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A knock hit the outer door. I froze mid-step.

No.

Absolutely not.

Liv’s eyes flicked toward the sound, still hazy, still pink at the edges, still too warm from what I had just done to her and too sharp from what my mouth had failed to explain.

Another knock.

Harder.

Vale’s voice came through the door. “Sir.”

I closed my eyes behind the mask.

A long, careful breath dragged through my nose.

“If he walks in while you’re naked,” I said, voice flat, “I will have to kill him. It would be inconvenient. He knows where things are and does my paperwork.”

Liv stared at me for half a second. Then a laugh escaped her, breathless and real. The door opened. Vale had a death wish. Confirmed. I barely looked at him. “Out.”

Vale stood in the doorway, rigid as carved stone, gaze fixed somewhere above Liv’s head with the kind of professional restraint that made him the only man in New Abaddon worth the paycheck.

“Sir.”

“I said out.”

His jaw tightened. “Lux needs you.” The room went quiet.

I didn’t move. The nightmares did. They slid across the ceiling, thin and hungry. “Handle it,” I said.

Vale’s gaze flicked toward me. Fast. Careful. “I would if I could.”

“Then learn.”

“Sir.”

My hand curled against the mattress.

Liv went still beside me, the pink in her eyes dimming as suspicion took root. Clever girl. Dangerous girl. Worst possible time for her brain to return from wherever pleasure had briefly exiled it. I was fucking seconds away from her owning my name, from her saying yes or walking out of my life forever.

Vale took one step inside the room. “Sir,” he said, lower now, every syllable tight. “Lux needs you. Now.”

I whipped toward him.

The growl left me before I caught it, low and violent enough to rattle the glass wardrobe doors. Nightmares snapped down the walls, black and furious, and Vale froze in the doorway.

Liv sat straighter, clutching the hem of my shirt over her thighs. “Lux is in trouble?”

The lie opened between us.

I turned my head toward her and let the mask hide every wrong thing in my face.

“Something like that.”

Her brows drew together. “You have to go?”

That question landed harder than it had any right to.