I didn't wait for the sun to come up. I couldn't. The air in my apartment felt like it was made of Julian's cologne and the sound of Silas's retreating footsteps. I grabbed my keys, jumped into my piece-of-shit sedan, and drove toward the ridge like the hounds of hell were on my bumper.
The Mercer manor looked different in the dark. It didn't look like a dream anymore; it looked like a fortress.
I pounded on the heavy oak door until my knuckles bled. "Silas! Open the door! You big, stubborn prick, open the goddamn door!"
The porch light flickered on, stinging my eyes. The door opened just a crack, and Silas stood there. He wasn't wearing the henley or the soft flannel. He was back in his work clothes, his face a granite mask of indifference that hurt worse than a physical blow.
"Go home, Alina," he said. His voice was hollow.
"He kissed me, Silas! He's a freak! He did it because he knew you were there!" I was vibrating, my hair a mess, my eyes wild. "I hit him. I nearly broke his jaw. You have to believe me."
Silas looked at me, and for a second, I saw a flash of that old heat, but he buried it fast. "It doesn't matter if you hit him. It doesn't matter why he did it. The fact that he was in your house... that he could even think he had a right to be there..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "I can't do this, Alina. I'm forty years old. I don't have the energy for 'vicious nightmares' and partners who play games with the women I..."
He stopped himself. The word love was a ghost in the air, unsaid but screaming.
"You what?" I whispered, stepping closer. "You were going to say it."
"I was going to say I'm done," Silas said, his voice hardening. "Julian is right about one thing. You're a disaster. And I've spent my whole life trying to fix things that are already broken. I'm tired of fixing, Alina. I just want peace."
He closed the door. Not a slam—just a slow, deliberate click that sounded like a coffin lid.
I stood on the porch for an hour, screaming his name until my throat was raw, but the house stayed dark. He had shut me out. Truly, completely shut me out.
I drove back to town in a daze, the sun starting to bleed over the horizon. I figured I'd go to the diner, hide in the kitchen, and let Martha yell at me until I felt human again.
But when I pulled into the lot, the world ended for the second time that night.
There was a black town car idling in front of the diner. Two guys in suits, not the expensive kind like Julian's, but the cheap, bureaucratic kind, were pinning a bright orange notice to the front door. Martha was standing on the sidewalk, her hands over her mouth, looking smaller than I'd ever seen her.
I bolted out of the car. "Martha! What's happening?"
"Zoning violations," Martha whispered, her voice trembling. "They say the grease trap is a hazard. They say the foundation is 'unstable.' They're condemning the building, Alina. We have forty-eight hours to vacate."
I looked at the orange sign. At the bottom, in neat, professional print, was the name of the holding company that had filed the complaint.
Vane & Associates.
The bastard. The absolute, petty, obsessed bastard. He wasn't just coming for me; he was burning down the only place that kept me fed because I'd dared to lay a hand on him. He was squeezing me, cutting off my air until I had nowhere left to run but straight into his arms.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from an unknown number.
I told you, Alina. Silas wants to protect you. I want to build you. But first, we have to clear the rubble. Come to the penthouse tonight. We can discuss the 'zoning' over dinner. Bring that 'uppity' energy. I'm counting on it.
I looked at Martha, who was sobbing now, leaning against the brick wall of the diner she'd owned for thirty years. I looked at the orange sign. And then I looked toward the ridge, where Silas was hiding in his fortress of "peace."
"Fucking men," I whispered, the words tasting like copper and ash.
I wasn't a bird. I wasn't a project. And I sure as hell wasn't rubble.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it with a steady hand. If Julian wanted a nightmare, I was going to give him one that didn't end with a kiss. I was going to the city. I was going to his glass box.
And I was going to make sure that by the time I was done, Julian Vane didn't have a single thing left to build with.