CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LUNA
The lock slid into place with a sharp click that felt far too loud for the trembling in my hands. I felt the vibration of it in my bones. My muscles quivered as if the sound had stolen something from me, and now my body scrambled to replace it.
Silence spilled into the space between us. A delicate, dangerous silence. It felt thin and breakable, a frozen surface stretched across black water. One wrong step and I would fall through. One wrong breath and he would hear me drowning.
I pressed my forehead to the cool wood of the door. It smelled faintly of citrus cleaner and something metallic, almost electric. Ozone. The scent of money, of polished excess, of a life I had never touched until today.
His life.
Ours now. Shared.
That word slammed around inside my skull.
Shared. This massive bathroom, cold and opulent, with its gleaming marble and gold fixtures that probably cost more than the house I grew up in, belonged to him.
And for the first time, it also belonged to me.
Not by choice. Never by choice. But shared all the same.
The realization scraped over my nerves like gritty sand.
I jerked away from the door, heart stuttering.
My fingers shot to the small metal switch fixed into the frame.
I pushed it again. Another click. I pulled the handle.
Still locked. I did it again. And again.
My breath hitched with each repetition. It was useless, obsessive, childish, but I needed the confirmation because nothing else in this place felt within my control.
I imagined him on the other side, maybe shrugging off his tshirt and letting it fall wherever he pleased. Maybe thinking about more ways to destroy me. Or worse, just standing there with that unreadable expression, listening to me scramble for safety that did not exist.
The walls in this mansion were not walls.
They were decorative suggestions. They let sound pass through like water through silk.
Whoever designed this place cared about beauty, about openness, about showing everything.
Privacy was an afterthought, if it was a thought at all.
Every whisper echoed. Every breath carried. Every heartbeat felt amplified.
And I was the unwanted guest. The intruder. The girl trying not to be heard by the boy who already heard too much.
I stepped back from the door, slow, careful, trying not to let the soles of my feet betray me with a scuff or a tap. The marble was cool beneath me, almost icy. A shiver crept up my spine.
His cologne lingered everywhere. Clean and woodsy, something forested and sharp beneath the smoothness. It hung in the air as if he had painted the walls with it. I hated how it made my stomach twist. I hated that it made me feel hunted, watched, claimed.
I swallowed hard and shut my eyes.
For one desperate moment, I considered opening the tall cabinet beside me.
I pictured myself pulling out one of those heavy towels, impossibly soft, absurdly white, and pressing it over my face.
Letting the fabric smother the scent of him, the sound of him, the memory of the way his lips had touched my jawline earlier.
Letting it muffle every thought that threatened to unravel me.
But I knew even that wouldn’t help. His presence clung to this place like steam to glass. There was no hiding from it.
A soft thump came from the other side of the door. Not loud. Not threatening. But enough to make my pulse spike.
I held my breath. My nails dug into my palms until they stung.
A tremble ran through me. Not from fear alone. Fear was simple. This was not.
I backed farther into the room, into the gleam and chill of marble and gold, into the space that now belonged to both of us whether I wanted it or not.
Focus. You need to focus.
My pulse thudded in my ears, quick and disjointed. I tried to inhale, but every breath felt thin, like it had to fight its way through the chokehold around my lungs.
Then, beneath all the panic and the pacing, I felt it. A soft vibration against my thigh. Small. Insistent. Barely a sound, barely more than a shiver of movement, but it sliced through the dread like a hidden blade.
I stopped so fast my breath caught.
My phone.
The message from the number I didn’t know.
I reached for it with a hand that barely obeyed me. The smooth glass felt different than it had an hour ago. Colder. Slicker. Like it sensed the desperation in my touch. I slid it free and held it close, though I did not dare lift it enough to see the screen.
My gaze flew instead to the door.
The one that led directly into Riley’s bedroom.
My heartbeat kicked hard against my ribs. Painfully. As if trying to escape.
I could not look at the message yet. Not with even the chance that he might hear the tremor in my breath when I read it. Not with the slim possibility that the lock might have shifted without me noticing.
Instinct took over. Brutal. Primal. As natural as running from a predator.
I crossed the few steps back to the door, pressing my fingers to the metallic edge of the lock. It was cool beneath my skin. Real. Solid. I traced the line, felt its shape, then tested the handle with a slow, careful pull.
The bolt held firm.
The door stayed closed. Unmoving. A boundary I had control over. However small. However temporary.
Secured. The word felt like a whispered victory against a world intent on stripping me bare.
Only then did I allow myself to turn away. My back remained partly angled toward the door, as though my body refused to give it fully to him. My senses stretched tight, alert for any shift on the other side.
I lifted the phone and unlocked it with a hesitant swipe of my thumb. The screen burst to life in a harsh white glow that washed over my face. For a moment, all I saw was light. Blinding, sterile, and too bright against the thick tension wrapped around me.
Then the icons came into focus.
One stood out, marked with a crimson dot.
Message. 1 new.
My thumb hovered above it. Strange how such a small movement could feel like stepping off the edge of something high. Something from which I might not climb back.
This message could be nothing. It could be everything.
It could be the last thread of control I had.
My throat tightened.
I opened it.
The screen glowed like a held breath. Bright. Merciless. My reflection looked ghostly in the glass, pale and stretched thin by the light of the unknown number that had become my last reckless tether.
A new message waited for me at the bottom of the thread. Clean. Simple. Cold.
What do you want to know?
Six words. Stark as a knife tip. They pulsed on the screen with quiet arrogance.
It was not a question. It was a door opening on silent hinges. A narrow one. Dangerous. But still, a way out. A shift in the power that had been crushing me since I stepped into Riley’s world.
My pulse tripped over itself. I lowered the phone, staring at the glossy expanse of marble around me. Everything shimmered with sterile perfection, yet I felt as though my guilty thoughts had smeared fingerprints over every surface.
What do I want to know?
Everything. Every fracture beneath Riley’s polished exterior. Every secret his family buried under money and whispered influence. Every weakness I could use to claw back one inch of freedom.
My hand trembled so hard I had to grip the phone with both hands. My fingers were shaking, but when they moved, they moved fast. Driven by something sharp and frantic inside me. Something that refused to die quietly in his shadow.
If I waited, I would lose my nerve. If I hesitated, my fear would bloom into something suffocating. I needed to do it now, in this small, stolen moment where the door stayed locked and he could not see my rebellion.
My nails clicked against the glass as I typed.
Everything you have. Weaknesses. All of it.
My breath hitched as I read the words again. They looked harsh. Demanding. Reckless. They looked like something a girl with nothing left would say. Because that was who I had become the moment Riley decided I belonged in his orbit.
I did not have the luxury of politeness. I needed a weapon.
My thumb hovered over Send. A single point of contact between safety and betrayal. The debate sparked instantly in my mind, sharp and vicious.
Are you sure?
This is dangerous.
He will destroy you if he finds out.
But then came the memory of his eyes. That cold, claiming stare that stripped me bare. The heat of his presence behind the door. The unspoken truth that he could take everything from me because he already believed he owned it.
He crossed the line first.
I only followed.
Before caution could form another warning, I pressed Send.
The message vanished from my screen, swallowed by the digital quiet. It felt like I had thrown a stone into a dark lake, waiting for the ripples to return and show me what I had awakened.
I stood there in the locked bathroom, my heart beating like a frantic fist against my ribs, knowing I had just started a war.
And knowing I could not afford to lose.
Something cold and sharp slid through me. It cut through the haze of adrenaline and left a strange, crystalline clarity in its wake. My heart was still thundering, but my mind quieted in a way that terrified me. I felt like someone else. Someone capable. Someone made of steel.
Cleanup.
Erase.
Hide everything.
The words echoed like orders in a covert operation. I obeyed without hesitation, because anything less meant destruction. Riley was not a boy who allowed secrets. He was the kind who mined them, polished them, and used them until they cut.
He had already rifled through my things before. He had not even bothered to disguise it. If he suspected even a fragment of what I had just done, he would not ask questions. He would simply take what he believed he was owed.
I could not leave a trail. Not even a ghost of one.
My hands steadied with a precision that felt foreign. I moved through the messaging app, navigating back to the thread with the unknown number. The messages stared back at me. My demand. Their invitation. The earlier reckless contact. Every line felt like a noose around my throat.
I pressed my finger against the screen until a small menu bloomed open.
Delete Conversation.
My stomach twisted so tightly it felt as if something inside me had knotted itself into a fist. But my thumb did not tremble. My breathing did not stutter. The fear sharpened me instead of freezing me.
The device asked me a final question.
Are you sure you want to delete this entire conversation?
Yes.
I tapped it, and in an instant the thread evaporated. Pure white swallowed every word, every risk, every confession. When the inbox returned, the space where that number had once existed was empty. Blank. Innocent.
As if nothing had ever happened.
Maybe I should change my passcode…
But he would find out. And that would only make him more suspicious that I had something to hide.
No. I would leave my phone like this. At least for now.
My body felt coiled, every nerve pulled tight.
Anxiety did not vanish. It reorganized itself.
It settled into something sharper, something precise, the same tension I imagined soldiers felt before stepping into enemy territory.
Every tick of the clock on the wall throbbed like the beat of a war drum.
I could almost feel its pulse beneath my skin.
Yet beneath the fear, beneath the pressure, something else stirred. Something small and dangerous. A sensation like the spark before a fire catches.
Control.
It flickered low in my stomach, cold and steady, the opposite of panic. For the first time since Riley had cornered my world, I had done something he did not know about. Something he did not permit. Something that could shift the balance, even if only by inches.
I had not escaped. I had not won anything. But I had moved. I had acted. I had refused to be still.
A plan hummed at the edges of my consciousness. It was hazy. Reckless. Sharp as broken glass. But it was there, waiting for shape and opportunity.
I curled my fingers around the phone until my knuckles whitened. It felt heavier than before, as if the device knew it carried the first stone of a war I had just declared. A silent conspiracy existed now, forged between me and a stranger hidden behind a number I didn’t know.
I was no longer merely a girl breathing fear behind a locked bathroom door.
I had taken a step toward becoming something else.
And the terrifying part was how right it felt.