Lilia’s POV
I spent the whole night doing arithmetic.
The sapphire butterfly brooch.
Three hundred thousand dollars.
If I could pawn it off cleanly, it would move me another real step toward the five million.
First thing in the morning I wrapped the brooch carefully in a handkerchief, closed my fist around it, changed into going-out clothes, and headed for the door.
I’d just reached the stairs when the front door opened below.
Nathan was back.
He stripped off his coat and dropped it over the arm of the sofa; Helen stepped forward with his shoes.
But his eyes came straight to me.
“Eager to run off somewhere?”
”To work.” I didn’t slow my steps, and kept my tone light.
“Gone for days without a trace, and the moment I return, out the door you go.” His voice gave nothing away.
“Avoiding me?”
Unfair.
I kept the complaint internal, walked closer and played at ease.
“If anything, Alpha Nathan is the one who’s impossible to find. Border inspections, you said. Where you went, what you did,I hear none of it, and you never say when you’ll be back. Which of us is avoiding the other?”
Nathan toweled the water off his hands, glanced sideways to send Helen out, and reached over to pinch my cheek gently.
“Unhappy?”
I pushed his hand away quickly.
“Why…why would I be unhappy?”
He laughed low and said nothing more, only bent closer,close enough that I wanted to step back, but his hand had already found the one I’d hidden at my side and closed around it.
“Hss,”
The point of the brooch was digging into my palm, and his grip drove it deeper.
I sucked in a breath through my teeth.
Nathan went still.
“What is this?”
He pried my clenched fingers open, one at a time, giving me no say in it.
The sapphire butterfly lay in my palm, throwing off a small wash of deep blue in the morning light.
His eyes darkened at once, and the mild curve at the corner of his mouth pulled tight.
“Where did a brooch come from?”
He held my hand from beneath, fingertips hovering just above the brooch without touching it,and yet the pressure coming down off him frightened me more than any silence this house had ever held.
“A… gift. From a customer.”
“A customer.” He laughed once, without warmth.
“What does a night of pouring drinks earn you? What kind of customer gives a servant a natural sapphire?”
I stepped back before I knew I was doing it, and my shoulders met the cold wall almost at once.
He came on, step by step.
His right hand rose,and with one rip, he tore the fabric open at my shoulder.
Cold air poured in.
Before I could react, he had my wrist in his grip and was holding the brooch beside the butterfly tattoo at my collarbone, comparing them, an inch at a time.
Identical.
I heard his breathing stumble for one beat.
The guesses were clearly running through his head, one after another,and not one of them was good.
“Tell me.” His voice dropped very low.
“Who?”
There was no hiding it now.
Playing dumb at this point would only make me look more suspicious.
I bit my lip and let my eyes flood red on cue,the wounded look, the most practiced mask I owned.
“Kael Veyron.” My voice shook so badly it was hardly audible.
“He insisted. I didn’t dare refuse…”
Nathan froze for a second.
Then he laughed out loud,a laugh that had nothing to do with humor.
“If you’re going to lie, at least use your head. Tell me Jace, and I might believe a word of it. But Kael?” His voice climbed sharply.
“That man has never touched a woman in his life. What would he want with you?”
Never touched a woman?
The want I’d seen buried in those golden eyes was more direct than anyone’s.
I kept that sentence behind my teeth.
“He forced it on me. I didn’t dare hand it back to his face. I could only take it first. There’s truly nothing else to it,”
I was convincing enough that I nearly persuaded myself.
He noticed my wandering attention, and his face turned uglier.
His hand tightened without warning,and the sharp point of the brooch drove through the skin of my palm without mercy.
“Ah!”
The cry tore out of my throat, and this one was real pain.
He didn’t let go.
He added force, and blood seeped slowly out of my palm and stained the wing of the sapphire butterfly.
A drop fell.
It struck the floor with a soft tap.
Nathan looked down at it, and there wasn’t an ounce of softness in his eyes.
“It hurts… Nathan, I truly didn’t dare cross him. I’m an Omega who pours drinks. How could I ever stand against a man like that…”
Only then did his grip ease.
The bloodstained brooch slid from my palm and struck the floor with a bright clink.
He said nothing, for a long time.
I kept the wounded look on my face while I watched him from the corner of my eye.
He believed some of it.
“I’m sorry, Nathan.”
I didn’t know what tone the words wanted.
I only knew that if I didn’t say them, the one who paid for it would be me.
Sure enough, the knot between his brows loosened by degrees.
He bent, picked the bloodied brooch up off the floor, took my still-bleeding hand, and led me toward the stairs.
“Kael Veyron lives recklessly. Sooner or later the enemies he’s made will devour him. Stay far away from him.”
I nodded obediently, wearing just the right amount of fear, while relief unknotted quietly inside me.
The performance had held.
“Since it’s his gift, keep it safe. This brooch…” He paused.
His thumb moved slowly across the warm blood in my palm, and something flickered through his eyes, fast as a blink,something close to calculation, and nothing I had ever seen there before.
“It will have great use.”