Friday came too fast.
"Seriously?" Zara groaned as I zipped up my overnight bag. "You're abandoning me to those hyenas?"
"They're not hyenas," I teased, smirking. "Just four girls in cheap heels with too much perfume."
"Poisoned perfume," Tiana muttered from the bed, scrolling lazily on her phone. "Don't die before Monday, please."
Mia rolled her eyes. "She won't. Kaylee's indestructible."
I laughed, but the sound was hollow. My friends had no idea. Going home wasn't peace. It wasn't safety. It was walking back into a polished cage I had never learned how to escape.
The sleek black car was already waiting by the gates when I stepped outside. The driver bowed his head, silent as always. I slid into the backseat, pressing my forehead to the tinted glass as the school disappeared behind me.
The McPherson estate stretched across acres—iron gates like fangs biting into the skyline. Guards stood at attention, their expressions carved from stone, weapons disguised but obvious to anyone who knew where to look. To outsiders, it was the home of one of the richest men alive. To me, it was a mausoleum. A house filled with silence and shadows.
The car stopped in the marble driveway. I slipped my sunglasses on, wishing I could slip right back into the seat and tell the driver to keep going. My dorm was freedom. Here, the very air felt heavy. Watching. Judging.
The butler greeted me with his usual bow. "Welcome home, Miss Kaylee."
Home. The word scraped like glass against my ribs.
"Kaylee!" My mother's voice rang through the grand hall, her heels clicking sharply against marble. She swept toward me, wrapped in silk and diamonds, perfume trailing behind her like smoke. Her arms closed around me in a too-tight hug, her hands already fussing with my hair, my weight, the cut of my clothes.
I forced a smile. "I'm fine, Mom. Really."
But my eyes were already drawn down the hall, toward the heavy oak doors of the study. He was in there. Of course he was. Always working. Always absent.
Later, the butler's voice echoed through the house: "Your father requests your presence in the study."
My chest tightened. Refusing wasn't an option. Not here. Not with him.
The doors creaked open, and the cold baritone of his voice filled the room. "Kaylee."
He didn't look up at first. He never did. His pen scraped against contracts, his black suit pristine, his presence colder than the room itself.
But my gaze didn't stay on him.
It snapped to them.
Four figures lounged across leather chairs and couches like they owned the room. Identical faces. Identical stares.
My heart tripped violently in my chest.
The Knights.
I'd seen them before on campus. Felt their eyes trailing me in ways that left my skin heated and restless. But here—in my father's study—it felt different. Too close. Too dangerous.
Finally, my father looked up. "Kaylee, you remember Alex Miles' sons."
Of course. Alex Miles—my father's childhood best friend, now his closest ally. That explained why they were here. Why they sat in his study as if they belonged.
I smoothed my expression into a polite mask. "Yes, Father. I've… seen them around."
Her eyes locked on one of them—the quietest. He didn't smirk. Didn't speak. Instead, his jaw shifted, tongue pressing slow against the inside of his cheek as he watched me. The smallest movement, but it dragged me in like a hook beneath the skin.
My stomach tightened.
Then the first leaned forward, grin sharp and easy. "Kadeem," he said smoothly, winking. His grin lingered—until, almost as if on instinct, his tongue pressed against his cheek in the exact same way.
The second flicked his lighter open and shut, his smirk lazy but sharp. "Kaden," he drawled. And then—there it was again. The slow roll of his tongue inside his cheek, casual but deliberate.
My breath faltered. They weren't even looking at each other. They couldn't have seen it.
The third leaned back, a low chuckle escaping him. "Kadin. Fate's got a funny sense of humor, don't you think?" As his laughter faded, his jaw shifted too, tongue pressing against his cheek, mirroring the others without a glance.
A chill rippled down my spine. It wasn't coincidence.
And then the last one—the silent devil who'd done it first. He let the moment stretch, eyes locked on mine. His tongue rolled once more, deliberate, slow, the corner of his jaw tightening with it.
Finally, his voice came—quiet, steady.
"Kayden."
Just his name. But with that stare, with that habit—it branded me from the inside out.
My father cleared his throat, already bored. "The boys will be passing the night here. Their father and I have business."
The words struck like stone. Passing the night. Here.
I kept my face blank, but my fists curled at my sides.
The brothers exchanged glances, smirks sparking like fire.
"Looks like fate locked us under the same roof," Kadin murmured.
Kaden tipped his lighter, sparks flashing. "Hope you don't mind the company."
Kadeem's grin widened. "You'll get used to us, princess. We grow on people."
But Kayden said nothing. He just rolled his tongue against his cheek again—slow, deliberate—never breaking eye contact.
My father had already turned back to his papers, dismissing me the way he always did. Invisible. Forgotten.
And somehow, that cut deeper than the dangerous attention coiling across the room.
Because for the first time, I wondered if it would be the Knights—the wolves in my house—who would see me more clearly than my own father ever had.
Kadeem smirked, tongue shifting at the corner of his mouth.
Kadin's low chuckle ended with that same slow roll.
Kaden's lighter flicked, jaw tightening, tongue pressing his cheek.
And Kayden—silent, unflinching—just stared.
The kind of stare that didn't promise safety.
The kind of stare that promised something else entirely—
Something dark.
Something I wasn't sure I could resist.