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No answer.
A scowl pulls at my brows.
I knock several more times.
Still no answer.
Heaving an annoyed sigh, I try to simply shove the handle down and pull the door open instead.
To my utter surprise, it works.
For a few seconds, I just stare at the now open door in confusion. The guy lives at a university for assassins, and he leaves the front door unlocked? What the fuck is he thinking?
Shaking my head at his carelessness, I walk across the threshold and into the hallway beyond.
The inside of the house is as beautiful as the outside. Floor and walls made of smooth dark wood, an elegantly curving staircase at the end of the hall, and ornate lamps in the ceiling. It looks like something straight out of my world. The world of the obscenely wealthy.
Or it would have, if it wasn’t so fucking messy.
I step over a bat that is lying on the floor in the middle of the hallway. Making my way farther in, I glance into a room on my right. It turns out to be a study, which is surprisingly neat and clean. But there is no sign of Jace, so I move on to the doorway on the left instead.
Shock pulses through me as I step into a combined kitchen and living room.
The walls and floor in here are also made of dark wood, there is a grand dining room table in the middle of the room, a kitchen island and stainless-steel appliances in the kitchen side on my right, and a cream-colored couch in front of a large TV on the other side of the room. It would be a beautiful space if, again, it wasn’t so fucking messy.
Empty glasses and whiskey bottles litter the kitchen island. There is also a bat there. And another one on the floor next to the table.
I sweep my gaze over the room in disbelief.
Then my gaze snags on the couch.
A mop of messy brown hair is spilling out over the backrest.
I move towards it. While passing the bat on the floor, I bend down and pick it up. Just in case.
But when I reach the couch and walk around it, my suspicions are confirmed and I do indeed find Jace there. The sight of him still shocks me, though. Not because it’s him, but because of how he looks.
There are dark circles under his eyes, and he is scowling even though he is clearly asleep. His knuckles are bloody, he is shirtless, and there is blood splattered across his bare chest as well. An empty bottle of whiskey sits on the low coffee table in front of him, but no glass.
He looks… broken.
Pain spears through my heart at the thought. It’s so intense that I almost lose the grip on the bat.
But then it’s immediately followed by a flash of anger.
No. He does not get to self-destruct like this just because we had a setback. Yes, things went to hell. And yes, with hindsight, we should’ve done things differently. But it’s nothing we can’t fix.
Stepping up next to him, I poke him with the bat.
His eyes snap open and he shoots up from the couch.
My stomach lurches as he spins me around, yanks the bat out of my hand, and slams me up against the wall. A huff rips from my lungs at the impact, and I blink repeatedly.
Jace is standing right in front of me, one hand buried in my collar and the other gripping the bat.
For a few seconds, his eyes are wild and unfocused, as if he still hasn’t figured out what happened or where he is or who I am.
Then he blinks.
