Chapter 35 The Intruders
The community library smelled of damp coats and floor wax, a far cry from the sandalwood and old-money scent of Alverstone. I had tucked Grace and Zoe into a corner filled with oversized, tattered beanbags. Zoe was finally asleep, her head heavy on my shoulder, while Grace mindlessly flipped through a picture book about a lonely star, her stomach giving an audible, hollow growl every few minutes.
I was mid-sentence in a story about a dragon who refused to hoard gold—a dragon who wanted to be free of his mountain—when the heavy front doors creaked open. The bell attached to the handle gave a pathetic, rusted chime that seemed to echo through the empty aisles of paperbacks.
I didn't look up. I assumed it was another person seeking refuge from the Brooklyn wind, perhaps a local looking for a warm place to sit before the night truly turned bitter. But then the air in the room shifted. It was a subtle change, the kind that happened whenever someone from that world stepped into a space where they didn't belong. The librarian, a woman who usually ignored everyone in favor of her knitting, suddenly sat up straighter, her eyes widening behind her spectacles.
A pair of designer leather boots stepped into my line of sight, stark and jarring against the stained industrial carpet.
"You know, for someone who claims to hate us, you certainly spend a lot of time in libraries," a familiar, easy voice drawled.
I looked up. Gavin Hollis was standing there, his expensive wool overcoat unbuttoned, looking entirely out of place beneath the flickering fluorescent lights. Behind him stood Theodore. The bruise on Theo’s jaw was darker tonight, a jagged reminder of the violence Nate was capable of.
"What are you doing here?" I whispered, tightening my grip on my sisters. "How did you find me?"
"I saw you," Gavin said, his usual smirk missing. "Through the window of the cafe. You looked at me like I was a ghost. And then you ran. I'm not that scary, am I? I’ve been told my smile is my best feature."
"I didn't want to ruin Eliza's night," I said, my voice cracking with the effort to stay quiet for the sake of the sleeping Zoe. "She looked happy. She looked like she belonged in that moment, and I didn't want to bring... all this... into her glow. She deserves to date a Hollis without worrying about a Stone’s baggage or the shadow of the Salvatores."
Theodore stepped forward, his eyes scanning my tired sisters and the grim, dusty surroundings with a look of profound discomfort. "Nate told us about the tutoring session. He also told us your father called. We figured you wouldn't want to be at home right now. The Salvatore 'partnership' tends to suck the air out of a house, and we knew Mark wouldn't be easy to talk to tonight."
"So what? You're here to 'rescue' the poor scholarship girl?" I felt a spark of the old fire in my chest, a defensive heat that made my hands stop shaking. I didn't want their pity. I didn't want to be another line item in a King's ledger. "Go back to Gramercy. We're fine. We like the library. It's quiet, it's free, and nobody asks for anything in return here."
"You're not fine," Theodore said gently, kneeling so he was at eye level with me. He didn't care about his thousand-dollar trousers touching the dirty carpet. "Grace is shivering, Mila. Look at her. And I’m fairly certain Zoe hasn't eaten anything since lunch. We aren't here as 'Kings,' and we aren't here for Nate. We're here as friends. Or at least, people who don't want to see two little girls catch pneumonia because their sister is too stubborn to accept a ride."
I looked at Grace, who was staring at Theodore with wide, curious eyes. She reached out a small hand, hovering it near the soft wool of his coat. Then I looked back at the dark bruise on Theo's face—a wound he took because of me. Because Nate couldn't handle the thought of anyone else touching what he thought he owned.
"Where is Nate?" I asked, my voice barely audible.
"In a dark room somewhere, probably brooding over a bottle of Scotch and his own bad choices," Gavin Hollis muttered, reaching out to pick up Zoe’s dropped teddy bear with a surprising amount of care. "He doesn't know we're here. This isn't a Salvatore operation. It’s a Beaumont and Hollis intervention. We’re off the clock and out of his jurisdiction."
"We're taking you to get real food," Theodore insisted, standing up and offering me a hand. "Somewhere warm. Somewhere quiet. No strings, no 'partnerships,' and absolutely no Salvatores. Just dinner."
I looked at his outstretched hand. It was an invitation to another gilded cage, perhaps, but as Zoe stirred and whimpered in her sleep against my chest, her small body trembling against the cold, I realized I couldn't punish my sisters for my pride. My battle with Nate was mine; they shouldn't have to be hungry for it. They shouldn't have to hide in a drafty building because their parents were being manipulated.
"Okay," I whispered, finally taking his hand. His skin was warm, a sharp contrast to the chill I’d been carrying in my bones. "But if you try to pay for more than dinner, or if you mention Nate once... I’m walking out. I mean it."
"Deal," Gavin grinned, though his eyes remained uncharacteristically soft, lacking the sharp mockery he wore like armor at Alverstone. "But I get to pick the place. I know a spot that makes grilled cheese sandwiches that will change your life. They even use real truffle oil, but don’t tell the kids—they’ll think it’s just fancy butter."
"I like grilled cheese," Grace whispered, finally speaking up as she looked at Gavin with a tiny, hopeful smile.
Gavin winked at her, his charm effortlessly winning over a nine-year-old. "Then you're in luck, kiddo. It’s the best in the city."
As we walked out of the library, the two richest boys in the city carrying my sisters toward a waiting black car—Theodore holding the sleeping Zoe with a focused, careful tenderness, and Gavin chatting animatedly with Grace—I felt the walls of my world shifting again. The contrast was almost comical: the sleek, midnight-black sedan idling at the curb of a street lined with cracked pavement and overflowing trash cans.
I was being pulled deeper into their orbit, and for the first time, I wasn't sure if I was being rescued or captured. I looked back at the library—my small, safe, dusty refuge—and watched the lights flicker one last time before the librarian turned them off for the night. I realized with a jolt of fear that it might be the last time I’d feel like just Mila Stone from Brooklyn. From here on out, I was a player in a game I still didn't fully understand, trapped between a man who wanted to own me and the friends who were trying to keep me from breaking.