where it was, just as carefully as I found it, and turn toward the door.
I test it.
It opens without resistance.
So, I’m not locked in. Not physically.
The distinction does little to settle the tight coil in my chest.
I drift into the hallway, my fingers trailing along the wall as if I need the contact to remind myself, I’m real, that this place hasn’t swallowed me whole. The living area comes into view, and I stop.
The mess from earlier is gone.
No shattered glass. No dark splash staining the wall. No sign of the violence that cracked through the air when Khai lost control. Everything is pristine, polished back into submission.
It’s as if the explosion never happened.
As if someone erased the evidence.
As if his control didn’t slip at all, only my illusion of it.
My stomach tightens.
On the kitchen island sits the manila envelope.
Thick. Unassuming. Waiting.
It’s the same one, the one I didn’t open the last time I was here. My pulse stutters, sharp and uneven, and I stop short as if an invisible line has been drawn between us. I don’t touch it. I don’t even step closer.
Khai’s voice slips back into my mind, tight with fury, stretched thin at the edges, unravelling. The sound of it had been more frightening than the crash, more telling than the rage he tried to choke down before it turned on him instead.
None of it made sense. Not the violence. Not the restraint that followed. Not the way everything had been cleaned, controlled, erased.
And this, whatever waits inside that envelope, is the reason.
I know it without opening it. I know it in the pit of my stomach, in the way my skin prickles with warning. Some truths aren’t meant to be uncovered gently.
Whatever is inside that envelope isn’t good.
And worse, some part of me is terrified it explains him.
“Khai?” I call softly.
My voice barely disturbs the air.
No answer.
The penthouse responds with silence, thick, heavy, watchful. It presses in around me, and I retreat a step before I realize I’m moving. Unease crawls up my spine, slow and deliberate. I don’t like not knowing where he is.
What unsettles me more is how instinctive the thought feels.
I turn toward the windows, craving space, air, something that doesn’t feel curated by his hands. Below, the city lies dark and sprawling, a constellation of lights glittering against the night. Alive. Oblivious. Somewhere down there is my apartment. My job. My life before tonight.
It feels impossibly far away. Like something I dreamed once and then woke from.
A movement behind me pulls my attention sharp and fast.
I turn.
Jaxon is leaning against the counter, arms crossed, posture relaxed in a way that isn’t. His expression is unreadable, eyes steady, assessing, like he’s been there longer than I’m comfortable with.
Watching.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says calmly. “He stepped out to make a call.”
Something about the way he says it, careful, measured, puts me on edge.
“What was that earlier about?” I ask, keeping my voice even despite the tightness in my chest. “The shouting.”
Jaxon studies me for a moment too long. Long enough to make it clear he’s weighing something. Then he shrugs, casual on the surface.
“Family.”
The word lands wrong. Heavy. Loaded. I want to push, to pry it open and see what he’s really saying, but his tone isn’t an invitation, it’s a boundary. One I instinctively understand not to cross.
So I pivot.
“What’s in the envelope?”
His jaw tightens. Just for a fraction of a second, but it’s enough. His gaze flicks toward the island, toward that quiet, waiting thing, before returning to me. Assessing. Measuring.
“You should talk to him,” he says carefully. “When he’s ready.”
“When I’m ready,” I murmur, the words barely more than breath. Because as much as I want answers, there’s a deeper fear curling in my stomach, of what the truth might cost me once I know it.
A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “Yeah. That too.”
The tension coils tighter between us, thick and unspoken. I force myself to shift gears before it snaps.
“So,” I say lightly, too lightly. “What do you do?”
The corner of his mouth lifts as if he finds the question amusing. “Damage control.”
I squint at him, already knowing that’s all I’m getting. “How long have you known each other?”
“Since we were kids,” he says, and this time the smile reaches his eyes. “He’s like a brother to me.”
He pushes off the counter and takes a few careful steps closer, not invading my space, but close enough to lower his voice. His next words are chosen with intent.
“I know you mean something to him. I can see it in your eyes too,” His gaze sharpens, searching my reaction. “The feeling is mutual.”
My pulse stutters.
“Give him time,” Jaxon continues. “He doesn’t open up easily. He’s lost someone before.”
There’s pain in his eyes when he says it, old, familiar. He lost him too.
“Just don’t give up on him because he doesn’t know how to give everything at once,” he adds quietly. “He deserves a chance.”
“Liam,” I whisper to myself, the name slipping free before I can stop it, too soft for Jaxon to hear, but loud enough to echo inside me.
Before I can find my voice, the front door opens.
Khai steps inside, phone already tucked into his pocket, his expression locked down into something calm and unreadable, as if whatever happened out there never touched him at all.
His gaze finds me instantly.
The look that crosses his face hits me square in the chest. Relief, unmistakable and raw. Then something darker slips beneath it. Something sharp. Almost feral. His eyes drag over me slowly, deliberately, lingering on my bare legs a moment too long, like he’s checking I’m still real. Still here.
“Everything okay?” I ask, my voice steadier than I feel.
He nods once, never looking away. “It will be.”
Not yes. Not now. A promise deferred, and somehow more unsettling for it.
Jaxon straightens. “I’ll give you two a minute,” he says, already moving toward the door.
As he passes Khai, he murmurs something too low for me to hear. Khai’s shoulders tense, just barely, like a restrained reaction forced back into submission. Then Jaxon is gone, the door closing softly behind him.
We’re alone again.
The silence stretches between us, thick and loaded, pulsing with everything neither of us is saying.
“You shouldn’t be out here barefoot,” Khai says at last.
That’s what he chooses. That’s what breaks the quiet.
“That’s what you’re worried about?” I ask, unable to keep the edge from my voice.
He exhales slowly, like every word costs him something. Like he’s weighing them carefully before letting them go.
“No.”
And the way he says it tells me everything else is far more dangerous.
“Then tell me what it is,” I say, my voice steady despite the tremor coiled beneath it. “Stop keeping me in the dark.”
He closes the distance between us, slow and deliberate, stopping just short of touching me. Close enough that I feel the heat radiating from him. Close enough that my pulse betrays me again, loud and reckless.
“I don’t want to keep you in the dark,” he says quietly, his gaze settling on my face like a weight.
I don’t look away. “Then tell me the truth.”
Something shifts behind his eyes.
A fracture. A fault line threatening to give way.
“I will,” he says at last. “Soon.”
Not yet. Not safe. The same answer, dressed in different words.
I nod anyway, even though every instinct in me screams against it. Because pushing now feels wrong. Because pushing now might shatter something fragile and dangerous, something neither of us wants broken.
“Fine,” I say. “But understand this.”
His attention sharpens instantly.
“I will not be kept in the dark forever,” I continue, my voice quiet but unyielding. “If I’m in this, whatever this is, I’m in it with my eyes open.”
For a long moment, he just looks at me. Really looks at me. As if committing the words to memory.
Then, softly, “Okay.”
His hands find mine. Not hurried. Not possessive. Just there. They slide up my arms, sending a shiver racing through me, before he cups my face with a tenderness that feels almost at odds with the man in front of me.
He leans in, his lips hovering just over mine.
“It’s late,” he murmurs. “You should get some sleep.”
And then he seals the sentence with a kiss, soft, restrained, devastating.
One of his hands slides to the small of my back, firm but gentle, guiding me down the hall toward the bedroom. The touch is brief, controlled, just enough to remind me he’s there. Just enough to unsettle me.
When we reach the room, he steps inside with me but doesn’t close the door. He crosses to the bed, pulls back the covers, and gestures wordlessly for me to get in, as if this has already been decided.
I hesitate only a second. Long enough to look at him. Long enough to wonder what I’m agreeing to.
Then I climb into the bed.
“What about you?” I ask quietly. “Where will you sleep?”
He leans over me, drawing the covers up around my body, tucking me in with a care that feels dangerously intimate. His tongue drags over his bottom lip, and a slow smirk curves his mouth.
“Right next to you, Little Heaven.”
My breath catches.
He lowers himself further, bracing his arms on either side of my head, caging me in without touching. His presence is overwhelming, heat, restraint, promise.
“I’ve just got a few things to finish first,” he murmurs.
Then he kisses me.
Not softly. Not gently.
His tongue sweeps across my bottom lip, coaxing, testing. I start to open for him, and he pulls away. The restraint in his eyes is feral, barely leashed.
“Good night.”
And then he’s gone.
The lights click off as he leaves, the door left open behind him, and I’m alone again in his bed. Wrapped in his scent. His sheets. Wanting more than he was willing to give.
Sleep comes slowly.
I drift somewhere between waking and dreaming, suspended in that fragile space, when my phone vibrates against the mattress.
The sound snaps me back into myself.
Groggy, I reach for it, squinting at the time first.
2:09 a.m.
Then I see the message.
Unknown:
He can’t hide you forever from me.
The words sit there, stark against the dark screen.
My chest tightens, breath catching as my eyes trace them again, slower this time. He can’t hide you forever from me. Not a warning. Not a question. A certainty.
This isn’t a one-off. I know that instinctively. This is the opening move of something that hasn’t finished revealing itself yet. A promise made in advance.
I glance toward the open bedroom door, half-expecting movement in the shadows beyond it. The apartment is silent. Still. Too still. Khai is somewhere else in this place, close enough to feel, far enough to be unreachable.
I lock the phone and set it facedown on the mattress, as if that might dull the weight of it. As if ignoring it could keep whatever comes next at bay.
I don’t have the energy to unravel this now. Not tonight. Not when my body is heavy with exhaustion and my mind is already stretched thin. Whatever that message means, whatever it’s warning me about, it can wait until morning.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
I pull the covers tighter and turn onto my side, staring into the darkness. Sleep eventually claims me, not gentle, not peaceful, but edged with unease. With the sense that something has already started moving, whether I’m ready for it or not.
And that this was only the beginning.