Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
I Promise
The door clicked shut behind Chapman as Callum turned to face Lira. She stood in his entryway with the stillness of prey that had learned any movement might draw the predator’s attention, and rage ignited in his chest, white hot and blinding.
His hands moved before his mind caught up, reaching for her face, needing to catalog the damage. She flinched—barely, but he saw it, felt it like a blade between his ribs. Callum forced his hands to slow, to be gentle, telegraphing his movements as his fingers ghosted over the edges of her mask.
“Li.” Her name came out strangled, caught between fury and heartbreak that threatened to crack him open if he let it.
The split ran from her left eye to the corner of her mouth, the metal edges sharp enough to have carved into her skin.
Blood had dried in rusty trails down her neck, disappearing into the collar of her dress.
But it was the bruising that made his vision blur red at the edges—purple-black fingerprints wrapped around her throat already forming like a necklace of violence.
“Who?” The word scraped out of him, though he already knew. Already knew and was calculating how many pieces he could carve Maximus Serel into before death became a mercy.
“My father.” Lira’s voice emerged hollow, drained of its usual steady elegance. “At dinner. Family dinner.”
Callum’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. How many times had he watched Maximus destroy his children under the guise of family obligation? How many times had he stood by, powerless, bound by the same system that now had its hands around Lira’s throat?
“Grey tried to stop him,” she continued, and something in her tone made Callum go still. “He shot him.”
The rage crystallized into something colder, more dangerous. “Is he—”
“Alive. A shoulder wound. Shadera was with him when I left.” Lira swayed slightly, exhaustion bleeding through her rigid posture.
Callum moved, his arm sliding around her waist to steady her. She leaned into him for just a moment, her weight slight against his side, before straightening again. Always maintaining that distance, that careful boundary she’d drawn between them.
She pushed out of his arms and made her way through the entryway, navigating his house like she belonged there.
She did, Callum thought to himself. Belong there.
“You need to rest,” he said as she paused to steady herself against the living room wall.
She only nodded in agreement as he began guiding her deeper into his apartment.
The space was deliberately sparse—all clean lines and muted colors, nothing that could be used as leverage against him.
But he’d kept the guest room furnished, maintained it religiously, though no one ever used it.
As if he’d been waiting for this moment, for her to need sanctuary.
His hand found the small of her back as they walked, feeling the tension vibrating through her spine. Every instinct screamed at him to take her to his room, to keep her close where he could stand guard, where he could hold her.
“You can stay in the guest room for as long as you need,” he said instead, pushing open the door to reveal the space he’d prepared. Neutral grays and soft blues—her favorite colors.
Lira paused in the doorway, and he watched her shoulders drop fractionally.
“I’ll run you a bath, and make you tea. You need something warm,” Callum said softly as she moved into the room.
Lira nodded, taking in the space as he forced himself to focus on his tasks. Turning on the bath, adjusting the temperature, laying out towels. Each movement kept his hands busy, kept them from reaching for her, from pulling her against him and promising things he had no right to promise.
“There are clothes in the wardrobe,” he said, not looking at her. “They should fit.”
He’d bought them years ago, telling himself it was just prudence, just preparation, not hope for a future with her. The lie tasted bitter now.
“Callum.” Her voice stopped him at the door.
He turned back, finding her standing by the window, silhouetted against the city lights below. Even hurt, even in pain, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
The most beautiful thing he’d ever lost.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“You don’t need to thank me, Li. Not ever.”
Something unspoken passed between them, that old thread tugging him toward her. He turned away abruptly before he could act on it, and fled.
There was no other word for the way he left the room, driven out by the weight of everything he couldn’t say. The hallway felt longer than usual, the walls closer. His apartment—his sanctuary, his refuge—had become haunted by his mistakes the moment she’d entered it.
Callum allowed his posture to finally break out of her sight, his shoulders slumping as he leaned against the wall. The rage ricocheting inside his veins threatened to erupt, to send him into the night seeking vengeance against a man who thought himself too powerful to touch.
He dragged a hand down his mask, before pushing from the wall and retrieving his tablet from his pocket.
He typed in a code and the screen flared to life with security protocols.
Three layers of encryption, two proxy servers, and a voice scrambler that would make him sound like static to anyone trying to trace the call.
The line connected after two rings.
“We need to meet,” Callum said without preamble.
“Tomorrow?” The voice on the other end was careful, recognizing the deviation from their usual protocol.
“Tonight. No—” Callum caught himself, glancing back at the guest room door. “Tomorrow night. Things have escalated.”
“I want an extraction—”
“Absolutely fucking not.” The words came out harder than intended, sharp enough to cut. “We stick to the original plan. There is no way to extract safely. Once the Vow ceremony is completed, we can talk new arrangements.”
“The plan didn’t account for—”
“The plan accounts for variables,” Callum interrupted. “This is a variable. We adapt, we don’t abandon.”
“Thane—”
“Listen to me,” he hissed, checking the hallway to ensure he remained alone. “Maximus has doubled security at every checkpoint. The Heart is crawling with his personal guard. Moving now would get them all killed.”
Quiet stretched across the connection, weighted with silent arguments. Finally, “She needs to know we’re trying.”
“I don’t give a damn about her if it fucks with my plan.
” Callum sucked in a long breath, his jaw flexing before he continued.
“Fine. I will make sure she is at the meet tomorrow. But you can send one person. One. They will be able to talk to her. But if they try to get her out, I will kill them. Nothing gets in the way of this plan.”
A pause.
“Two.”
Callum’s free hand clenched into a fist. “One. Any more risks exposure if I’m bringing her.”
Another pause. “Okay. Tomorrow night. The usual place?”
“No. I’ll send coordinates an hour before. And whoever you send better understand the stakes.”
“They will.”
Callum ended the call, immediately wiping the tablet’s memory. The device would show nothing more than a normal evening’s browsing history, carefully cultivated to maintain his cover.
He slipped the device back into his pocket and made his way to the kitchen, as his mind began to race with contingencies, with the delicate dance of betrayals and allegiances that had become his life.
The kettle met the stove with more force than necessary, the metal connecting with a sharp clang that echoed through the quiet space.
His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Not from fear—he’d long ago trained that response out of his body—but from rage so concentrated it seemed to have its own gravity, pulling at his muscles, his bones, his blood.
Maximus was cracking, pressure slowly breaking down the dictator. That meant their window was closing. Whatever he was planning, whatever was causing him to snap, was nearing. They had to strike first.
While the water heated, he measured loose tea leaves into a porcelain pot—chamomile and lavender, something to help her sleep.
The kettle began to whistle, steam erupting from its spout in an angry plume.
Callum removed it from the heat, pouring the boiling water over the leaves and watching as they unfurled, releasing their essence.
As the tea steeped, he pulled out his tablet again, keying in a different set of security protocols.
This call connected immediately.
“Sir?”
“Bring Davish in,” Callum ordered, keeping his voice low. “First thing in the morning, to the interrogation room in my private residence.”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied without hesitation. “Any specific preparations?”
Callum’s fingers tightened around the tablet. “Make sure he arrives with all his Serel Industries credentials. I want his access.”
“Understood, sir.”
“And, Meras,” Callum added. “No trail, no records.”
“As always, sir.”
The call ended, and Callum set the tablet aside, pouring the steeped tea through a strainer into a delicate cup—a relic of his family line that had belonged to his mother before she passed. He added a spoonful of honey, knowing Lira’s preference for sweetness, and carried it toward the guest room.
Serel Industries was the key—the last piece of the puzzle he needed to understand what Maximus was planning.
Callum paused outside the guest room, listening.
The sound of water lapping against porcelain told him Lira was still in the bath.
He slipped into the room and made his way toward the bathroom door, careful not to spill the tea.
It was partially closed, a small crack wide enough that he could see a sliver of her body through the mirror’s fogged reflection, hear the broken, muffled sound of her trying not to cry but failing.
His knuckles rapped against the door. “Li?”
“Come in,” she said so soft he could barely hear it.