Julia and I got along so quickly it almost felt ridiculous.
By the time she left that day, she was holding my hand and telling me she wanted to visit Harbor City.
I told her to come with me.
She hugged me immediately, all sunshine and warmth. “You’re the best, Chloe.”
I knew she had motives. She knew I knew.
What of it?
As the comments had hinted, there was more to Julia than the story ever bothered to explain.
After a little digging, I learned the rest.
Julia Reed had not always been Julia Reed.
Years ago, her mother had died after her husband hollowed out the Reed family from the inside, seizing their assets while maintaining another family elsewhere. Her grandparents had discovered the truth and died of grief soon after. Julia, still a child, had been left behind in the ruins.
Later she was abandoned in winter. Found half-frozen. Sent to an orphanage. Adopted to New York. Then abandoned again by fate when that family later collapsed.
She regained her memory only after she was older.
Everything she had built since then—her grades, her reputation, her connections—had all been for one purpose:
Go back to Harbor City.
Take back what belonged to her mother.
Destroy everyone who stole it.
The days she spent out with me after we returned weren’t random at all. She wanted her enemies to see her with me. To know she had powerful backing. To panic. To make mistakes.
When she finally confessed all of this to me, her eyes were red.
“I wasn’t trying to use you maliciously,” she said quietly. “I just… I waited so long for this chance.”
I took her face in both hands and wiped her tears away.
“Then next time, use me openly.”
She blinked.
“I’m not stingy,” I said. “And I hate thieves.”
She started crying harder after that, which was inconvenient but understandable.
So I hugged her until she finished.
Meanwhile, Evan transferred schools and entered Black Harbor.
During the day, he was a clean-cut college student.
At night, he became exactly what I had suspected he would be.
Brutal. Efficient. Terrifyingly good at violence.
He climbed fast.
Too fast.
That made people hate him.
That also meant he came to me with new wounds more often than I liked.
At first I wanted to be annoyed every time I found another cut, another bruise, another patch of healing skin ruining the parts of him I liked touching most.
But then he would lower his lashes, rest his forehead against my shoulder, and say in that soft voice, “Don’t be mad, sis.”
And somehow my anger always dissolved.
Still, I noticed changes.
When I hugged him and rubbed my cheek against the one stretch of skin on his neck that remained unmarked, he would go strangely tense.
One night, he actually let out a breath that sounded almost pained.
I pulled back. “Did I hit a wound?”
He tightened his hold around my waist. “No.”
“Then what?”
He didn’t answer.
Suspicion bloomed.
I studied him more carefully.
There was a flush crawling over his neck. His eyes were darker than usual. His grip on me felt different—less protective, more restrained.
Interesting.
I tilted my head. “Evan.”
He hummed.
“Are you being weird?”
He buried his face near my shoulder and only kissed my arm.
That silence told me everything.
A thought rose, slow and dangerous.
For all this time, I had let him hold me, soothe me, obey me. I had enjoyed the tension I created in him. Sometimes I deliberately made him uncomfortable just to watch him endure it.
But I had never really asked for more.
Not because I didn’t know how.
Because I hadn’t wanted to.
Until then.
I hooked a finger under his chin and tipped his face up. “Maybe the arrangement should include more services.”
His breath changed instantly.
“What does sis want?” he asked.
That question, spoken the way he spoke it, sent a low pulse through me.
I touched his mouth with my thumb.
“In the past, when I made you kiss me, it was my hands. My shoulder.” I paused. “Tonight I want to try something else.”
His throat worked.
Then he cupped my face so gently it was almost reverent and lowered his head.
The first kiss was soft.
Too soft.
I grabbed the back of his neck and bit his lower lip.
That was enough.
Everything after that changed.