Chapter 23 EARN AN ENEMY
The package didn’t look threatening.
Plain brown box. No return address. Light enough to lift with one hand.
But the moment I picked it up off the doorstep, something in my stomach twisted; wrong, sharp, instinctive. Like my body already knew something my brain didn’t.
It had my name on it.
Not “Mr. Thorne.”
Not Julian’s assistant.
Not the household.
Just: Eli.
I carried it inside, placed it carefully on the kitchen island, and slit the tape open with shaking fingers.
The first thing I saw was a photograph.
My photograph.
Me at around seven years old.
Gap-toothed, messy hair, wearing a ridiculous Power Rangers T-shirt. A photo I didn’t even remember being taken.
Under it, nestled like a gift—
A bullet.
A real one.
Cold and heavy. Shining under the kitchen lights.
My breath left my lungs in one long, sharp gasp.
A folded note sat under both items.
I opened it with trembling hands.
Your father owed us.
Debts pass to blood.
I stared at the words until they blurred.
My father?
The man who disappeared when I was a kid? The man everyone assumed was dead? The man I hadn’t thought about in years because not thinking hurt less?
What debt?
What blood?
My fingers went numb.
I didn’t hear Julian enter the room, I only felt it, like the air suddenly had structure.
His hand closed over mine fast, firm, taking the note before I could read it again.
“What—” I started, voice scraping up my throat, “—what is this? Who sent—”
Julian didn’t answer.
He picked up the bullet, the photo, the note—everything—and placed them back in the box with eerie precision. His expression wasn’t shocked. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t even confused.
It's like he’d expected something like this.
“Julian.” My voice cracked. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He closed the lid and carried the box away from me.
“Stay inside tonight.”
That was it.
No comfort.
No explanation.
No reassurance.
Just: Stay inside.
I stepped toward him. “Is someone after you? Or— are they after us? Is this because of the business stuff? Because I was at that meeting? Because of that man at the gala?”
“Eli.” He said my name sharp enough to stop me.
He didn’t look back as he left the room with the box.
Didn’t give me another word.
I stood there alone in the too-big kitchen, the silence pulsing around me.
A bullet.
A photo of seven-year-old me.
My father’s shadow reaching into my present.
My hands shook violently.
I grabbed the counter because my legs threatened to drop me.
I was just a normal guy.
Normal school.
Normal part-time jobs.
I ate cheap noodles for dinner, binge-watched shows on my phone, lived in a shitty apartment for years…
I didn’t have enemies.
I definitely didn’t have people mailing me bullets.
My father owed someone?
What?
Money?
A crime?
A secret?
Debts pass to blood.
The words carved themselves behind my eyes.
I pressed my palms together, trying not to panic.
That was when footsteps echoed from the stairs.
Soft, elegant, irritated footsteps.
Of course.
Perfect timing.
Victoria Thorne swept into the kitchen like a queen inspecting a peasant uprising.
When her gaze landed on me, it wasn’t concern, and It wasn’t curiosity either. It was disappointment.
As if I’d already failed at something without being told what the test was.
“Eli,” she said coolly, “make me something to eat.”
I blinked, still half in shock. “I—what?”
“I’m hungry.” She examined her nails. “Julian told me you’ll be here all day. And since you’re not working, you can at least manage a simple meal.”
A simple…
Meal.
The laugh that bubbled up was hysterical and absolutely inappropriate.
I swallowed it.
“Mrs. Thorne,” I said carefully, “I don’t— I’m not really… great at cooking. I don’t know how to make anything specific.”
Her eyes lifted slowly.
“You don’t cook?” she repeated, as if I’d confessed to not knowing how to breathe.
“Not well,” I clarified. “And not that dish you mentioned.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she murmured. “Then what do you do?”
My heart was still racing from the threat in the box, but now a new kind of heat burned under my skin.
“I—Mrs. Thorne, I just told you—”
“Yes, yes,” she cut in, waving a manicured hand. “You can’t cook. You can’t host. You can’t manage a home. You have no social background. No family worth speaking of. And from what I’ve heard, your education is… modest.”
Her gaze dragged over me like she was reading a label with terrible reviews.
“What,” she asked, “is your purpose here?”
I stared at her with pure disbelief.
Five minutes ago someone threatened my life with a bullet.
Now this woman was demanding casserole and insulting my existence.
“I’m Julian’s spouse,” I said tightly.
“That remains the most baffling part.” She smiled thinly. “At least when he was with powerful women, they brought something to the table.”
My stomach clenched. “Mrs. Thorne, I’m not—”
“Oh spare me,” she snapped, immediately impatient. “You marry my son, you live in his house, you do absolutely nothing of value—”
I flinched.
Not at the words.
At the sudden, razor-edged clarity of her voice.
She enjoyed this.
“You might as well try to make yourself useful,” she continued. “If you cannot produce heirs, then domestic skills should at least compensate.”
My face went cold.
Produce heirs.
Right.
Because that was realistic.
I opened my mouth— no idea what I was going to say, but rage and panic were fighting for dominance —when another voice cut through the kitchen.
Julian.
“You’re done.”
We both turned.
He wasn’t talking to me.
Victoria’s eyebrows lifted, perfectly arched. “I asked him to prepare me something to eat. He refused. I was explaining—”
“Mother.” Julian’s tone sharpened. “You’re done. Leave the kitchen.”
She hesitated, for the first time since I met her.
Her gaze slid to me, burning with something sour.
“As you wish,” she murmured to Julian.
She left.
She didn’t look back.
Julian remained silent until her footsteps vanished upstairs.
Only then did he step closer, studying me.
“You’re pale,” he observed.
“I—” A shaky breath escaped me. “Julian, that package—”
He held up a hand. “Not now.”
“But—”
“I said not now.”
My throat closed.
The panic, the humiliation, the threat, the mother-in-law—everything pressed into my chest at once.
Julian’s gaze stayed unreadable, steady, firm.
“Go to our room,” he said quietly. “Stay there until I call for you.” He commanded.
I swallowed hard, nodded, and walked away, pulse hammering.
Upstairs, I locked the door behind me.
The photo.
The bullet.
The note.
Debts pass to blood.
I sank onto the bed, shaking.
I wanted answers.
But deep down, a terrible, flickering suspicion whispered:
Julian already had them.
And whatever he wasn't telling me—
Wasn’t for my protection.
It was for his twisted plans.