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Everyone who cared has already gone home. They did their duty. Offered condolences. Touched my arm. Said my father’s name with careful faces, as if speaking it softly might make death less difficult.

The house feels emptied of structure now. First, the heart goes. Then the spine. What remains is only a shell big enough to echo.

The floorboards groan beneath my steps as I cross the main hall. Portraits crowd the walls. Generations of Crotaveres staring down as if they know something I don’t.

My father’s painted face pulls at me the hardest. The artist got him before the illness gnawed him down. He looks indestructible there. Permanent. My mother sits beside him, her smile painted with a softness she could never hold on to in life.

My own face is there, alongside my brothers, trapped in oils, all of us younger and cleaner. The boy staring back at me has no idea he will bury both his parents within a single year.

“Edwin.”

My pulse jumps, but I maintain my composure.

I turn and find Reese in the doorway of our father’s office. He leans against the frame with a half-empty glass in his hand. His tie hangs loose, jacket long gone. His hair looks like he’s run his hands through it too many times trying to keep himself together.

He stares at me before he speaks again.

“You know she isn’t right for it.”

No need to ask who he means.

“There are women associated with the Order who know what they’re doing,” he says. “Women raised for this. You don’t have to drag her into it. She’s too young. Her whole life is in front of her.”

A humorless laugh slips out of me. “I have it handled.”

“You want her too much.” He turns the liquor in his glass but doesn’t drink. “You’ve made her significant in your head without knowing her. Wanting makes you reckless. And the Order will smell that on you.”

“You think Patrick doesn’t want his wife?”

“No. Not like this.”

I tilt my head at the thought. Can’t disagree there. But my need for Zaiya only makes me more dangerous. Reese couldn’t understand that.

“She belongs to me.” The words erupt from my mouth. I drag in a breath, forcing my voice low again. “She’s stronger than you think.”

He finally drinks, still watching me over the rim of the glass.

“That’s what you said about Mom.”

The sentence hits like a strike to the sternum. A clean, merciless impact.

I cross the distance between us. My fists tighten so hard that my knuckles ache. I can smell the bourbon on him. Exhaustion dims his eyes. None of it softens the blow.

“Don’t bring her into this.”

“She was strong, Edwin.” His tone doesn’t rise. Doesn’t challenge. “And the Order still broke her.”

I see her in my mind. The bluff. The fall.

“Zaiya isn’t her.”

“She’s more like her than you want to admit.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“You think you’re saving that girl.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “But you’re putting her in the same noose.”

“I won’t let her break.” My voice roughens with rising force. “I’ll hold her together myself if I have to.”