Chapter 27 Eris
This apartment doesn’t feel like mine anymore.
I stop just inside the door, far enough for Jace to close it behind us, but I don’t go any further. My body knows something is off before my brain does.
The air is wrong. The quiet is worse. Like the apartment has learned a new version of silence while I was gone and won’t bother teaching it to me.
Jace stays close enough to cover me, yet far enough back not to crowd me. He doesn’t touch me or ask why I stop, but the tension rolls off him anyway, a low electrical hum that keeps my spine straight and my hands steady.
I move slowly, studious eyes searching every inch of the floor before my gaze slides up the walls. It’s all wrong, but everything is in order… except for the lack of debris from the hole in the wall Jace made with some part of Daniel.
That hole is also conveniently missing… repaired.
I shake it off and head to my closet first, snatching a duffel bag from the top shelf.
It’s only slightly messy, but it’s exactly the way I left it.
Drawers shut. Shoes lined up… Okay, maybe I didn’t leave it like this.
Roo did, though. She organized while she was looking for something to wear the night we went out…
The night I should have killed Daniel.
I grab a little of everything, creating a capsule wardrobe in my duffel. It’s difficult to anticipate what I’ll need when I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few days. But if I need anything more, I’ll buy it or get it from Roo.
I set my stuff at the end of my bed and go to the bathroom next.
Nothing is out of place. I frown at my toothbrush and toss it into the empty trash.
My makeup is open on the clean counter, and I contemplate tossing it too.
Everything feels tainted. The towels are folded the way I always leave them, but even they don’t sit right on the shelf.
It’s just… off. Colder somehow. Maybe suffocating is the right word? Like the walls are holding their breath against their will. I can’t really explain it other than being wrong.
I turn toward the inset shelf behind my bathroom door to grab my vitamins, and I hear Jace speak. His voice is quiet. Careful. He’s on the phone.
“Eris,” he calls from my kitchen. “Come here.”
“One second.” I drop my toiletries into an over-the-shoulder bag I keep tucked under my sink. “Almost done.”
I take one last look around, noting nothing unusual, and leave my room, taking my bags with me to the living room.
Jace is standing in the middle of the kitchen, head tilted as he stares into the pantry. For a split second, my stomach drops, wondering if Roo stashed something bloody in there… But she wouldn’t be that sloppy. She knows there are cameras here.
“Why do you have a paint can in here?” Jace asks me slowly, like he’s testing the words as they leave his mouth.
“I don’t,” I reply, mirroring his expression.
I’m just as confused as he is. Despite that, I move into the kitchen and peek into the pantry. The paint can is behind my unused waffle iron, metal rim smeared. I tilt it to read the label on the lid.
“It’s half empty,” I note. “And it’s not the color—”
I stop myself, glancing over my shoulder at the living room walls. Jace’s gaze slides around the apartment, brow furrowing as he gets to the fridge. There’s a rough line where two different colors meet, but I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t seen the paint can.
“I thought that color was different,” Jace mumbles.
I walk to the hallway wall, hand lifting on instinct. My palm presses to the paint.
Tacky.
Not wet. Just barely dry enough not to leave fingerprints.
I step back fast, licking my lips as I glance up at the camera in the corner. I haven’t been here in two days. No one should’ve been here. And yet—
Someone painted.
“I’m guessing you guys didn’t do this…”
Jace doesn’t comment. He just moves, as quick and lethal as a wolf through the forest, checking the rest of the apartment like he already knows the ending to this story.
It doesn’t take him long.
No one is here.
He’s just looking for whatever Daniel left behind…
“Eris, he left a—” From my bedroom, Jace curses under his breath. “Jesus, he’s fucking nuts.”
I snort, hoping Jace doesn’t hear me… Because how the fuck can I explain Daniel isn’t as bad as his friend was, and needing to kill that guy is the entire reason I dated Daniel to begin with. Kinda makes me sound like a long-term prostitute.
And I guess that’s not entirely incorrect.
I did sleep with him for work, and I did get paid.
I suppose the difference is that I got paid for killing the guy I wasn’t sleeping with.
Now, I still need to kill the guy I was sleeping with.
Life is messy.
Jace is standing beside my bed, eyes fixed on the center of my gray quilt. His shoulders tremble, as if he’s struggling to suppress the rage building inside him.
There’s a piece of folded paper waiting for me.
I don’t touch it.
I don’t need to.
“I’m not staying here,” I tell him calmly, glaring at the imprint in my pillow. “In fact, I think I’ll pack a few more things. I can’t come back here until…”
I let my words trail off, not sure if I should say what I’m thinking. Jace turns to me and nods once. No argument or false reassurance. I think he knows what I’m not saying and agrees with me.
I pull a black duffel from my closet, leaving the case inside that houses my on-the-go work stuff.
And I pack a few extra things… Not everything.
Just what still feels like mine. Clothes I like.
The knife I keep taped behind my jackets.
The sewing kit I use on defective rats who can’t keep their mouths shut.
When I come back into the bedroom, Jace is sitting on the edge of the bed, hands braced on his knees, watching me like he’s memorizing the way I move toward him.
I stop within reach, suddenly unsure what to say about any of this. I wanted the truth from them, and now that I’ve got it, I’m not sure if I should trust them with my secrets.
Jace reads my hesitation as fear.
He reaches out, hands firm but gentle on my hips, tugging me forward until I’m standing between his knees. There’s a certainty in touch that catches me off guard, like this connection between us is as natural as breathing.
It’s dangerous.
Because I feel the same way.
“He doesn’t get to make you afraid of your own space,” he vows, those pretty hazel eyes boring into my soul.
“I’m not afraid of him,” I whisper. “I’m afraid of what it means, of how much I didn’t see.”
Jace shakes his head, hands steady as his thumbs stroke my skin. “You missed nothing. He didn’t want to be seen until he was ready.”
“He’s not going to stop.”
I mean it as a warning, but Jace frowns at me, brows furrowing as his grip tightens.
“No. Not by any conventional definition.”
I nod. I already knew that… and would have already killed him. But Daniel is getting too close to prying eyes now. It makes the cleanup cost more.
I’ll happily pay it to rid the world of him.
I’m just not sure I can go to the extreme with my HimLock guys watching me like I’m under a microscope.
“And you three,” I murmur. “You won’t stop either.”
“No,” he confirms with too much confidence. “We’re not.”
I lean in... because I don’t want safety wrapped in soft lies and empty promises. I want the type of protection that doesn’t apologize for itself. The kind that watches. That waits. The kind that understands exactly how far I’m willing to go and wants to match my energy.
I feel like they’ll go just as far. It’s just… Am I ready to test that?
I don’t love the idea of chaperones or being escorted.
Or of my space no longer being only mine.
But Daniel crossed a line that I won’t simply uncross.
I’m not ready to tell Jace—or any of them—what I really do when men like Daniel stop being useful to the world.
Not yet.
I’m going to plan his death, but it won’t be from an apartment that he has access to, that he already believes belongs to him.
And if I’m going to let these men stand between me and the dark…
I want them to know I’m worth the risk.
Even if I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll let them see just how dangerous I really am.