Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
BASTION
She walked in like a ghost.
Not the kind that haunts?—
the kind that apologizes for existing.
I didn’t turn when I heard the door. Didn’t say her name. Didn’t breathe too loud. Just kept my eyes on the screen, like the sentence I’d rewritten four times mattered more than the fact that Emilia Adams was finally back in this room.
She didn’t look at us. Not once.
Not when she dropped her phone on the nightstand. Not when she slipped out of her jeans and into that bland cotton sleep shirt. Not when she pulled the blanket up like she was afraid she’d ruin it.
And maybe she was .
Because she’d been gone—not physically, not officially—but everything that made her her had been stripped clean from this space.
No smell of rosewood shampoo.
No perfume in the air.
No raspberry cookies cooling by the window .
No lace things folded in the drawer she used to pretend we didn’t notice.
Just silence.
And I fucking hated it.
Worse?
I caused it.
That damn curfew—the reason she had to check in every night, sleep here, breathe the same air as us again?
Me.
I pulled the right strings, whispered to the right person, offered the right compromise to make it happen.
All to get her back under our roof.
Back in this room.
Back in our orbit.
I told myself it was for control. For order. For the family’s image.
But the truth?
It was for me .
I wanted her back.
And I didn’t care how.
And now?
She was here.
But she wasn’t here .
She hadn’t spoken to me in three weeks. Hadn’t even looked at me. Not after what I said that day?—
tearing into her with every bitter word I’d buried for weeks.
About the kiss.
The room.
The perfume.
The way she’d blown up her life and forced herself into ours.
I told her she was reckless .
And now she was careful with everything .
Even her breathing.
Luca hadn’t moved, either. Just laid there, still as a shadow. But I could feel the way his attention tracked her across the room. Could feel the flick of tension when her sleep shirt rode too high on her thigh.
Could feel the same irritation sitting in his chest that was burning in mine.
It wasn’t attraction.
It was punishment .
She was the punishment.
And somehow, she didn’t even know she was dishing it out.
Because this girl—the one who used to restock our minibar and smile at us even when we ignored her—was gone.
This version didn’t speak unless spoken to.
She walked in at midnight and left before the sun rose.
She hadn’t missed a single check-in since her curfew was enforced.
She didn’t smell like flowers anymore.
She smelled like… nothing .
And that made me angrier than anything.
When the light clicked off and the room fell into black again, I didn’t stop typing.
Not because I had something important to write.
But because I didn’t trust myself if I let my hands go still.
I didn’t trust myself around her .
Because maybe I didn’t want her to stop smiling.
Maybe I didn’t want her to stop trying .
And maybe, just maybe?—
I didn’t want her to leave the room ever again.
But if I wanted her to stay for real…
I’d have to grow the fuck up .
I’d have to apologize .
And I didn’t know if I could.
A Crow is only as weak as the mistakes he fails to admit.
That line had been rattling around my skull for days.
One line—buried in the half-book-thick oath we bled to take at sixteen.
The one Luca and I memorized before we were even allowed to step foot in the basement for the tattooing.
I swore the oath.
And now, that one line was branding me deeper than the tattoo ever had.
A Crow is only as weak as the mistakes he fails to admit.
And I had made one.
No—
I’d made a hundred.
But one in particular wouldn’t let me sleep.
It was the way she didn’t smile anymore. That perfect, dynasty-trained, pain-hiding smile I used to hate because it made her look too damn golden, too good.
Now I hated it because it was gone .
Because of me .
That day… the one I yelled at her like she wasn’t a girl, wasn’t a person—just a problem I could shout into silence?—
I’d come straight from practice.
My shoulder was bruised to hell, ribs aching, jaw clenched from the hits I hadn’t dodged.
But what no one knew?
I’d also just come from a fight.
Not the kind they tracked on the football field?—
the kind that happened in the alley behind the locker room .
Her ex had been there, mouth running like a tap, bragging to the others, saying shit about what Emilia was “probably like in bed if she threw herself at the Crows.”
I didn’t think.
I just moved .
Split his lip. Broke his nose. Got pulled off him before I could do more damage.
And that was the part that really pissed me off.
Not the blood on my knuckles?—
what fucked with me was that I reacted . Again.
Like I always did.
I was supposed to be working on that.
I was supposed to be in control .
Instead, I came back to the dorm, raw and simmering and stupid?—
and tore into the one person I should’ve protected.
Told her she’d ruined our lives.
That she was a reckless little golden girl with too much smile and not enough sense.
I said her kiss had destroyed everything?—
when the truth was, it had just destroyed me .
And then she stopped smiling altogether.
Stopped speaking unless she had to.
Stopped leaving any trace of herself in our space.
No perfume.
No cookies.
No fucking pink blanket.
That stupid, frilly, blush pink throw that used to drive me insane—how it clashed with our dark leather chairs and mahogany floors, how it made our room feel like some damn rom-com set.
Now I’d kill to see it draped on the arm of the couch.
I missed it .
I missed her .
And that realization made me want to punch a wall.
I took a breath and walked into the ensuite.
She was standing there, brushing her teeth, hair pulled back, wearing one of those oversized shirts she used to sleep in when she actually slept here.
She didn’t even flinch at the sight of me anymore?—
just kept brushing like I didn’t exist.
When our eyes met in the mirror, she offered the smallest nod.
“I’ll be out in a sec.”
That was the other thing she did now?—
shrunk herself.
Got out of the way.
Like her presence in the house needed an apology.
I leaned against the doorframe, stared at the floor for a second before finding the words.
“I need to say something.”
She paused, toothbrush still in her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I said, voice low. “For what I said. For how I said it. For everything.”
She rinsed her mouth, wiped her face, and turned slowly.
Her expression was unreadable?—
except for the ache in her eyes.
“You don’t have to apologize,” she said. “You were right. I blew up my life… and yours. I forced myself into your world when you never asked for it. I don’t belong here, and I’m sorry I made it harder for you both.”
She stepped past me, soft and quiet, and whispered?—
“I’ll stay out of your way. You won’t even know I’m here. I swear.”
That was when I wanted to scream.
Because the thing I’d hated most wasn’t her perfum e
or her pink blanket
or her always-too-sweet smile.
It was that she’d taken them all away?—
and I deserved it.
But I didn’t want to.
And that was the problem.
And still, the scent wasn’t there.
Nothing of her lingered.
Just that one line?—
A Crow is only as weak as the mistakes he fails to admit.
And I had never felt weaker in my life.