Chapter twenty-Three #2
We plant the sensors together, room by room—kitchen, dining room, three identical sitting rooms that all blur together. Kiera moves through the space like she's done this a thousand times. She probably has. In her head, at least. She’s been planning this moment for years.
In her old bedroom, we stop. The room is frozen in time.
Posters on the walls, textbooks sit stacked on the desk exactly as she left them, and the bed wears the same purple comforter that matches the one at her apartment now.
Kiera stands in the doorway like she’s afraid to cross the threshold.
"Dad moved us the summer before Freshman year,” she says quietly.
"I moved out of the house he moved us to the moment I turned eighteen. I haven’t set foot in this room in years. ”
I walk to the desk, running my finger along the spine of a dusty eighth-grade science textbook. "Did he try to stop you?"
"No,” she whispers. “He smiled. Hugged me. Told me to call if I needed anything." She laughs, bitter and hollow. "I didn't understand then. I thought maybe he'd finally decided to be a father. To let me go."
"But he was just waiting," I finish, the words tasting like ash.
"Waiting for me to turn twenty-four.” Kiera continues, her voice raw.
“Old enough to sign the papers myself. Old enough that no court would question my consent.
" She finally steps fully into the room and moves to the window, arms wrapped tightly around herself like she’s holding her pieces together.
"He played the long game,” she says, staring out into the darkening sky. “And I almost let him win."
I join her at the window. It overlooks the back garden, where the peonies her mother loved still grow wild and untended, their pale heads heavy in the fading light. "He hasn't won,” I say quietly, my voice low beside her ear.
"Not yet," she agrees. She turns to face me, and in the fading daylight filtering through the window, she looks ethereal.
Dangerous. Beautiful in the way storms are beautiful—the kind that level everything in their path, leaving devastating results in their wake.
"Sterling, tomorrow night... there's a chance this could go sideways. If he realizes it's a trap…"
"I know," I cut her off, closing any space between us.
"I need you to promise me something," she continues softly. "If it comes down to him or me…if you have to choose…"
"I choose you," I say immediately, no hesitation, no doubt. "Every time. Without question. That's not a choice, Kiera. That's physics. Gravity. You think I could watch you die and just walk away?"
Her eyes search mine, wide and fierce. "I was going to say," she scoffs, "promise me you'll get Cam and Lila out.
That you won't stay to die with me out of some misguided sense of…" I kiss her. Hard. Demanding, pouring sixteen years of her waiting and all of my wanting into the crush of my mouth against hers. She makes a soft sound of surprise, then her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me closer like she’s terrified I’ll pull away.
When I pull back, her lips are swollen, her breathing ragged. "I'm not letting you die," I say against her mouth, voice low and rough. "And I'm sure as hell not leaving you. So you can take that fucking noble sacrifice bullshit and bury it with your father."
She laughs, a real breathless sound that breaks against my chest as her forehead drops to my chest to rest there. "You're an asshole."
"You knew that when you let me stalk you," I point out, my voice muffled against her hair.
"I didn’t let you do anything,” she says, tilting her head back to look at me. Her eyes are bright with unshed tears and something that might be hope. "I don't know how to do this. The normal parts. The caring about someone who cares back."
"Then we'll figure it out together," I tell her, my thumb brushing her cheek. "After we bury your father and burn his empire to ash. One trauma at a time."
She nods, then steps back, putting that careful professional distance between us again. But her hand finds mine, threading our fingers together like she can’t quite let go. "We should finish the setup. Cam's expecting a check-in in twenty minutes."
By the time the sun is gone, the house is no longer a home.
It’s a trap waiting to be sprung. Cameras in every room, feeding live to Cam's monitors.
Motion sensors at every entrance. Weapons stashed in strategic locations—behind books, under furniture, in the servant passages where Kiera can access them without Wade seeing.
I find her in the library as the darkness settles over the manor.
She's standing on the exact spot where her mother died, staring down at the stain.
"Cam's confirmed," I say from the doorway. "He's got eyes on everything. Lila's in position at the cottage with Mrs. Whitley. If anyone approaches the property, she'll give us a thirty-second warning."
Kiera doesn't look up. "Did you know that blood soaks into hardwood?” she says quietly. “Gets into the grain. You can sand it, stain it, polish it…but it's still there. Changed the wood at a molecular level."
I walk to her, stopping just outside the dark perimeter of the stain. "Kiera."
"Tomorrow night, I'm going to add more," she says, and there's no emotion in her voice. None. Just a flat, cold fact. "And this time, I won't be the one hiding in the walls."