When I woke up hours later, the room was dark.
The phone was still buzzing intermittently.
I reached out and picked it up.
The lock screen was a disaster.
217 missed calls.
412 unread text messages.
Endless emails and social media alerts.
Media outlets, old university acquaintances, distant relatives, former and new clients I hadn’t gotten back to after taking two days off to attend Kristen’s wedding were all spamming my inbox.
I scrolled through the notification bar, my stomach sinking further with every line.
Mrs.
Knox — 18 Missed Calls Kristen — 27 Missed Calls I had only been gone for seven days, but apparently that was long enough for my entire life to catch fire.
I wondered briefly if turning the phone off and pretending none of it existed would count as a legitimate survival strategy.
I groaned, leaning my head back against the pillows.
“Of course.” I opened the text thread from Kristen.
Her messages were short and razor-sharp.
[Call Mother immediately.] [Do you have any idea what you’ve put this family through?] [You always make everything about yourself.] I stared at the last sentence.
After everything—after being married off to a terrifying commander and sent to a frozen mountain—I was still the problem.
Er.
Maybe I was but semantics.
I deleted her texts without replying.
I didn’t have the energy to defend myself against accusations I’d heard in one form or another for most of my life.
Besides, I already knew how the conversation would end.
Before I could lock the screen, the phone vibrated in my grip.
An incoming call from Mrs Knox.
My fingers froze.
My heart dropped straight into my stomach.
I was twenty-six years old, an independent accountant, and legally married, but years of childhood conditioning made my thumb move on its own.
I pressed answer and put the phone to my ear.
”Oh,” my stepmother’s voice came through the speaker.
It wasn’t shouting.
It was cold, sharp, and measured.
“You didn’t die.” It was ridiculous that a voice could still do this to me.
I had faced an Apex Hunter, survived a frozen mountain, and somehow this woman could still reduce me to the frightened girl who used to stand silently in the kitchen.
”I’d have thought the first thing that man would do was get rid of you for my sake but clearly, I overestimated his abilities,” Mrs.
Knox continued, her tone filled with disgust.
“Do you have any idea how embarrassing this past week has been?
The press won’t stop calling.
The rumors are everywhere!
You go off and ruined your sister’s wedding due to your jealousy and then, disappear!
Do you think that would solve everything?
I bet you went to enjoy a nice honeymoon seeing as you came back in one piece.
You are selfish, Stella.
No matter how much I try to train you, it’s been a futile effort!
You have always been a nightmare to deal with—” My hands started shaking.
I gripped the phone harder trying to let the words gloss over me like I always did.
But somehow, it felt like an impossible conquest.
I just couldn’t breathe— ”Stella?” My lungs seemed to forget their job.
I dug my nails into my palm beneath the blanket, searching for something solid enough to remind me that I was here, not back there.
A tall shadow fell over the bed.
When I looked up, Dylan was beside me.
I hadn’t heard the door open.
Dylan stood near the edge of the rug, holding a stack of papers.
He was looking right at me, his eyes fixated on my trembling fingers and my face.
He walked over to the side of the bed without a word.
There was something strangely deliberate about the way he moved, as if he’d already decided what needed to be done and wasn’t interested in asking permission.
Mrs.
Knox’s voice kept droning out of the small speaker.
“…and when you get back here, you will apologize to me and your father for—” Dylan reached down and held out his hand.
“Give me the phone.” I blinked up at him, paralyzed.
Without waiting, he reached down and smoothly slid the phone out of my shaking fingers.
He brought the screen to his face.
Mrs.
Knox was still talking.
Dylan didn’t say a word to her.
He tapped the screen, long-pressed her contact profile, and hit Block Contact.
Then he tossed the phone casually onto the mattress.
My jaw dropped.
“Hey!
That’s my phone!” Dylan pulled up a chair, sat down and turned on the table lamp to work.
“You’re in Blackwood House now.” I stared at him, my mind struggling to catch up.
“She’s my stepmother!” ”If she wants to yell at you, she can do so by coming here through the front gates,” Dylan said, his voice completely level.
I blinked.
“What?” I stared at him, waiting for the punchline.
There wasn’t one.
He looked genuinely prepared to turn my stepmother into a cautionary tale involving several tons of military equipment.
”And my front gates are guarded by heavy artillery that will be used,” he added, without even a hint of a joke in his eyes.
He paused, adjusting his cuffs.
“It needs to be tested anyway.” I sat frozen on the edge of the bed, staring at him in utter disbelief.
“Are you…
are you threatening to hurt my stepmother?” Dylan looked at me, completely serious.
“I don’t threaten.
I inform.” “That’s somehow worse!” “If you say so.” I stared at him for three full seconds.
The sheer absurdity of the situation—the Apex Hunter calmly blocking my toxic family and offering to blow up my stepmother with base weaponry—hit me all at once.
A sound escaped my throat.
Then another.
I burst out laughing.
It wasn’t a soft chuckle.
It was a loud, hysterical laugh that bubbled up from the bottom of my chest, shaking my shoulders.
For seven days, I had shuffled between hating and being terrified of this man.
And now, he had just solved my lifelong family trauma with a button tap and a casual threat of explosive force.
Dylan raised an eyebrow at me.
“What?” I wiped a tiny tear from the corner of my eye, shaking my head.
“Nothing.” Explaining that I’d just laughed because the most terrifying man I’d ever met had somehow become the first person to make me feel safe would have been far too humiliating.
I looked back at Dylan as he flipped through his papers.
Blackwood House was dangerous, and the man sitting in front of me was still terrifying.
But as I pulled the blanket over my lap, I realized something else.
For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel alone.