Chapter 15
Fifteen
Onyx
Three days since I chose to stay. Three days of learning what it feels like to stop running.
My mind is always marking the time because I never had it to control. Someone else always determined where my time was spent outside of school. Here with Kon, in his world, my time is my own.
It's terrifying. It's also the happiest I've ever been, and I don't know what to do with that except let it exist alongside the terror and hope they balance each other out.
The Foundry feels different now. The exposed brick that once looked industrial and cold has warmed into a texture I associate with home.
The tall windows that once felt like walls of surveillance now let in morning light that turns the concrete floors to honey.
Even the hum of the ventilation system, the low mechanical heartbeat of the building, has become a comfort instead of a cage.
I catch myself doing things that would have horrified the woman who walked through these doors two and a half weeks ago.
Leaving my laptop on Kon's desk because it's closer to the outlet.
Stealing his t-shirts to sleep in, not because I don't have my own clothes, obviously, but because his scent is woven into the cotton.
And smelling him settles the restlessness in my chest. Humming in the shower, some half-remembered melody my mother used to sing while she cooked, a song I haven't let myself think about in years.
It hits me out of nowhere. Oh my. I'm nesting. It’s mid-morning.
I’m standing in his kitchen wearing his shirt, drinking coffee from a mug that has become mine.
It’s a dark blue ceramic thing with a chipped handle that fits the curve of my palm perfectly.
He never drinks from it anymore. He poured his coffee into a different mug three days ago and neither of us mentioned the shift.
I'm making myself at home in the Beast's lair.
He's softer with me now. Not less intense, never less intense, but the sharp edges have worn into curves. He brushes my hair from my face without thinking. Rests his hand on the small of my back when we pass in the hallway. Leaves a glass of water on the nightstand before I realize I'm thirsty.
Small things. A thousand small things that add up to a language I'm only now learning to read. Damn I never realized just how blind I am.
In my defense, it's hard to see clearly when the man fogging up your vision cooks breakfast shirtless.
Kon is in the kitchen. What’s new? He’s preparing breakfast as I whip up a fresh pot of coffee.
"I turned off the security feeds in your room.
" He says it while serving food, casual, sliding my plate across the counter without looking up, as if he's mentioning the weather forecast and not a massive invasion of privacy.
Then his dark eyes lift to mine, steady and deliberate, the faintest trace of amusement lurking at the corners.
"I don't need to watch you anymore. Truth be told, I only did it once and then I ended up fucking you all night. "
My fork stills halfway to my mouth. A piece of egg tumbles off the tines and lands on my plate with a soft splat. "Please don't sugarcoat anything, Kon."
He takes a slow sip of coffee, completely unbothered.
Camera in my room. There has been a camera in my room this entire time. The outrage climbs up my spine and heats the back of my neck. "What the hell, though? When were you going to tell me there was a camera?"
He shrugs, one massive shoulder rolling beneath his henley, his expression as unreadable as a brick wall.
"I forgot about it. We've had other issues at hand, wouldn't you say?
" He sets his mug down and holds my gaze with those bottomless dark eyes, not a shred of guilt on his face.
Just the patient calm of a man who genuinely doesn't see the problem.
I open my mouth to argue. Close it. He's not wrong. Between the auction, the sex, the contract, the dossier, my mother's file, and his Volkov confession. Seamus. Yeah, a security camera ranks somewhere between forgotten and irrelevant on the list of things we've been dealing with.
"Fine. I'll give you that." I point my fork at him. "But we're circling back to the concept of boundaries at some point."
The corner of his mouth twitches. "Noted."
"When did you turn it off?"
"Three days ago."
The day I told him I wanted to stay. The playfulness fades from the air between us, replaced by a weight that settles warm and heavy in my chest.
"Why?"
His eyes hold mine across the counter, the amusement gone now, replaced by an openness that still catches me off guard every time he lets me see it. The hard jaw softens. His voice drops, the accent thickening around the edges the way it does when he's saying something that costs him.
"Because I trust you, little flame."
Those six little words rock my world. Trust is a choice and he’s giving me his. That is priceless in my book.
My throat tightens. I take a sip of coffee to hide the emotion climbing up my chest and nod once, not trusting my voice.
He goes back to his eggs. I go back to breathing.
His phone buzzes against the counter. He glances at the screen, his jaw tightening for a fraction of a second before he sets it face down.
"What is it?"
"Luca. Brennan's been spotted near the south side." He says it casually, the way he delivers all operational updates, but the tension in his forearm where it rests against the granite tells a different story. "We're closing in on the warehouse. Should be ready to move soon."
Brennan. The name hits my bloodstream and the safe little world I've built inside these brick walls shudders.
I've been living in a bubble. Stolen t-shirts and rooftop roses and a man who leaves water on my nightstand before I know I'm thirsty.
I've let myself forget that the reason I'm here in the first place is because men with my last name want me dead or sold.
Brennan's name is the pin that pricks the bubble's skin, and for a moment the real world rushes in with all its sharp edges.
But then Kon slides my plate across the counter, his scarred fingers brushing mine, and the bubble seals itself shut again.
That's what he does. That's what this place does. Makes the danger feel distant. Makes safety feel permanent. And I know better than to trust that feeling, but God help me, I don't want to stop.
"Be careful," I say, and I mean it with every cell in my body.
His dark eyes find mine over the counter. "Always. That’s why we take our time. We don’t move until we are certain we are delivering the death blow. Figuratively or otherwise."
Later, alone in our bedroom, I open my laptop. The cursor blinks in the Syndicate Research folder. The files sit there, unchanged, the last entry dated four days ago I think. Before the Malone dossier. Before I learned all the truth. Before everything shifted on its axis.
I stare at the folder name. My fingers hover over the keys.
I should delete it. Every word in that file is a betrayal of the man who has taken me into his life and shown me love and kindness.
But my fingers won't move to the delete key. Journalist instinct, survival instinct, the voice of a woman who has learned the hard way that trust is a luxury you pay for in blood. Insurance. Just in case.
My father has really done a number on me.
Just in case of what? Just in case the man who offered to let me destroy him turns out to be lying? Just in case everyone I’ve met since coming into Kon’s life is fake?
The arguments ring hollow. They've been ringing hollow for days.
I close the laptop, tired to the bone. I'll deal with it tomorrow. Right now, I want to just have one more day where I don’t have to deal with one problem or another.
The afternoon sun paints the rooftop garden in shades of amber and gold. I've been coming up here more and more, drawn by the quiet and the growing things and the way the city sounds different from six stories up, distant and irrelevant, a world that can't reach me here.
It is unseasonably warm for October. And I notice Kon has covered the roof with an enormous plastic dome, trapping in warm air while the outside is cool.
Kon is already on the rooftop when I push through the metal door, crouched beside the rose trellis with a pair of pruning shears in his massive hands, his dark hair loose today, falling past his shoulders in a way that softens the hard lines of his face.
He’s changed since breakfast. Now he's wearing a plain white t-shirt stretched across his broad back, the barbed wire tattoo visible through the thin fabric, and dark pants with the knees dusty from kneeling in soil.
He looks up when the gravel crunches under my feet. His dark eyes track me across the rooftop, the corners crinkling in the sunlight, and the barest curve pulls at the edge of his mouth. Not quite a smile. The Kon equivalent, which I'm learning to value more than any full grin.
"You're thinking loud," he says, turning back to the roses, his shears making precise cuts at forty-five-degree angles, each snip deliberate and clean.
"I'm always thinking loud. It’s how my brain works, I guess.
" I sit on the edge of the chaise lounge, the cushion warm from the sun, and pull my knees to my chest. A light breeze works its way through an opening on the other side of the dome.
Hits of herbs carry along the current from the garden beds.
Basil and rosemary and the sharp green smell of tomato vines, mingling with the heavier sweetness of the roses.
“Does the dome keep the garden and flowers blooming all year?”
He nods and then asks, "What's the story today?"
I consider deflecting. Wrapping the truth in a quip and tossing it back with a sardonic smile. The old Onyx would do that. The old Onyx would never let a man see the tender thing rising in her chest.
I decide not to be the old Onyx.
"I'm thinking about my mother."