Kai’s POV
The champagne flute in my hand has grown warm, forgotten the moment Travis Shields walked through my father's front door.
I've been watching since his arrival—watched the color drain from Skye's face the way it did when I dropped Dylan Cooley's name in our kitchen, watched her spine straighten like she was preparing for battle, watched Travis perform his gentleman routine.
I know that performance. Have known it since childhood.
Travis Shields is seven years my senior, and the gap meant everything when I was twelve and he was nineteen.
We were never friends—our families moved in intersecting social circles, forced proximity at charity galas and summer parties where children were expected to entertain themselves while adults drank and performed.
Travis was handsome even then, already practicing the charm that would serve him in boardrooms and bedrooms, but I learned early to read the cracks in the facade.
The way his smile would falter when adults turned away. The precise application of violence when we found ourselves alone.
Pinching fingers. Twisting wrists. A knee pressed hard against my ribs while he whispered warnings about tattling.
‘They'll never believe you. Look at you. Look at me.’
I hated him with the helpless intensity of a child who cannot prove his own injuries.
I hated him more when the violence escalated and I grew large enough to defend myself, because Travis simply changed tactics. He became subtle, insinuating, expert at damage that left no marks visible to anyone but me.
We have not spoken in years, have avoided the same rooms by unspoken mutual agreement.
And now he stands beside Skye with his hand at her elbow, and I recognize the possession in his posture, the territorial angle of his shoulders.
I wonder what she was like with him. Before whatever happened that made her flinch at sudden movements, that taught her to catalogue exits in every room she enters.
Did she laugh easier then? Did she let him see her without armor, without the sharp tongue she wields like a weapon now?
Did she let him touch her the way she let me touch her?
The thought curdles in my stomach. I imagine her trusting him—this man I know to be a monster wearing a gentleman's skin—imagine her opening herself to his hands, his mouth, his whispered promises.
I imagine her believing him the way I once believed adults would protect me from boys like him.
She must have been devastating in her vulnerability. And he must have seen it as an invitation.
When Travis draws Skye aside—some excuse about showing her the garden, some pretense of catching up that fools no one with functioning eyes—I set down my champagne and move.
I find my father near the fireplace, surrounded by men who laugh too loudly at his jokes, their expensive drinks catching the light as they perform camaraderie.
Heinrich looks up with pleased surprise at my approach, this son who avoids him, who treats our home like hostile territory requiring constant vigilance.
"Father." I keep my voice light, casual, watching the garden doors through the glass even as I speak. "Your new stepdaughter seems popular tonight."
Heinrich follows my gaze, sees Travis's hand at Skye's back as they disappear toward the roses.
His expression shifts into the particular blankness he wears when processing information he suspects will be useful later.
"Ah. Those two dated, apparently. Small world we live in, isn't it?"
Dated.
I imagine Travis's hands on Skye the way they've been on me—pinching, claiming, leaving invisible bruises that heal on the surface while festering underneath—and feel my jaw tighten with the effort of maintaining composure.
"Her taste is questionable," I say, aiming for disdain, missing by several inches. "Travis Shields. Of all the men in the damn world, she chose him."
Heinrich studies his son with the perceptiveness I have spent my entire life learning to evade and never quite succeeding. His whiskey glass pauses halfway to his lips.
"And who would you consider an appropriate company for your stepsister? Someone worthy of her taste, as you put it? I confess I am curious what your criteria might include."
The question is bait, obvious and dangling, a trap dressed in paternal interest.
I consider my options: the mocking deflection that is my default, the truth that would reveal too much, the silence that would confirm everything my father is already suspecting.
I have not thought about this. Do not want to think about it—the specific qualities that would make someone worthy of her, the way my mind keeps offering candidates and rejecting them all for failing standards I have never bothered to define.
"Someone who wouldn't be on your guest list," I say finally. "But perhaps that's too narrow a criteria."
Heinrich's expression shifts, a knowing quality settling behind his eyes like fog rolling into a valley. He sips his whiskey slowly, letting the silence stretch.
"Your interest in Skye's romantic history is remarkably detailed, Kai. Almost as if you've given it significant thought."
"She's my stepsister." The deflection is automatic, emerging from my mouth before my brain has time to construct anything more convincing. "I'm being brotherly."
"You're many things, son. Brotherly has never been among them." Heinrich sips his whiskey again, watching me over the rim of his glass. "Your mother used to watch me with that same expression, you know. Before she found her editor and her freedom."
I feel my control slipping, the dangerous urge to confess or attack wrestling in my chest like two animals trapped in the same cage.
My mother's face flashes through my mind, the way she looked at my father when she thought no one was watching, the hunger and resentment tangled together until neither could be separated from the other.
"Mother found her freedom," I repeat, tasting the bitterness in every syllable. "Is that what we're calling abandonment now?"
Movement catches my eye through the glass doors. Travis and Skye are returning from the garden—her face pale but composed, his hand still at her waist.
I want to break that hand.
The jealousy surges fresh and violent through my blood, hot enough to blur my vision, strong enough to make my hands curl into fists at my sides.
I want to cross the room and tear his hand away from her body. I want to demand what he said, what he took, what history they share that made her face go blank with fear.
Since when do you lose control over a woman?
"I need air," I say, not waiting for my father's response.
I leave him standing by the fire, leave the party and its performances, and do not stop moving until I am outside.
The darkness settles around me like a second skin as I stand on the terrace, counting breaths, watching my condensation disappear into the air with each exhale.
I want to find Skye. I want to warn her. Protect her. Claim her.
Claim her.
I want to take her hand and lead her out the front door without explanation or apology. I want to put my body between her and Travis, between her and anyone who has ever made her shrink.
I want to drive her somewhere far from this house, this town. Somewhere I could touch her without calculating who might see, without the word stepsister hanging between us like a guillotine waiting to drop.
I want her to be mine in the way that lets me answer when someone asks who she belongs to.
She doesn't belong to anyone, you possessive fuck.
And yet.
I want with an intensity that feels like the violence I spent my childhood escaping, and the realization settles into my bones like ice water finding its level.
Whatever is happening between us has already passed beyond my control.
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