Kai
The house makes me want to puke.
All that glass.
All that gold.
All that pretentious fucking shine like money can scrub the filth off a soul.
And she lives in there.
With him.
I grip the steering wheel so hard the leather creaks, breath fogging the window as I lean forward.
Because there she is.
Her shadow.
Moving.
Pacing.
Restless like her skin doesn’t fit.
Good.
She fucking feels me.
The street is empty, dead quiet, the kind of quiet that makes you feel like God forgot this block existed—but I haven’t.
I haven’t forgotten a single goddamn thing.
“Fuck,” I whisper, the word scraping out of my throat. “There you fucking are… little sister.”
My hand twitches like I’m reaching for her throat even from across the street.
She walks past the big front window again—bare legs, loose clothes, hair down, looking like she’s trying to peel herself out of her own body.
My jaw ticks.
“You lied in that courtroom,” I breathe, lips curling. “And you’ve been lying ever since.”
Her silhouette freezes.
Just for a second.
It’s enough to send heat down my spine.
“You feel me,” I mutter. “You always fucking did.”
She moves again—fast, agitated, rubbing her arms like she’s trying to shake something off.
Me.
She’s trying to shake me off.
My laugh comes out low, humourless, cracked from four years of waiting. “Try harder,” I whisper. “You don’t get rid of me that easy.”
I shift forward in the seat, eyes locked on her like I could drag her out of the house through the glass if I wanted.
And I do want to.
God, I fucking want to.
Then I see him.
Noah.
Tall.
Blonde.
Perfect.
Fake as fuck.
He walks past behind her, and something in me snaps so hard my vision blurs at the edges.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I snarl, chest tightening. “Him? You let him put his hands on you?” My fist slams into the steering wheel. “You let that clean, polished, empty suit of a man touch you like he earned it?”
I lean back, run both hands through my hair, breathing hard. “Christ, Scarlett… you let him into your bed?”
My voice shakes—rage, disgust, something feral and ugly I don’t bother controlling. “You must’ve wanted me to lose my fucking mind.”
Her shadow crosses his.
He touches her and my whole fucking world goes silent.
“You think he knows how you sound when you break?” I mutter, voice dropping to a violent whisper. “You think he knows what your body does when you’re trying not to want something you shouldn’t?” I laugh again—sharper, darker. “He doesn’t know shit.”
I lean closer to the window until my breath fogs the glass again.
“Does he have any idea,” I whisper, “that you see me when he puts his mouth on you?”
My pulse thunders.
“You let him kiss you with my name trapped behind your teeth.”
I press my thumb into my palm, grounding myself, but it does nothing. The rage is too deep, too old, too fucking earned.
“You’re not with him,” I growl. “You’re surviving him.”
She disappears deeper into the house.
My breath shakes.
“You run from the window like you used to run from my eyes.”
His shadow follows her.
I see their shapes overlap.
I nearly tear the steering wheel off.
“You let him touch you and pretend it’s real,” I say quietly, venom dripping from every syllable. “But you’re lying. You’ve been lying since the night you fucking walked away.” My hands tighten. “You want me,” I hiss. “You always fucking did.”
The light upstairs flicks on.
Bedroom.
I go still.
“You go up with him?” My voice is low. Deadly. “You really that far gone?”
My pulse is a deep, murderous drum.
“You let another man hold you?” A laugh—quiet, cracked, feral. “You must want me to tear this fucking house apart.”
I exhale slow, shaking with the kind of rage that burns cold.
“I’m not watching him keep you.” My voice drops to a whisper sharp enough to cut glass. “I’m taking you back.”
Her shadow appears near the upstairs window—small, tense, shaking.
Mine.
She’s still fucking mine.
“You hear me, little sister?” I murmur, the words raw and obsessive and four years overdue. “You’re still mine.”
Another shadow joins hers.
Noah.
I smile.
A slow, murderous thing.
“Let him touch you,” I whisper. “Let him try to keep you.” My eyes harden. “I’ll take you right out of his arms.”
I shift in the seat, leaning back, pulse steady now—not calmer.
More focused.
He thinks she’s his.
He thinks she’s safe.
He thinks he gets to kiss her, touch her, lie beside her.
He doesn’t know shit.
He doesn’t know she doesn’t see him at all.
He doesn’t know her mind belonged to me long before her body did.
He doesn’t know I’m outside.
Waiting.
Watching.
Claiming.
“Sleep tight, Scarlett,” I whisper, eyes fixed on the glowing bedroom window. “Because when I come for you…” I smile. “…you’re never going back to him.”
It’s laughable how easy it is.
For all Noah’s polished confidence, for all the alarms he flaunts, for all the money poured into this perfect little fortress—He forgot the oldest rule.
Locks don’t stop people like me.
They never did.
The side door clicks open under my hand, a quiet metallic sigh that feels like the house is greeting me.
Welcoming me home.
I step inside.
The air smells wrong—too clean, too empty, too his.
Sterile lemon polish. Expensive cologne. A faint trace of her perfume trying to survive in the mix.
I shut the door behind me without sound.
Four years in a cell sharpens your instincts until silence becomes an art form. I move through the kitchen, through the hallway, past the staircase where her handprint still ghosts the banister from earlier when she came home shaking—And up.
Every step is deliberate.
Measured.
Thrumming with violence.
My pulse is steady.
Not rushed.
Not panicked.
I’ve imagined this too many times to shake.
The upstairs landing is dim, a soft glow leaking beneath the bedroom door. Their bedroom. His bedroom—but she’s in it, so by default it becomes mine.
I move closer.
I don’t open the door.
I don’t barge in like the monster they tell stories about.
I slip through the small gap Noah didn’t fully close.
The room is warm.
Quiet.
Suffocating.
And there she is.
Scarlett.
Sleeping.
Bare shoulder peeking from the duvet, hair spilling across the pillow, breath soft and uneven like she cried before falling asleep.
My lungs stop working.
“Fuck,” I whisper so softly the air barely moves. “Look at you.”
Her face is turned slightly toward me, enough for me to see the faint stress-line between her brows. She looks exhausted. Fragile. Breakable in ways I never allowed.
Something ugly and tender twists in my chest.
I step fully inside.
Noah is on the other side of her.
Arm draped over her waist.
Body pressed too close.
Face buried near her shoulder like he has the right.
I feel my pulse hit a slow, cold rhythm.
“You’re touching what isn’t yours,” I breathe.
Noah shifts in his sleep, tightening his grip around her like he senses me even in dreams. Like animals do before a storm.
Scarlett inhales sharply—a tiny sound, vulnerable and instinctive.
She doesn’t wake.
But her fingers twitch on the sheet.
Reaching.
My jaw clenches.
“You’re dreaming of me,” I murmur, stepping closer to her side of the bed. “I fucking know you are.”
Her lashes flutter.
And my knees nearly give.
I crouch beside her, close enough to feel the heat of her breath. Close enough to smell her skin—warm, soft, the exact scent that used to stain my shirts after nights she’d pretend she wasn’t clinging to me.
“Little sister…” It comes out broken. “Don’t you dare pretend you’re his.”
My gaze flicks to Noah again.
His hand rests over her stomach.
My vision tunnels.
I reach out.
Not to touch her.
Not yet.
Not like this.
I slide two fingers under the edge of the duvet—just enough to curl the blanket a half inch away from her body. Enough to see the line of her thigh beneath the sheets. Enough to remember exactly how she looked the night before court broke us.
Noah breathes deeply, shifting again.
Scarlett moves in response.
Their bodies press together.
A cold, violent calm washes over me.
“I should break his fucking hand,” I whisper, watching where his fingers rest on her skin. “Snap every bone until he screams.”
But I don’t.
Not tonight.
Killing him would end the game too early.
Hurting him would wake her—and I don’t want her terrified when she sees me for the first time.
I want her breathless.
I want her confused.
I want her aching.
So I lean closer, lowering my face until my lips almost brush her ear.
Her breath hitches.
“Oh,” I whisper, “you feel that, don’t you?”
A tear—just one—slides from the corner of her eye down onto the pillow.
I go still.
Completely.
Absolutely.
Ruined.
“Scarlett…”
Her name is a prayer and a curse in one.
She whispers something in her sleep.
A single word.
Not Noah.
My chest caves in.
“Say it again,” I breathe. “I fucking dare you.”
She doesn’t.
But she trembles.
I reach into my jacket pocket, pulling out the folded scrap of paper—the one she sent back to the prison unopened, marked RETURN TO SENDER in that neat handwriting that pretended she wasn’t breaking.
I place it on her nightstand.
Neat.
Precise.
Unavoidable.
Then I take one strand of her hair—just one—from her pillow.
I curl it around my finger.
And gently place it in my pocket like something sacred.
“I’ll be back for you,” I murmur, rising slowly, eyes locked on her sleeping form. “Soon.” My gaze slides to Noah. “And when I come,” I whisper, voice pure venom, “you’re not waking up beside him.”
I slip back toward the door without a sound.
One last look.
One last hit of the thing that kept me alive in a cell built to destroy me.
“Goodnight, little sister.”
I should leave.
I know I should.
I’ve already crossed the line—broken into her perfect little life, stood at her bedside, watched her breathe the way she used to when she fell asleep on my shoulder after swearing she hated me.
But my feet won’t move.
Not yet.
Not when she makes that sound.
A soft, trembling exhale—half whimper, half plea—the exact same noise she used to make when she’d dream she was falling and I’d grab her waist to pull her back.
My whole body locks.
There it is.
The sound that kept me alive.
The sound she swore wasn’t for me.
I step closer to the bed.
Her brow knots tighter.
Her hand curls lightly against her chest, fingers twitching in a pattern I know too well—she’s dreaming something loud.
“No,” she breathes, so soft I almost miss it.
My stomach drops.
She’s scared.
Not of me.
Not of Noah.
But of something she won’t open her eyes to face.
I lean in again.
Closer.
Close enough that if she wakes, I’ll be the first thing she sees.
Close enough that I could steal her breath with mine.
Her eyelashes flutter.
Her lips part.
“Don’t go…” she whispers.
My heart stops.
I swallow a curse.
“You’re talking to me,” I breathe, voice cracking despite myself. “You’re fucking talking to me in your sleep.”
Noah shifts behind her—his arm tightening like a chain—and every cell in my body screams to tear him off her. To break the distance between us. To haul her out of this bed and back into a world where she only ever said my name.
But I don’t move.
Not yet.
I crouch again, elbows on my knees, head tilted as I listen to every tiny sound she makes.
Her breathing stutters.
Then steadies.
Then breaks again.
Her eyes squeeze shut tighter.
Another tear slips out.
She’s fighting something.
Something internal.
Something I didn’t cause but something I could fix.
“You’re miserable,” I whisper. “He doesn’t even hear you cry.”
Noah sleeps like a corpse—dead weight, oblivious, face slack with the false confidence of a man who thinks he’s won.
Pathetic.
My voice deepens, low as a growl.
“But I hear you,” I whisper near her temple. “Even now. Even here. Even with him in your bed.”
My knuckles brush the sheet near her arm—not touching her skin, but close enough my hand tingles with the restraint.
“You think I’m angry at you?” A low laugh escapes me, dark, soft, disbelieving. “I’m angry at him. For thinking he has something I didn’t give him permission to hold.”
Her lips tremble, forming a shape without sound.
I freeze.
It’s my name.
Her mouth shapes the syllables.
Silent.
Broken.
Instinctive.
My lungs burn.
“You still say it,” I whisper, leaning in so close I feel her breath on my jaw. “You still fucking say it, little sister.”
My eyes drag over the line of her throat, the way her pulse flutters beneath delicate skin.
Alive.
Soft.
Mine.
“Scarlett…”
Her name cracks out of me.
“Wake up. Look at me. Look at what you did to me.”
But she doesn’t wake.
Her fingers twitch again—this time reaching out as if searching for something.
Searching for me.
I feel my control start to shred.
I reach toward her hand—just an inch, just a breath, just enough to—
No.
I stop.
My thumb hovers over her knuckles, the smallest gap of air between us.
If I touch her now, the whole house will burn.
I exhale slow, through my teeth.
“I’ll come back,” I whisper to her sleeping form. “And next time, you won’t be dreaming.”
I stand slowly, silently, eyes locked on the rise and fall of her chest.
Her home is too quiet.
Her life is too tight.
Her fiancé sleeps too deeply.
She’s suffocating in all this safety.
She was never built for safe.
“I’m going to take you out of here,” I murmur, voice low and certain. “One breath at a time. One lie at a time. One touch at a time.”
I turn toward the door.
But before I slip out—I look back at the two of them one last time.
Noah wrapped around her like a shield she didn’t ask for.
Scarlett trapped in a life she built to survive me.
My voice is barely a breath, but it sharpens the air. “You’re not staying here.”
Quiet as a shadow, I vanish back into the hallway, down the stairs, and out into the night that’s been waiting four years for this moment.