Page 47 of The Rook’s Obsession

“It’s not that long.” Aurora’s eyes dance when she takes a sip of her water. “He needed a way to access my dad’s fortune. I was the way. He forced me into marriage, locked me up, and I spent the first few weeks plotting various ways to escape.”

I look at Liam. He looks back at me with the resigned expression of a man who knows this summary is the truth but wishes it wasn’t. “Are you ever going to let that go?”

“Absolutely not,” she chirps cheerfully.

But there’s warmth underneath the words. Real warmth, the kind that comes from two people who fought their way through something ugly and came out on the other side holding on to each other. Whatever their beginning was, however terrible it might have been, they built something genuine on top of it. I see it in the way he looks at her. The way she looks at him. The ease between them that only exists when trust has been earned the hard way.

And it makes that ache in my chest stronger than ever. It’s not jealousy, exactly. It’s closer to longing.

So I take another bite of my pancakes, trying to connect with whatever part of myself remembered them. As dangerous as it seems, it’s even more dangerous to want what I can’t have. And people like me don’t get the kind of life they’re building together.

The table quiets down as we finish eating. Somebody comes by to clear the plates. Liam orders more coffee and leans back in the booth with his arm stretched out along the back of the seat behind Aurora.

“The tracker is gone,” he says, shifting into the tone that tells me the fun times are over, and we’re back to business. “Nick confirmed it for me. That means Vincenzo has no way of finding you right now.”

“As far as we know,” I add, because I feel like it needs to be said.

“As far as we know,” he concedes. “But without the tracker, he’s working blind. That means you don’t need to keep running. Not right now.”

He pauses, as if he’s measuring his next words. Aurora leans into him, giving him the tiniest nod, like she’s encouraging him to say whatever comes next.

“The penthouse is secure,” he continues. “It’s the safest place I have. Armed security, surveillance, controlled access. I would like you to stay there, at least until we figure out the next move with Gabriel.”

I look at Nick. He gives me the same small nod Aurora gave Liam. Obviously, the three of them already worked this out without my knowledge. It’s the kind of thing that would normally piss me off, but at the moment, I’m too busy working out the pros and cons of the situation.

“It’s your choice,” Liam adds. He might not know he has a tell, but I do. It’s all in the way he says it. Carefully, deliberately. Like those three words took everything he had. It means he’s fighting the impulse to order me around, probably because Nick told him to. Either that, or he figured out on his own that pushing me will get him nowhere.

Nobody is telling me what to do. It’s up to me.

I look around the diner one more time. According to Liam, I spent every Sunday here for years. In this booth, waiting for pancakes with bananas and chocolate chips.

I think I might want to know more about her. “Okay,” I decide. “I’ll stay.”

Liam exhales. Barely visible, but I catch it. The release of something he’s been holding since he walked into the cabin, and I looked at him like the stranger he is to me. There’s no smile, no look of relief. He only nods once, but that’s all it takes for me to know how much this means.

And I’m glad I can give it to him. I don’t owe him anything, not really, but I sense how much he loved Laura.

Which tells me Laura probably loved him just as much, and she would want him to be happy.

NICK

Ivy moves through the new space systematically, silently. She catalogs everything in the penthouse with a few sharp glances through narrowed eyes. The exits first. The windows. Checking sight lines, gauging the distance to the nearest building.

And I stand back and let her work. It’s instinct. Fighting someone’s instincts is a waste of everyone’s time.

The penthouse is impressive, even to someone like me who’s been here more times than I can count. Compared to the hotel rooms we’ve bounced back and forth between over the past few days? It’s a palace.

She runs her fingers along the granite countertop as she passes through the kitchen, pausing at the hallway, looking toward the room where Liam and Aurora sleep and where they’re now holed up together. Her gaze moves over the security panel mounted on the wall and lingers as she studies it.

“The system was overhauled after an incident a while back,” I tell her. “I oversaw the upgrades myself. Reinforced entry points, new cameras, biometric locks. The stairwell access requires a code that changes every twelve hours. The panic room behind the office—steel-reinforced, independent air supply, a hardline to Liam’s security team.”

She listens, nodding, but her attention isn’t where I expected it to be. She stands in the middle of the living room, turning slowly, taking in the space. The view through the windows. The sheer scope of it.

“You’re safe here,” I add, because I assume that’s what she’s thinking about.

She looks at me, and the corner of her mouth lifts. It’s not really a smile. Something more thoughtful. “I wasn’t thinking about safety.”

“What, then?”