34. Cloe
CLOE
I woke in his bed again. Same sheets. Same silence. But everything felt different. The bruise on my cheek had faded to a dull yellow. The cut on my lip barely tugged when I moved now.
Not that I had much to say.
The ache in my ribs had dulled to something background. But the one in my chest? Still there. Still sharp. Still dragging through every breath like it wanted to be remembered.
The other side of the bed was cold.
Untouched.
Just like every morning before.
He didn’t sleep there.
I wasn’t even sure if he slept at all. The pillow remained fluffed. The sheet tight. No indent where a body should be. Like he stood guard until I fell asleep—then vanished.
I rolled slowly. Tested my muscles. The pain was fading. But the tension wasn’t. It lived under my skin now. Settled into the space between healing and memory .
I sat up.Let the silence crawl over me. It wasn’t soft. It was thick. Heavy. The kind that felt placed there, not accidental.
I listened for him.
Nothing.
No footsteps.
No doors closing.
Just the fridge humming in the other room. And the city outside—too far away to matter.
I stood. The floor chilled my bare feet. Wolfe’s t-shirt hung loose against my body. It didn’t smell like him anymore. Not after days of sleeping in it. But I wore it anyway.
Because it made me feel like I hadn’t completely fallen apart. I padded into the hallway. Then the kitchen. And there he was. Leaning against the counter. Coffee in one hand. Phone in the other. His jaw flexed once. Then again. Something unreadable in the set of his shoulders.
He didn’t look at me. Didn’t glance over. Didn’t acknowledge my presence at all.
“Morning,” I said.
Soft.
Unsteady.
Like I wasn’t sure if it was allowed.
He nodded once. Didn’t speak. Didn’t ask how I slept. Didn’t check the bruise. Didn’t say my name. He just set the mug down. Slid past me. His shoulder brushed mine—barely. But it might as well have been a wall. Because I felt it like a closing door.
I didn’t follow.
Didn’t ask.
But something inside me wilted.
And the silence that settled behind him? Wasn’t stillness. It was distance. It was colder than any silence I’d ever felt from him .
Not cruel. Not indifferent. Just… calculated.
Measured .
Like he’d already decided how far away to stand to keep from catching fire. Or maybe to keep me from burning. I watched the door after he left the room.
Waited.
Expected him to come back.
To say something.
To call me soft or reckless or stupid for what had happened to me.
But he didn’t.
He just let me stand there, bruised and barefoot, wearing his shirt and his silence like a punishment I hadn’t earned yet.
And maybe that was worse. The chain on my collar felt heavier today. Like it had gained weight just from the tension in the air. Like it knew I was running out of time.
By the time I got to the office, I felt like I’d been hollowed out.
Everyone stared again.
Royal gave me a chin lift. Loyal offered a nod. Barron didn’t look up.
I sat at my desk and scrolled through nothing. My inbox was empty. But my chest was full. Too full. Ready to crack.
At 10:02, I got the message.
Office. Now.
Wolfe .
I stood.
My legs felt like they belonged to someone else. The walk down the hallway was too long. Too loud.
The elevator blinked once behind me as I passed it. I didn’t stop. Didn’t breathe. When I stepped into his office, I didn’t wait to be told. I closed the door behind me.
Soft click .
A sound that echoed in my spine.
He didn’t look up right away. Didn’t rise. Just sat there. Across the desk. Hands steepled. Eyes unreadable. His mouth a thin, cold line.
The silence between us didn’t just stretch.
It cracked.
“Do you know what it feels like,” he said, voice low, “to be trusted by a man who already knows you’re lying?”
I froze.
My breath caught. My voice didn’t work. He leaned back slowly. Tilted his head. Watched me like he was cataloguing all the ways I might fold.
“I trusted you.”
He didn’t raise his voice. That would’ve been easier. I could’ve cried for that. Screamed. Instead, he gave me something worse.
“You broke something I don’t think you even understand.”
I opened my mouth.
No words.
Nothing.
Just the sound of my heart beating too loudly in my chest. He looked down at his desk like he was already done with me. Like I was just another entry on a ledger he hadn’t closed yet.
“You can go,” he said.
Just like that.
Dismissed.
But not released.
I left.
But I didn’t stop shaking. Not all day. It came after midnight. Of course it did. I was in Wolfe’s apartment. Alone. Wrapped in one of his blankets. The soft grey one that always looked untouched on the back of the couch. The TV was off. The lights low .
The city bled through the windows like it didn’t care what I was about to do. I hadn’t seen Wolfe since the office. Not really. He’d left before I did.
No message.
No note.
No call.
Just silence.
And I didn’t know if he was angry…or preparing for something worse. The chain around my neck felt heavier. Like it knew.
My phone buzzed.
I didn’t want to look.
I already knew.
SELENE
One message.
One sentence.
You know what you have to do.
We’re waiting.
My throat went tight.
My fingers trembled against the screen.
I wanted to throw the phone. Smash it against the tile. Watch it break so I wouldn’t have to be the one doing the breaking anymore. But I didn’t. Because part of me still wanted to answer her. And part of me wanted to text Wolfe instead.
I stared at his name in my messages.
Typed nothing.
Just looked.
And then—like punishment—Camille’s voice whispered in the back of my head.
You don’t lie to people like them, Cloe.
They don’t just forgive. They consume.
I folded in on myself. Curled tighter in Wolfe’s blanket.
Let the phone slide off my leg and hit the carpet with a soft, traitorous sound.
And when I closed my eyes? I saw the safe.
And the ring. And the fire I was already walking into.
No threats. No countdowns. No names. Because she didn’t need to say them anymore.
I opened the bedroom drawer. Saw the folded hoodie I hadn’t worn since the attack. My fingers brushed the edge of it. Inside the pocket? The note. Her handwriting. Still there. Still curling like a smile. I closed the drawer again. But I didn’t lock it.
I went to Wolfe’s closet. Opened it slowly. The shirts were arranged like soldiers. Pressed. Black. White. Grey. Minimal. Perfect.
I stepped inside. Closed the door behind me. Sank to the floor between two hanging jackets. And pressed my hands to my face. I didn’t cry. Not yet. But I thought about it.
I stayed there until my legs went numb. Until the silence folded around me like a second skin. And when I finally stood?—
I didn’t feel like the same girl who’d been touched by his hands. I felt like the one who was about to burn everything he gave me. I didn’t sleep that night. I curled up in the corner of Wolfe’s bed, wrapped in his sheets, and stared at the ceiling like it might give me permission to stop.
Stop pretending.
Stop hiding.
Stop breaking.
The message kept playing behind my eyelids.
We’re waiting.
And I hated that I knew what she meant.
I hated more that a part of me wanted to obey. Not out of fear. But out of habit. When I finally sat up, the room was still dark .
No Wolfe.
No movement. Just the city outside and the chain on my skin and the truth curled in my gut like a coiled wire.
I wandered again.
Slow.
Barefoot.
Avoiding the mirror.
His apartment didn’t feel quiet anymore. It felt like it was holding its breath. I passed the dying plant. Its edges browning. I touched one of the leaves. It crumbled. Like me.
I walked past the dresser.
The ring was still on top.
In the velvet box.
Next to a drawer that held nothing except the shirt I wore the night I bled on his sheets. I opened that drawer. Just to see it. Just to be sure it was still there. And it was. The shirt. The ring. The note she left.
Everything.
I didn’t take the ring out. But I didn’t put it away either. I closed the drawer slowly. But this time?
I didn’t lock it.