CHAPTER 5 — THE ONLY WARMTH LEFT
The house didn't breathe.
It didn't sigh, or shift, or offer a single corner of softness. It stood like a monument—Aiden's monument—to control. Two days had passed since the fire had carved a hole through his life, and the modernist manor felt colder with every hour. Everything inside it was hard lines, black marble, and silence sharp enough to cut skin.
Aiden stood in the observation gallery overlooking the back lawn. The grass below was unnaturally perfect—irrigated, manicured, obedient. Beyond it, the forest hunched like a wall of shadows, unmoved by human grief.
He hadn't slept. He hadn't changed clothes. The smoke still clung to him, soaked into the fabric of his shirt, lingering in the fibers of his trousers. Every inhale dragged phantom ash into his lungs.
He held a twenty-five-year-old scotch, but it tasted like nothing. All he could taste was metal. Rage. Loss.
A soft, insulated click broke the stillness.
Aiden didn't turn. He knew that sound too well—the airlock admitting someone cleared deeper than most of his executives.
Samantha Green never used the main entrance. She didn't need to. She was one of the few people in his orbit who understood the way the Blackwood security web worked. She moved through his world with the kind of access one only got from being chosen.
The elevator chimed.
Samantha stepped out.
She looked wrong inside his grief-bound home—too warm, too alive. Her ivory cashmere sweater softened her sharp, patrician beauty. Her black trousers were tailored, her driving shoes spotless. A single diamond pendant rested on her collarbone, catching what little light the room offered.
But her face… her face was the part that made him finally blink.
Sorrow lived there, deep and unmasked. Her eyes were soft with it, swollen from the night spent worrying about him.
She carried an oversized designer tote. And a small, antique silver jewelry box.
She approached him slowly, like someone edging toward a wounded predator.
"Aiden," she said softly. It was the gentlest voice he'd heard in two days.
He didn't turn.
"Sam," he murmured—scratchy, empty.
She placed the box and her bag on the marble table. The soft clink of silver against stone echoed too loudly in the cavernous room.
"I only got the full story late yesterday," she said, voice trembling. "The papers are calling it an electrical fault. But your people told me about the police theories. About Isabella. About your mother."
Her breath hitched. Her perfect composure cracked.
"Aiden… I'm so sorry. There are no words. I know how much they meant to you. How much Isabella—"
Her hand lifted toward his scorched sleeve.
He didn't step away, but something inside him tightened—enough for her to feel it.
She withdrew her hand like she'd touched fire.
"I brought this," she whispered, pushing the silver box closer. "Your mother's favorite locket. From Milan's grand opening. I had my team get it before the estate was sealed off."
"And clothes. Fresh ones. You…" She swallowed. "You look like you're still standing inside the fire."
His eyes dropped to the box. Finally, a reaction.
"I don't want it," he said flatly. "Everything she owned is debris now."
Samantha paled. But she stayed.
"That's grief talking," she said quietly. "You can't let the fire take every memory—"
The scotch glass slammed onto the railing.
It didn't break. But the sound did.
"The fire didn't take the memory, Sam," Aiden hissed, jaw locked tight. "It took them. I carried Isabella out myself. She died screaming my name."
Samantha stepped closer—too close.
"Aiden, please. Harris says the evidence is circumstantial. My father's seen the reports. This girl—Elara Hayes—she's a student. A restorer. They think someone planted—"
His hands snapped around her arms. Not violently. But with the strength of someone trying very hard not to break.
"Don't tell me what's true," he growled. "She survived. They didn't. That's enough."
He let go. Samantha stumbled.
"And that's why she's here," Samantha whispered. Her voice trembled with something close to fear. "You took her. From the hospital. Aiden… you kidnapped her."
"I secured my evidence."
"This isn't a quarterly report!" she snapped. "This is a human being! A suspect in an active case! My father's firm will bury you the moment they learn you're holding her!"
Aiden's stare turned glacial.
"The law will give her a plea deal," he said calmly. "Maybe five years. Maybe less. And then she'll walk free. Do you think that's justice for Isabella?"
He poured another drink. Ice cracked.
"She stays until I know who hired her."
Samantha watched him—watched the man she was supposed to marry become a stranger crafted out of loss and fury.
"How long?" she asked quietly. "A week? A month? How long do you plan to hold her before you feel like you've won?"
Aiden didn't answer.
"Aiden… let me take you away from here," she whispered. "The Maldives. The villa. Just you and me. We can leave tonight. Let me help you breathe again."
She placed her hand on his chest.
For one fragile moment, he didn't move. Didn't flinch.
Then he gently moved her hand away and laid it on the cold granite bar.
"I am what I need to be, Samantha," he said softly. "The man you loved died in that fire. What's left is the man who will survive it."
He lifted his eyes to hers.
And the grief inside him turned into something harder. Sharper.
"If you call your father—or the police—about the girl, I will liquidate every Green holding tied to Blackwood Industries. By dawn."
Her breath stilled.
"I need you to understand," he said quietly. "You are either with me. Or you are in my way."
The words hit harder than the fire ever could.
Samantha nodded—once, a tiny betrayal of herself.
"I understand," she whispered. "I just hope one day… you do too."
She picked up her bag. The jewelry box. Her shoulders slumped like the weight of his grief had finally settled on her, too.
She left without looking back.
The elevator doors closed with a soft chime—quiet, final.
Aiden didn't watch her go.
He waited until he heard the distant thump of the security airlock.
Only then did he breathe.
Only then did he turn.
His face fell back into that cold, dangerous stillness.