Chapter 6

Julian and I stood at opposite ends of the room like two sides of a duel, neither of us willing to break first.

It was Celeste, naturally, who spoke.

She let her voice tremble. "It's all right, Julian. She didn't mean to."

That sealed it. The air in the room dropped ten degrees.

"You really are stubborn, Sparrow."

He walked over to Tess instead.

He gestured, and one of his men grabbed her.

My face must have changed, because he saw it immediately.

Tess was my best friend. He knew I wouldn't break for myself. So he'd break Tess instead.

After everything I'd said, he hadn't even bothered to verify the story. He'd taken Celeste's word over mine without a second thought.

He gave me a choice.

Apologize — or keep refusing. For every minute I delayed, one of Tess's fingers got broken.

I was afraid. Genuinely afraid. Because I knew Julian Ashford. I knew the thing that lived under the public-facing politeness. The Ashford heir everyone fawned over at charity balls was, underneath, a vindictive, cold-hearted son of a bitch who remembered every slight.

"Time's up," Julian said lightly, from across the room.

The pain in my wrist was so bright I couldn't think straight.

He took a step toward Tess. One step. That was all it took.

"I apologize."

The words came out raw.

Tess was gagged. She was fighting the man holding her, shaking her head — don't do it, don't do it for me.

I bent my head. The humiliation was physical; it climbed up my throat like I'd swallowed broken glass.

"Julian. I apologize."

I walked over to Celeste. Past her, through the window, the whole skyline of Ravenport was lit up. The harbor glittering. The lights of the city coming on one by one.

I remembered, suddenly, something very far away.

I remembered being new here. Being a scared, small girl fresh out of the funeral home and dropped into the Ashford manor, not knowing how to move through any of it. Getting picked on at school. Not daring to tell Eleanor. Hiding in a storage room behind the gymnasium at Ravenport Academy and crying into my knees.

It had been a red-gold evening — the sky the color of a fire — when Julian found me there.

He'd picked me up on his back, fourteen years old and already stubborn, and carried me the entire way home to the Ashford estate.

He'd said: If anyone ever bullies you again, don't hide. You come to me. I'll handle it.

He'd said: Anyone who lays a hand on my Sparrow — I'll throw them into the harbor myself.

The boy had made promises. The man had forgotten them.

The tears came anyway. I hated that they came.

I'd been so stupid.

I'd thought — if there was no love, at least there were years. Years of growing up together. Surely that meant something.

I spoke through the lump in my throat.

"You never believed me, Julian. To you, everything I do is an attack on her. Everything. Fine. I accept that."

"But from now on — you aren't my brother anymore."

Not the boy I'd loved.

Not my brother from across the hall.

"We're done. We have nothing between us anymore."

He saw me crying. Saw me actually breaking, there in front of him. Something flickered in his face — doubt, maybe. A second of it.

I didn't care. I bent forward to finish my forced apology to Celeste.

A voice came from the doorway — low, amused, carrying easily across the room.

"Looks like I missed a party."

Dominic Blackwood.

He crossed the floor with his eyes on my twisted arm the whole time. When he got to me, he slid his hand carefully under my elbow, his other hand settling — controlled, respectful — against the small of my back, helping me straighten up.

He looked straight at Celeste without bothering to raise his voice.

"Some people are born with a spine. Their apology doesn't come cheap — not to just anyone. Don't you agree, Miss Pemberton?"

I stared at him.

This wasn't the first time Dominic Blackwood had stepped between me and something terrible. The last time had been outside the burning warehouse.

And before that — years ago, in a life he shouldn't remember.