Flames Pov
Let him?
As if I'm some dainty mess of limbs and perfume that needs saving.
I am the wolf in this house. The storm in heels. The one who doesn't flinch when a man bleeds at her feet.
Now he wants to send me a bodyguard?
Too late, Father.
Too damn late to raise walls after the fire has scorched the girl you forgot to protect.
I didn't tear the letter. I wanted to.
I didn't burn it. I wanted that even more.
Instead, I folded it—neatly, tightly—and placed it into the drawer of my vanity, between a velvet box of Cuban cigars and a pearl-handled revolver. The kind of drawer that knew my secrets.
I didn't know if I was angry at the letter, or angry that part of me wanted to believe it.
I locked his office and left, heels echoing across the cold marble floor. My room was three corridors down, through a hall no one walked anymore. Not since he died.
The silence in my quarters didn't welcome me—it circled like a predator.
I peeled off my clothes slowly. Robe. Lingerie. Jewelry. Each piece a version of the woman I played for the world.
I stood in the mirror for a second. Staring.
Same eyes.
Same mouth.
Different soul.
I climbed into bed naked, letting the silk sheets wrap around me like smoke. I didn't think I'd sleep. But I did.
A deep, dreamless thing. Like slipping underwater and not caring if you float back up.
---
Morning.
I woke up without opening them right away. There was something different in the air, a still but definite one—like the calm before a storm, a still you only feel when someone's staring at you.
The smell came first—leather, cedar, something with an undertone of metal.
Gun oil?
I blinked slowly, letting the air remain around me before my eyes opened.
He stood in the corner of the room. Not hiding out, not leaving—just waiting. On my bedroom couch.
Relaxed. Tall. Lean. Dressed in black.
Boots on my hardwood floor, like he was the owner.
My hand under my pillow, the urge to reach for the cold metal there.
Then he spoke.
"Good morning."
His voice wasn't odd. Irritatingly composed. Low enough to gather in the walls, hanging like a shadow.
I sat up, allowing the sheet to fall to my lap. I didn't attempt to hide. I wanted him to know what it was like to trespass on my territory.
"You're bold," I told him, my voice biting, but steady.
His eyes never blinked. Never fell. Just met mine—dead on. Unbroken.
"I was told you'd like that," he replied, his voice an unsettling combination of calm and assurance.
By whom? My father?
I slowly sat up from the bed, bare upper body little covering for my lower half. Every movement was slow and deliberate, as if my body was probing the air between us.
"Who the hell are you?"
He moved his head a fraction, his eyes tracing my face with an almost-peeling intensity.
"The one who's going to see that you don't die."
That's when it hit me.
He wasn't here to wait upon me.
He was here because my father didn't think I could deal with what was in store for me.
And the terrible part?
The look on this stranger's face told me that he did as well.
I took a step forward, tension in the room growing like air before a tempest. His eyes did not leave mine. It was something tougher now—something bitter. Something nearly. familiar.
"Do I look like I need a babysitter?," I said to him, the words spilling out of my mouth like pieces of glass.
His lips twitched, a thin slice of a smile, but there was something different about it. Something that didn't seem quite right.
"Doesn't matter what you need," he replied, his voice greasy, too greasy. "Your father didn't think you'd be able to handle what's going to come.".
I bunched my hands into fists, nails digging into webs of palms. The old control pain, the old dominance almost forgotten.
"My father's dead," I spit, forcing words past clenched teeth. The fury that swirled out was raw, too raw. "So you're here, what? On some ghost's command?"
His eyes softened, just a little, and I saw it then—the space between his eyes. The certainty that he was not some piece. This wasn't just work to him. He played a game of his own.
"No one's dead in this world until they're gone for good," he said in riddles, voice falling to black whisper.
I said nothing. I watched him—the position he took, so still. The threatening quiet of his presence. Each part of him appeared to radiate control, as if a clock were ticking, counting down.
You really think you can just barge in here, tell me that I'm weak, and I'm just supposed to believe you?" I crept a step closer, "Who in the world do you think you are to decide whether I live or die?
He stood, slow and deliberate, each step a declaration of low-key strength. He was a tall fellow enough that I'd have to roll my head back to be eye to eye. And in my eyes, something—one that made me feel a little again for the first time in a few years.
"I am..," he said, deep, soft whisper now, "who'll be keeping you from dying whether or not you like it."
I wanted to debate. To destroy that unbreakable calm. But something bothered me. My father's death was just the beginning. Something worse was coming my way, and I knew it. I felt it.
I took a breath, trying to slow my hectic mind.
"And what if I don't need your help?" I asked, the hostility in my tone lashing, with an added edge.
He stepped forward next, only one step, closing the distance between us. The distance between us became thick, weighing upon me, suffocating. My heart thundered, yet I didn't flinch. I didn't step back.
"Then I make you need it."
I didn't flinch when he moved a step closer. Instead, I extended my hand to the bedside drawer, fingers running along the cold metal. The gun felt like an old friend in my hand, holding me steady.
I eased it out, the steel resting against my palm.
His gaze flicked to the gun, but he didn't step back. He didn't even flinch. He just stood there, watching. Waiting.
"Get out," I told him, voice low, even.
His eyes didn't even flicker. His stance didn't change. Error.
I moved forward, the hammer of the pistol slamming back in a metallic crash. The barrel rested against his forehead. Dead center.
"I don't care who you're working for. I didn't call for a dog, and I don't need one."
His jaw snapped shut. The calm was still there, but now it was tinged with something else—something more deadly.
"I'm here to keep you safe," he said to me.
I laughed, eyes narrowing, the gun never wavering from its steady point. "I don't require protection. I require quiet. You're wasting my oxygen."
For a moment, the air between us was a thin thread, stretched taut with unspoken things. His stance didn't change, didn't falter. He was a wall, impenetrable, unshakeable.
"I will shoot you. Don't test my patience," I said to him, voice low and sharp.
The room held its breath.
Then he retreated, moving slowly—one foot, then the other—his gaze still locked on mine. Cold, unyielding. His ey
es lingered, a glimmer of something else in them now—something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
"You need me," he rasped, voice low, almost a taunt.