Page 124 of Claim

It was a statement.

I got out of the car half convinced this was some elaborate mistake. Or worse—a setup. Courts hadn’t finished me, so maybe Wolfe had found another way in. Invite me here. Close the gate. Clean ending.

The other half of me didn’t care.

Not if Tristan was inside.

I blew out a breath and pressed the buzzer.

A woman’s voice came through the speaker. “Gate’s open. Please come to the door.”

I glanced up and clocked the camera trained straight on me, so I smiled. Badly. Then the gate slid open, and I walked up the path, boots crunching softly on pale gravel that probably got hoovered.

The door was huge. Heavy. I’d bet it hadn’t ever been kicked in.

I stepped onto the tiled porch and raised my hand to knock.

It opened.

A woman stood there in a neat black dress and a white apron. Housekeeper, I guessed. Everything about her said efficient, discreet, and absolutely not surprised to see me. “Mr Slade?”

“Uh…yeah.”

She opened the door wider. “Please, come in.”

I crossed the threshold and walked straight into the biggest fucking house I’d ever seen. Light poured down from a glass dome somewhere high above. Marble floors. A sweeping staircase curving up with plants the size of small trees. Oil paintings in heavy frames. Statues on pedestals.

It was beautiful.

And it wasn’t for lowlife scum like me.

“May I take your coat?” The woman held out her hand.

I wasn’t actually wearing one. Coats were expensive. This was an overshirt cardigan thing that Tristan had said I looked homely in, and I wasn’t sure if I was meant to keep that on. “Uh—”

“It’s all right, Mrs Linton.”

That voice cut through the room as if it had a direct line to my chest.

I turned.

And there he was. Standing a few feet away, having come in from a side corridor as if this were all perfectly normal. Chinos. Soft blue shirt. Sleeves rolled. Hair styled the way it always was when he wanted to pretend he hadn’t tried.

Tristan.

Alive. Upright. Colour in his cheeks. No blood. No bruises. No damage.

“I’ll take it from here.” He smiled at the housekeeper.

She nodded and disappeared without a sound.

And I couldn’t stop staring at him.

“Welcome.” He gestured grandly, almost in mockery, at the lavishness from which he came.

I didn’t think. Never had been good at that. And I crossed the space between us, sliding an arm around his waist, the other coming up to the back of his neck, and kissed him.

Didn’t ask. Nor pause. And couldn’t give a fuck who saw.