Chapter 3 – Tessa
Chapter Three
Tessa
Imake it back to my apartment without bleeding out or getting arrested.
Waffles is a warm, trembling weight against my chest, his tiny heartbeat hammering through my hoodie. I fumble with my keycard three times before the lock clicks, my hands shaking so hard I can barely grip the plastic.
The hallway is mercifully empty. No Tiffany, with her extensions and her judgment. Just the hum of fluorescent lights and the smell of microwaved ramen that permanently haunts this floor.
I slip inside and lean against the door.
Waffles whimpers, and I unzip my hoodie carefully, letting him tumble onto my unmade bed. He immediately burrows into the pile of clean laundry I was supposed to fold three days ago, his one good eye blinking up at me, checking to make sure I’m still here.
“Yeah, buddy,” I whisper, sinking down beside him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I pull the IOU card from my pocket and stare at it.
Red-backed playing card. Slightly creased. Three letters in black marker that might as well spell out my death sentence.
How long has he been watching me? Days, maybe.
Weeks, more likely. The thought makes my skin crawl — all those late-night study sessions in the library, the coffee runs, every moment I thought I was invisible and rebuilding my life one careful step at a time.
He was there, calculating, waiting, and I never once felt it.
My phone buzzes with a text.
You’re bleeding on your sheets.
I drop the phone.
He’s not here. This is the fourth floor of a secured building with keycard access and—
Another buzz.
Answer your door.
No.
Absolutely not.
I am not answering my door at two a.m. for the man who just cornered me in an alley. I don’t care if he’s standing in the hallway with a first aid kit and a marriage proposal—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Waffles’s ears perk up. He lets out a tiny, questioning whine.
“Shh,” I breathe, pressing a finger to my lips.
“Tessa.” His voice is barely above a murmur. “Open the door.”
“Go away.”
“No.”
“I’ll scream.”
“You won’t.”
He’s right. I won’t. Because screaming means explaining, and explaining means admitting what I did tonight.
I look down at my arm. The glass cut runs about three inches along my forearm—not deep enough for stitches, but deeper than I initially thought. It throbs with each heartbeat, a steady reminder of how spectacularly I’ve screwed up.
“Tessa.”
His voice carries a different note this time. Softer. Almost... concerned?
No. That’s impossible. Rowan King doesn’t do concern. He does strategy. Cold, calculated moves that leave you wondering how you ended up exactly where he wanted you.
But still, something in his tone makes me hesitate.
I stand, Waffles curled in my arms, and walk to the door.
My hand hovers over the deadbolt.
“What do you want?”
“To make sure you don’t bleed to death before I collect what you owe me.”
His honesty should sting. Instead, it’s almost... reassuring. At least he’s not pretending this is about kindness.
“How romantic.”
A pause. Then, “Open the door, Tessa.”
I do.
Because apparently, my survival instincts died somewhere between the brick and the broken window.
Rowan King stands in the hallway with a small black bag in one hand and an expression I can’t quite read. Still in that perfectly tailored coat.
But his eyes—
His eyes go straight to my arm, and the careful mask slips for just a moment.
“It’s not that bad,” I say quickly.
He steps past me into the room without invitation, setting the bag on my desk and turning to face me with a clinical assessment.
“Close the door.”
I do, because arguing seems pointless now. He’s already here. Already in my space, taking up all the oxygen with his presence and his stupid, perfect posture.
Waffles growls, but protective in the way that only broken things know how to be.
Rowan glances at him, then back at me. “I told you to drop him off with a friend.”
I snort, some of my usual fire returning. “You assumed I had friends, King. It’s here or nowhere.”
His jaw tightens, just slightly, but I catch it.
“Bathroom,” he says, voice clipped.
“What?”
“Your arm. Bathroom. Now.”
I want to argue. Want to tell him where he can shove his orders but instead, I find myself walking to the tiny bathroom I share with Tiffany, Waffles still clutched against my chest.
The space becomes impossibly small with both of us in it.
I can smell his cologne—something clean and expensive that makes me think of leather and cigars.
He opens his bag with practiced efficiency, pulling out antiseptic, gauze, and medical tape.
Real supplies. Professional-grade, not the bargain-brand bandages I’ve been using since undergrad.
“Sit,” he says, nodding toward the closed toilet seat.
“I can do this myself.”
“Sit. Down.”
His voice carries the kind of authority that makes federal judges pause mid-sentence. It’s probably the same tone he uses in moot court to demolish his opponents.
I sit.
He kneels in front of me, and for a moment, I forget how to breathe.
This is too close. Too intimate. The boy I used to know brought me soup when I had the flu sophomore year. He stayed up all night helping me prep for the debate that got me into law school. He kissed me like I was something precious instead of something broken.
That boy is gone.
But his hands are still gentle when he reaches for my arm.
“Let me see.”
I extend my arm reluctantly, and he peels away the blood-soaked hoodie with care.
“Three inches. Clean edges, but deeper than I thought,” he murmurs, reaching for the cleanser. “This is going to sting.”
“I can handle—fuck!”
The antiseptic burns, and I jerk away instinctively. His free hand catches my wrist, holding me steady.
“Don’t move.”
“It hurts.”
“I know.”
His voice drops an octave, and suddenly, I’m transported back to sophomore year when I twisted my ankle running from campus security after a particularly stupid prank. He carried me six blocks to the nearest urgent care, muttering the entire time about my “pathological need to court disaster.”
I watch as he works, the way his brow furrows in concentration, the careful way he dabs at the wound. His gentle touch contradicts the man who cornered me in an alley an hour ago.
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper.
He doesn’t look up. “Because infection would complicate my investment.”
The words are meant to sting, but they don’t. I can see the lie in the careful way he’s cleaning the wound, in the professional supplies he just happened to have on hand.
“That’s not what I meant.”
His hands still for a moment. When he reaches for the gauze, his movements are more deliberate.
“Because,” he says finally, unrolling the bandage with practiced efficiency, “you’re reckless enough to bleed to death out of spite. And dead martyrs don’t pay their debts.”
Better. More honest.
“Hold this.”
I press my finger to one end of the bandage while he wraps it around my arm. His fingers brush against mine. I bite back the urge to remember what those hands felt like when they touched me with want instead of strategy.
“There,” he says, securing the end with medical tape. “That should hold for a few days.”
He starts to pull away, but I catch his wrist before I can stop myself.
“Rowan.”
He goes very still.
“Why are you really here?”
For a moment, something shifts across his face. Something raw and unguarded. The mask slips, and I catch a glimpse of the boy who used to love me.
Then it’s gone, buried under layers of armor and years of careful construction.
“Because you’re mine now,” he says quietly, standing and stepping back. “And I protect what’s mine until I’m done with it.”
He cleans up with the same controlled focus he used on my bandage. Waffles has fallen asleep in my lap, tiny snores rumbling against my stomach.
I should say something. Anything. But my throat feels tight, and my heart won’t stop hammering against my ribs. The silence stretches between us, sharp and loaded with everything we’re not saying.
Rowan zips the bag shut.
“What do you want in return?” I ask when I finally find my voice.
He doesn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out another red-backed card, holding it out between two fingers.
My stomach drops to somewhere around my ankles.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He doesn’t even blink.
I take the card with two fingers, then walk to the trash can and drop it in without breaking eye contact.
It lands on top of a crushed La Croix can and a half-eaten granola bar with a satisfying little thunk.
His expression doesn’t change. But something flickers behind his eyes.
“You think that gesture means anything?” he asks, voice deceptively calm.
“No,” I say, lifting my chin. “But it makes me feel better.”
He blinks once.
But I know him—or I knew him. I knew the version who let his tie hang loose after formal events and carried Tylenol in his wallet because he got stress headaches before finals. The version who kissed me like he was afraid I’d disappear if he let go.
This version? The one standing in my doorway? He doesn’t kiss. He negotiates.
He’s polished where he used to be soft. Distant where he used to be warm. Sharp in all the places that once welcomed me in.
And I can’t stop wondering how much of that transformation is because of me.
Because I didn’t just leave him. I broke something. Whatever fragile, hidden thing he’d trusted me with, I took it and ran.
I left him with too many questions and no explanation. Because I couldn’t give him one. Because I didn’t have one that didn’t make me sound weak or scared or catastrophically stupid.
But I remember the look on his face the last time I saw him.
And I see the ghost of it now, buried under years of armor and power plays.
My chest aches with something deeper than regret.
Waffles shifts in my arms, letting out a soft, contented sigh.
I glance down at him—unbothered by the emotional warfare happening around him.
I used to feel that way with Rowan. Like, no matter how fast I was unraveling, he’d hold the thread steady until I could sew myself back together.
Now, he just pulls it tighter.
He turns toward the door, one hand already on the knob. His coat swings slightly with the motion, all that tailored perfection a stark contrast to the messy reality of who we used to be.
He doesn’t say goodbye.
Doesn’t look back.
And somehow, that hurts more than anything he could have said.
Because I thought—I don’t know what I thought. That he’d linger. That he’d hesitate. That I’d still matter to him, even a little bit.
But he walks out.
The door closes with a soft click, leaving me alone with a sleeping dog and the crushing realization that Rowan King isn’t the boy I fell in love with anymore.
He’s something else entirely.
Something that still knows exactly how to hurt me.