5. Wolfe
WOLFE
She didn’t walk like she belonged here.
She didn’t move like the women who glided across our marble floors in their designer heels and sculpted perfection. She clutched her bag too tight. Walked like she was waiting for the floor to fall out from beneath her.
And maybe she was.
I watched from the second floor landing, hands in my pockets, head tilted just slightly. Hidden by the curvature of the glass stairwell. I had a perfect view.
Cloe BreAnne Woods.
Fucking ghost in the machine.
The girl who used to orbit my sister like a second moon. Quiet. Constant. Always hovering at the edge of things, just close enough to soak up Camille’s light without trying to steal it.
She was nothing then.
She’s nothing now.
And yet—here she is.
Floating down our hallway like a shadow draped in desperation and discount perfume.
She didn’t see me.
No one ever did, really.
That was the point.
She carried a box in her arms—one of the cheap recycled cardboard types we used for archive transfers. Too heavy for her. The weight of it tipped her forward, made her stumble slightly, forced her to move slower than the current around her.
No one offered to help.
A man brushed past her—not cruelly, just dismissively. Like she didn’t register.
A woman in perfect Balenciaga heels sidestepped with surgical precision and never made eye contact.
Cloe flinched anyway.
Apologized under her breath like she was the one who’d done something wrong.
She kept walking.
The box dipped in her hands. She readjusted it mid-step. The strain showed in her arms. In the hitch of her shoulder. Then the heel of her right shoe gave slightly—worn too thin—and the edge of the box slammed into the hallway table.
Papers scattered.
She froze.
Crouched fast. Clumsy .
Her skirt pulled tight across her hips. A run in her stocking stretched higher as the fabric bunched around her knees. She scrambled to gather the papers, fingers fumbling. She reached under the table. Hair slipping from the clip at the nape of her neck. Her breath uneven.
From where I stood, I had a perfect view.
The slope of her back. The soft curve of her ass beneath cheap fabric. The sheen of sweat at the base of her spine.
My jaw clenched .
I didn’t move.
Neither did anyone else.
One assistant stepped over her papers like they were debris.
Another looked through her.
Cloe was invisible here.
Just like she was supposed to be.
Not with her secondhand clothes.
Not with her biteable lower lip she kept trying not to chew.
Not with the guilt that lived in her eyes and followed her like a second shadow.
She didn’t belong.
Not here.
Not anymore.
She gathered the last paper, shoved it into the box with more force than necessary, and stood too fast. Her body wobbled. Her breath caught.
She didn’t look up.
She didn’t want to see who had seen her.
I stayed hidden behind the curve of the glass, fingers twitching in my pocket. Not because I wanted to help. Because I didn’t know what I’d do if I did.
She straightened her back. Kept walking. Head down. Shoulders square. Like she hadn’t just been reminded that this place would chew her up and spit her out.
She passed beneath me. Didn’t know I was watching. Didn’t know I hadn’t stopped. Because I hadn’t.
I kept my eyes on her until she disappeared around the corner, the cardboard box trembling in her arms like her grip was the only thing keeping it—and her—from breaking.
I breathed out slowly.
Tight.
Controlled.
And tasted her on the exhale .
She turned the corner at the far end of the hall. I followed. Three steps behind. Silent. Not to help. Just to watch. Just to feel what I felt whenever she was near—rage and restraint. And underneath it all… the thing I refused to name.
She didn’t used to be like this.
I remembered her in glittering dresses at our family parties, sipping cheap champagne with pink lipstick on the rim and laughter in her lungs. I remembered her with Camille—always with Camille—half-draped across each other like they were made to orbit the same gravity.
Camille.
Fuck .
Camille had loved her like a sister.
She dressed her. Fed her. Protected her. Let her into our world when no one else would’ve even glanced twice.
And Cloe?
Cloe let her go out alone that night.
Sick, she’d said. Tired. Couldn’t make it.
Camille waited.
Then didn’t.
She went.
Alone.
And she died with a knife in her side and her lipstick still perfect.
We buried her two days later.
I carried her casket with my brothers. My knuckles bled from the grip I had on the handle. Barron didn’t speak for three days. Loyal nearly drank himself blind. Royal vanished to Dubai for a month and came back with new tattoos and worse habits.
I stayed. Watched the world go cold. Watched the company keep growing. Watched the name Camille built get turned into steel and marble and quarterly reports .
And I watched Cloe—quiet little Cloe—walk out of the funeral without saying goodbye.
Not to us. Not to Camille. Not even to the girl she once swore was her whole world. She disappeared. Now here she was again.
Same wild curls. Same wide eyes. Wearing Camille’s ghost like perfume.
She stopped outside the supply closet. Readjusted the box in her arms. Fumbled for her keycard. It beeped red. She cursed under her breath and tried again.
I moved closer. Not enough for her to hear me. Just close enough to see the sweat forming at her hairline. Her neck flushed pink. Her jaw clenched.
Her thighs pressed together beneath the too-tight skirt like she was trying to hold herself together.
She swiped the card again. Green. The door opened. She stumbled inside. The box landed on the floor with a dull thud. And she exhaled. Loud. Like she’d been drowning and finally surfaced.
I stayed in the hallway. Watched the door close. Listened. She didn’t cry. Didn’t scream.
She just existed. Quiet and cornered. And I didn’t go in. Because I didn’t trust myself. Because I wasn’t sure if I’d shove her against the filing cabinet and growl in her ear to go the fuck home before she ruined what was left of us...
Or if I’d bury my face in her neck and inhale the last pieces of Camille she carried.
An hour later, I passed her desk. If you could call it a desk.
It was tucked into the corner of the admin bullpen like a punishment. No drawers. No nameplate. Nothing to mark her presence except a crooked Post-it and the ghost of dignity. She was hunched over the keyboard. Typing like her life depended on it .
Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth again. That same goddamn lip Camille used to tease her about. The one she said made Cloe look “accidentally fuckable.”
My hand twitched at my side. Her blouse pulled tight across her back as she leaned forward.
I could see the way her shoulders rounded. The way her skirt bunched slightly at the thighs. Still not looking at me. Still pretending she didn’t feel me watching. And maybe she didn’t.
But I did.
I watched her fingers move across the keys. Watched the way she paused after every sentence like she was second-guessing every word.
I remembered Camille teaching her how to write cover letters. Now she was here—typing the end of her own story one keystroke at a time.
I should’ve walked away. I didn’t. I stood there for too long. Too still. Then?—
She looked up. Just for a second. Not at me. But through me. Like some part of her knew I was there. Like the part of her that used to belong to my sister was warning the rest of her that I wasn’t safe.
I turned. Walked away. Because I wasn’t ready for her to know what I already did. That she didn’t belong here. And I was going to make sure she stayed anyway.
She didn’t see me.
But I saw her.
And I hated how much of me remembered what she used to sound like when she laughed.
She walked like she was trying to convince the floor she had a right to be there. Head up. Shoulders drawn back. Paper clutched in her hand like a shield. I watched from across the hallway, unseen behind one of the load-bearing columns, watching her move through a world built to make her disappear.
Cloe BreAnne Woods.
Camille’s ghost in borrowed heels.
Her blouse was slightly wrinkled—wrong size. Bought for a frame that was narrower than hers. Her hips shifted in her skirt like it was sewn for a mannequin and not a woman who still had softness at her waist.
The same scent as always clung to her skin—peach and vanilla and something I couldn’t name. Something dangerously close to what Camille used to wear. Close enough to make my stomach knot.
Her curls bounced when she walked. The corner of her mouth twitched when she passed someone. Like she was fighting the urge to smile—desperate to be liked, to be seen, to matter.
And I hated how much of me remembered.
The last time I saw her was the funeral. Black dress, black gloves, her chin tilted downward, her face ashen. She didn’t come to the house afterward. Didn’t speak to us. Just left. Slipped out the side like grief was a party she hadn’t been invited to.
We buried Camille. She vanished.
Until now.
Until she came crawling back with nothing in her wallet and everything on her face.
And still—somehow—I couldn’t stop watching her.
She stopped at the far end of the corridor, scanning the room numbers on the glass offices.
Her hand lifted. Knuckles brushed the edge of one door. She didn’t knock. She was breathing too hard.
So was I .
I stepped out from behind the column. Her name rose to my lips, but I didn’t say it.
Not yet.
Let her feel me first.
Let her skin tingle before she knew why.
“Cloe.”
She jumped.
Turned.
I was only a few steps away now.
Her eyes widened. She clutched the folder tighter to her chest like it could shield her from the storm building in my chest.
“Wolfe.” Her voice cracked a little. “I didn’t see you.”
No one ever does.
She glanced down at the paper in her hands, then back up like maybe she could pretend she had a reason to be here. That she wasn’t standing in the belly of the empire she once ghosted, wearing its legacy like a second skin.
“Did you need?—?”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
She stilled.
Her mouth opened. No sound.
“This isn’t your world,” I said. “You don’t belong in it.”
Her throat worked as she swallowed. “I’m just trying to help.”
“You’re not helping.”
Her spine straightened a little. A flicker of the girl Camille used to bring to family dinners—dressed in borrowed silk and barely hiding the hunger in her eyes.
“I didn’t come here to make things worse,” she said softly. “I just… I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Then you should’ve kept walking.”
Her lip trembled. She bit it. Hard .
“Camille wouldn’t have wanted?—”
“Don’t,” I snapped.
She blinked.
“Don’t you fucking dare speak her name like you still have the right to.”
Her shoulders jerked back like I’d hit her.
And maybe I had.
“She was the only good thing in this family,” I said, voice low. “She held us together. She made the rest of us tolerable.”
Cloe’s hand trembled around the folder.
“You think you’re walking in her footsteps,” I continued, stepping closer. “But you’re not. You’re desecrating them.”
“I loved her,” she whispered.
“Not enough to go with her.”
She flinched.
Again.
God, why didn’t she break?
Why didn’t she scream, shove me, cry—do something other than look at me like she understood?
“I was sick,” she said, her voice barely a breath. “She told me she’d cancel. Said she’d wait. But she went anyway. You think I haven’t replayed that night a thousand times in my head?”
“Don’t act like a martyr,” I spat. “You didn’t even stay for the burial. You left.”
“I couldn’t face you.”
“No,” I said, stepping in close—too close. Her back brushed the wall. “ You couldn’t face yourself .”
Her breath hitched.
I leaned in, hands at my sides, knuckles flexing to keep from grabbing her. From pressing her to that wall and shaking the truth out of her until the guilt spilled free like blood.
“You wear her scent,” I said. “You still have the earrings she gave you. You came back to this place like you never carved yourself out of it.”
“I didn’t know where else to go,” she whispered. “I thought?—”
“You thought wrong.”
We were inches apart.
I could see the pulse in her neck. Feel the heat from her skin. She was scared. Not of me. Of herself. Of what she wanted me to do. I wanted it too. And that’s why I stepped back. Not far. Just enough to sever the thread between us.
“This place will eat you alive, Cloe,” I said. “You’re not built for it.”
She didn’t answer right away.
Then, softly?—
“Then why am I still here?”
My jaw ticked.
Because we let you in.
Because none of us stopped Barron when he said yes.
Because we’re just as broken as you are.
I didn’t say any of that.
I turned.
Walked away.
Didn’t look back.
Didn’t let her see the way my hands were shaking.