Chapter Twenty-Six
Marius
I catch her just as she steps out of the room.
Not hard enough to stop her. Enough that we both feel it.
Her shoulder brushes my chest as she crosses the threshold, and the contact is brief, solid, real.
For one second neither of us moves. The moment catches between us before either of us decides what to do with it, and my hand comes up instinctively, not gripping, not holding, only hovering near her arm as if I am giving her the space to pull away before I make actual contact.
She stills.
Then steps back.
Not sharply. Not panicked. Deliberate.
The space between us reappears almost immediately, and this time she keeps it.
“I didn’t see you,” she says.
Her voice is steady, but there is something under it. Awareness. Not of the hallway. Of me. Of the fact that if my hand had closed instead of hovered, I could have directed the entire moment without effort.
That lands wrong under my skin. Not because I dislike knowing what I can do. Because with her, right now, I dislike how naturally the instinct comes.
“I know,” I say.
My gaze stays on her longer than it should.
I note the details automatically. The way her posture has settled over the last ten days.
The way the house has begun to fit her in all the places she would hate to admit.
The absence of that earlier volatility. The fact that she had been moving with intent instead of wandering.
She had somewhere to go.
She still might.
“You made a call,” I say.
It isn’t a question.
Leona exhales quietly, like she expected that.
“I did.”
No denial. No evasion. Good.
I study her for another second, then shift just enough to clear the doorway without stepping fully away from her. The movement is not blocking. But it isn’t entirely open either.
“Ten days,” I say.
Her brow lifts slightly.
“You were keeping track?”
“Yes.”
She huffs a quiet breath, something almost like a smile touching the edge of it before disappearing.
“I needed time.”
“For what?”
“To understand what I could say.”
That tracks. Not because I like it. Because it is exactly what I would have done.
I nod once, my attention sharpening slightly.
“And now you do.”
“Enough,” she says.
Not everything. Enough.
The word settles between us, and for a second neither of us moves.
The space isn’t tense in the old way, not sharp enough to cut on contact, but it isn’t neutral either.
It feels aware. That is becoming a pattern with us.
The absence of conflict does not create ease.
It only leaves room for other things to become visible.
Leona shifts her weight slightly, her arms folding loosely across herself, not closed off, only grounding.
“It felt off,” she says.
That is new.
My gaze narrows.
“Explain.”
She glances down the hall briefly, checking it out of habit now, then looks back at me.
“She didn’t push,” she says. “Not the way she normally would.”
“Your contact.”
“Yes.”
“What does she normally do?”
“Push harder,” Leona says. “Ask directly. Fill the silence if I don’t answer.”
“And this time?”
“She didn’t.”
I hold her gaze, processing.
“She circled it,” Leona continues. “The timing, my place, whether I was alone. She didn’t ask who I was with.”
“But she knows you aren’t.”
Leona doesn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
That confirms it.
I shift slightly, stepping fully to the side now so the space opens between us, but my attention does not leave her.
“She’s careful,” I say.
“She’s never careful,” Leona replies.
That matters.
It matters more than the call itself.
My jaw tightens slightly as the calculation changes shape.
A friend I could afford to ignore would have asked different questions.
Emotional ones. Immediate ones. Was she hurt.
Was she safe. Did she need to be taken out of here.
Someone careful enough to avoid those questions and still gather what mattered is something else.
“Then something changed,” I say.
“Yes.”
Leona’s voice is quieter now, more focused. “She’s not asking what she doesn’t already have a direction for.”
“She’s building it.”
Leona nods once.
“That’s what it felt like.”
Silence settles between us, heavier now, but not volatile. It feels like something aligning instead of breaking.
“She asked about you,” Leona adds.
I do not react outwardly.
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing useful.”
A beat.
“She knows there’s someone here,” Leona continues. “She just doesn’t know who.”
“Yet.”
“Yes.”
The word lands clean.
I hold her gaze, something tightening again. Not surprise. Not concern exactly. Awareness. A variable. Not an immediate threat. Not yet. But a live one.
“You’re not worried,” she says.
“I’m aware.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
Another pause stretches between us. Quieter now. Still charged.
The truth is I am not worried about Nora the way Leona expects me to be. Not yet. Worry implies uncertainty. This is only movement on a board I already expected to shift eventually. An outside intelligence has now oriented itself toward my house. That is not ideal. It is not extraordinary either.
What is less useful is the fact that I am having this conversation while still too aware of the point where her shoulder hit my chest and of how instinctively my hand lifted to steady her.
That is the part I do not trust.
Not the protectiveness itself. I know what to do with that.
The rest of it.
Leona takes a small step forward. Not enough to close the space completely, but enough to change it. Enough that the distance between us becomes deliberate instead of incidental.
“She asked if I trusted you,” she says.
My attention sharpens slightly.
“And?”
Leona doesn’t answer immediately.
That is answer enough.
“I told her I don’t understand you,” she says.
I don’t look away.
“That’s accurate.”
She tilts her head slightly, studying me again in that same deliberate way.
“It’s incomplete.”
I don’t argue it. Don’t correct it. That is becoming a pattern.
“And you’re not fixing that,” she adds.
“No.”
The word settles between us, quieter than expected.
The space shifts again. Not tension ready to snap. Something else. Something that holds instead of breaks.
Leona exhales slowly, her gaze still fixed on me.
“She asked if I was staying because I had to,” she says.
I don’t move.
“And?”
Her lips press together slightly, something almost like that earlier not-quite smile returning.
“I told her I was still figuring that out.”
Silence follows.
But it doesn’t feel uncertain.
I hold her gaze a second longer than necessary, and this time I don’t look away first. My awareness of her sharpens again, not abrupt, not reckless, but slower and steadier, something that has settled instead of spiked.
She hasn’t stepped back. Not now. Not when it would have been easier. That matters.
More than it should.
Because her staying by force was one thing. Her staying by choice, even partially, changes the shape of the entire problem. Choice has weight. Choice is the one line that keeps any instinct in me from becoming indistinguishable from the things I would kill a man for doing to her.
That is what she does not fully understand yet.
That is what I am trying not to think about at all.
Leona shifts her weight slightly, her arms loosening at her sides again, like she made a decision somewhere in the middle of the conversation and is not going to undo it just because I am standing too close.
Her breathing has evened out completely now.
The earlier tension has been replaced by something more controlled. More deliberate.
“You’re not saying anything,” she says, quiet but not uncertain.
My jaw tightens slightly.
“There’s nothing to say.”
“That’s not true.”
The words come easily, without edge, without challenge. Only fact.
I don’t respond immediately. I am still watching her, still tracking the small shifts in her posture, the way she holds herself now like she is fully aware of the space between us and choosing to stay in it anyway.
She should not do that.
I should not want her to.
“You already decided,” I say.
Her brow lifts slightly.
“About what?”
“Staying.”
The word lands clean. She doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t soften it.
“I haven’t decided everything.”
“You don’t need to.”
That catches.
Leona studies me for a second, something more focused moving behind her eyes now.
“You’re very sure of that.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I don’t answer right away, and for the first time since I stepped into her path, the silence isn’t controlled. It is measured in a different way. Not what to say. What not to. Because the answer sits too close to the surface, sharper than it should be.
Because you didn’t leave.
Because you’re still here.
Because every time you stay when you could step back, some part of me reads it as permission, and I do not trust that part of myself with you yet.
I say none of that.
Instead I hold her gaze, my expression settling into something more contained. More familiar.
“Because if you were going to leave,” I say, “you would have already.”
Leona goes still. Not pulling away. Not closing off. Just still.
The space between us shifts again. Subtle. Undeniable. Not tension ready to snap. Not distance trying to reestablish itself. Something heavier. Something that holds.
“You don’t know that,” she says, quieter now.
“I do.”
The certainty in it does not come out sharp. It comes out grounded.
That is worse.
Leona exhales slowly, her gaze flicking briefly to the side before returning to me, like she is recalibrating again, adjusting to something she had not planned for.
“You’re very confident for someone I don’t understand,” she says.
“That hasn’t stopped you yet.”
A small pause follows. Just long enough to register.
Then something shifts in her expression. Not quite a smile. Not anything I can name cleanly. Enough to change the tone of the space between us.
“No,” she says. “It hasn’t.”
I feel that land somewhere lower, more immediate than it should. Not sharp. Not volatile. Present.
Leona takes a half step forward without seeming to realize it, closing the space just slightly. Not enough to touch. Enough to make the distance feel intentional again.
This time, I do not move. Do not correct it. Do not step back. I hold it.
Her gaze stays on mine, steady, searching in a way that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with something else entirely.
“You’re still not telling me who you are,” she says.
The question comes softer this time. More deliberate.
I don’t answer. But I don’t shut it down either.
“That’s not something you get yet,” I say.
Leona tilts her head slightly.
“Yet.”
“Yes.”
Another pause stretches between us. Quieter now. Not empty.
“Then I guess I’ll have to keep asking,” she says.
I almost react to that. Almost.
Instead, something in my expression shifts, subtle but real, like I already anticipated that outcome and am not entirely opposed to it.
The truth is darker than that.
I am not opposed to much where she is concerned anymore. That is the problem.
I am used to knowing what to do with the things I want. How to direct them. How to take them in hand. How to dominate cleanly enough that both people understand the shape of it and the line holds.
With Leona, nothing about that is clean.
Not after what happened to her.
Not while choice is the only thing that keeps this from becoming contaminated.
That fact sits in me like a blade I cannot remove and cannot ignore.
So I stand there, hands loose at my sides, every instinct in me sharpened and restrained at once, and do the only thing left that still resembles control.
I let her keep asking.