7.0
Bryan's voice cut the room like a bell.
"Brooks!"
Heads turned the way they always do when power says a name. The crowd seemed to fold open on command-sequins, tuxedos, pearl-soft laughter parting like it had practiced.
I didn't move. Couldn't. Kian's hand sat warm and heavy at my waist, thumb pressed just enough to read as casual to the room and possessive to anyone who knew better. My mouth was smiling. My stomach wasn't.
Bryan's palm hovered midair in a beckoning arc, the easy authority of a man used to being answered. "Come meet the family," he added, like the joke was that simple.
Family. Right.
Then he appeared.
Dark suit, shoulders broad enough to make the fabric respect him, jaw already set for cameras even in a room that wasn't looking.
The lighting in here did that expensive thing-made everyone gleam-but he didn't need help.
He'd always carried his own spotlight. The only difference was the man wearing it.
He looked... harder. Older wasn't the word, though four years will do that to a person.
It was the edges that had changed-polish over concrete.
The haircut tighter. The eyes colder. The mouth still the same, stubborn even when neutral, like he'd decided something five minutes ago and the rest of him hadn't caught up.
He stopped a polite distance away, the politician's half-smile already fixed. For one dizzy second I thought maybe he'd glance past me, that I'd be a body in the blur. Then his gaze landed clean.
Brooks.
Everything in me went very still, then very loud.
"Senator," Bryan said, clasping his shoulder with that double-handed squeeze older men use when they want to look paternal instead of possessive. "My nephew, Kian and this is Amira."
Kian's grip at my waist firmed by a degree, not enough to bruise, just enough to broadcast. "How you doing," he said, chin lifting, voice even. He didn't offer a hand. He didn't need to.
Brooks took the smallest breath, the kind you'd miss if you hadn't ever fallen asleep on his chest. He reached for Kian anyway, his public voice coming smooth.
"Good to meet you," he said. He meant it the way politicians mean anything: practiced, measured, impossible to pin to a real feeling.
Kian let their palms touch, a quick press, then released like he'd done a favor. The men around us-donors, friends of Bryan, the professional kind of curious-watched that little exchange the way people watch two dogs sniff each other at a park no one owns.
Then Brooks turned to me.
"Amira," Bryan supplied again, like we were all new to our own names. "Kian's friend."
Friend. I kept my smile soft. The word slid over me like a dress that didn't quite fit.
Brooks didn't flinch. Not at that. Not at me. He extended his hand, eyes steady, the whole room reflected in them.
"Nice to meet you," he said.
It was a sentence with teeth. He said it like a man who'd trained every muscle in his face not to betray him. It should've worked. It almost did.
My fingers met his.
Warm. Familiar. Dangerous. Like the memory of a door I'd promised not to open.
"Nice to meet you too," I heard myself say, tone smooth enough that I could've believed it if I didn't know better.
There was a flicker-something light and fast across his mouth, the barest ghost of an almost-smile that wasn't for cameras and wasn't kind either. If I hadn't lived inside the split-second shifts of that face, I would've missed it.
Bryan, oblivious or pretending well, laughed big, cutting the tension like that could make it disappear. "Kian doesn't bring just anyone to family things," he said to Brooks, to me, to the cluster of orbiting eyes. "That tells me she's trouble."
"Good trouble," Kian said, finally letting the hint of a grin cut through. It warmed me and irritated me in the same breath.
Brooks's gaze stayed on me for a beat too long, then slipped to Kian's hand on my waist, then back to my face. "I'm sure," he said lightly, like he was impartial, like any of this was neutral.
A staffer materialized at Bryan's elbow, murmuring something about timing and camera blocking. Bryan nodded without looking away from the small performance he'd built here.
"Big night," he said, turning the wattage back up. "Announcements, speeches-history." He clapped Kian once on the shoulder, the way men in charge do when they want to brand someone without leaving a mark. "I'm glad you came, nephew."
"Always," Kian answered, and I could feel the truth of it running under his skin: loyalty that chose people over optics, family that didn't ask permission to enter the room. Whatever else he was, that part was real.
Bryan pivoted back to me. "You're welcome here," he said with an affable warmth that would read beautifully in a profile piece. "Please, enjoy yourself."
"Thank you," I said, because manners were cheap and cost me less than honesty tonight.
The staffer tugged again. This time Bryan went, the circle dissolving on cue-the way circles do when the sun at the center moves.
Which left us. The three of us, and a hum behind it.
For a long second nobody spoke.
Kian let out a small breath, the kind that loosens a jaw, and slid his palm to the small of my back like he was reminding both of us where I stood. "That was painless," he murmured, teasing in my ear, tone easy.
"Sure," I said. It came out thinner than I liked.
Brooks heard it anyway. Of course he did. He'd always been able to read my voice like it was printed in a large font.
His expression didn't move. Only his eyes softened, a fraction that wouldn't register to anyone who hadn't once counted the ways his face broke and rebuilt itself across a single argument.
"Congratulations," I said, because it was the line the room wanted from me. It tasted like stale water.
He nodded once, the thanks of a man who didn't need another compliment to survive. "Enjoy your night," he said.
He was good. I'd give him that. The tone was gentle and perfectly impersonal, like he'd said it to a thousand strangers in ballroom light and meant it the exact same amount each time.
Kian's phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it, eyes on Brooks, then on me, then back on Brooks. If tension had a color, I swear it would've stained the floor. Brooks looked at Kian first.
Kian smiled without showing any teeth. "We will."
Brooks's gaze slid back to me like it had never left. "Amira."
"Senator," I returned.
We stood inside three different stories and pretended the pages matched.
"Come on," Kian murmured in my ear, a brush of breath that grounded me, even if part of me wished the floor would split.
He guided us away, into the crowd again, my smile fixed, my spine hot, my heart doing that old, stupid thing it hadn't done in years.
Behind us, Bryan's voice rose for the room, practiced and ringing. Ahead of us, strangers laughed. To my left, glass chimed. To my right, Kian's fingers pressed a promise into my hip.
We drifted toward the windows, the city laid out below like jewelry.
Conversations swelled and broke around us-donor small talk, old money gossip, the self-congratulation of people who confuse access with goodness.
In the glass, our reflections hovered-gold dress, black tee and chain.
A study in opposites that made a kind of private sense.
"You okay?" he asked again, eyes on my face now, not the room.
"I'm fine," I said, and we both heard the lie. I added, softer,
He let that stand. One of the things I liked about Kian: he knew when to push and when to hold. He could be sharp-edged, and sometimes he used that like a toy. But right now? He chose to be a wall.
A waiter floated by with champagne. Kian took two flutes without asking and offered me one. I shook my head. He set them both on a passing tray like he'd only taken them to refuse them. The corner of my mouth twitched. He noticed it and looked pleased with himself for pulling a smile out of stone.
We lingered like that for a minute-quiet, shoulder to chest, watching other people's performance-until the hum settled into something I could breathe in without choking.
Kian's hand guided me through the crowd, low on my back, firm. His touch had always walked that line-protective on the surface, possessive underneath. I let him steer me toward the windows, where the city glittered in the glass, skyscrapers lit like teeth in the night.
I stared at our reflection in the glass: me in gold, him in a black tee and chain, standing in a room where everyone else looked styled for a magazine cover. Opposites, sure. But I couldn't deny how natural we looked together. Like some private symmetry the rest of the room didn't get to see.
And yet... my mind wouldn't let go of the whiplash.
What did I really know about him? About the man who could post up on a Philly corner one day, then hug his uncle running for president the next?
How could he walk me into a room like this-champagne towers, policy donors, every conversation rehearsed-and still belong to the streets I saw him count bills for?
It didn't line up. His chain and his uncle's lapel pin were from two different planets. But Kian made them orbit like the same sun.
That thought unsettled me more than Brooks's eyes had.
A waiter floated by with champagne. Kian grabbed two glasses, handed me one like it was automatic.
I shook my head. He shrugged, set both flutes back down on another tray without sipping either.
My lips twitched despite myself. He noticed, smirked, satisfied with pulling a smile out of me when the room had left me stiff.
We lingered there, shoulder to chest, letting other people's laughter wash over us. I let my hand graze his wrist, grounding myself in the warmth of someone solid and unbothered.
"You really okay?" he asked again after a beat.
"I will be," I admitted.
He nodded once, easy, like that answer was enough.
And for a minute, it was.
He leaned down, lips brushing the shell of my ear. "Half these people fake it better than us. Don't let it rattle you."