Chapter 44
The morning sun filtered through the tall windows of Elias’s apartment, but he barely felt it. The light pressed against his eyelids, too sharp and too demanding. He rolled onto his back and let out a heavy breath. Every muscle in his body weighed down as though he had been carrying boulders in his sleep. Work waited—emails, contracts, endless meetings—but the thought of stepping into Crane Corp today felt impossible. He wasn’t sick. Just tired. Bone... deep... tired.
So he stayed in bed.
He stared up at the ceiling, tracing the sharp lines of the moulding above him, and tried not to think about Jace. But his mind betrayed him the way it always did lately, dragging him back into memory... into sweat, heat, and tangled sheets.
The man that only his name alone was enough to make Elias’s chest ache.
It had started as a fling, and then it moved to a spark he had pretended to ignore. Then it became a pull he could not escape. He had not meant for it to happen, but the more time he spent with Jace, the harder it became to pretend it was just lust.
Elias had slept with countless men before, but none of them left this kind of echo inside him. None of them lingered in his head the next morning or carved into his chest the way Jace did.
He closed his eyes and let himself recall the last time jace was beneath him, defiant yet trembling. The memory curled heat low in Elias’s stomach.
He shoved a hand through his hair and forced himself upright. Coffee. He needed coffee, a warm shower, and a good massage, anything to burn away the weight pressing down on him.
The sharp ping of his phone cut through the silence.
Elias ignored it . Work, no doubt. His team always found him, even when he tried to disappear. He moved toward the kitchen, leaving the phone buzzing on the nightstand, but the sound dragged after him like a hook. Something in his gut whispered that he needed to check it.
By the time he circled back and snatched it up, the notification had already sunk claws into him.
Justin.
Elias froze, staring at the name. His pulse quickened, the silence of his apartment suddenly suffocating.
His conversation with Justin weeks ago replayed in his head.
".....That boy isn’t good news. He doesn’t smell right to me. Men like him? They bring trouble. And when I don’t trust someone, I investigate.”
Elias’s jaw had tightened even then. “Jace is off-limits. If you value this fragile truce between us, you won’t so much as breathe in his direction.”
The tension between them grew dense, laced with unspoken danger. Justin stayed perfectly still, eyes locked on Elias as though he was weighing whether to burst into laughter or slip a blade between his ribs.
With a sharp movement, Elias had pushed to his feet, the chair scraping harshly against the tile. “This conversation is over.”
Justin leaned back leisurely, a crooked smile curving his mouth, the expression of a man certain he had already claimed victory. “Catch you later, Crane. Keep your eyes open. And maybe…” his grin turned cutting, “…keep your heart guarded.”
Elias had offered nothing in return. He simply turned on his heel, striding out of the restaurant, leaving behind the stench of frying oil and the echo of Justin’s mocking laugh.
He had warned Justin not to investigate Jace, so what had he sent to elias?
Was this proof?
He unlocked the file, scanning the first lines. His pulse thundered louder with every word, his chest constricting tighter until the apartment walls felt like they were closing in.
No.
Elias slammed the phone face-down on the counter, breath ragged, heart refusing to slow.
This can't be right.
The room felt smaller...suffocating. He turned away from the window, pacing the length of his apartment, each step heavier than the last. Justin’s smug certainty replayed in his head, and with it, the rising storm of anger and dread.
He didn’t want to believe it.
But now he had to know.
He grabbed his phone again, opened his messages, and hovered over Jace’s name. His throat was dry, the silence in the apartment deafening as he typed out the words, his fingers pressing harder against the screen than necessary.
Come over. Now.
The message was sent before he could second-guess it. Elias stared at the glowing text on the screen, his reflection faint in the dark glass.
He needed to see Jace. He needed to look him in the eyes and know... really know if Justin was right.
And if he was…
Elias’s jaw clenched as his grip on the phone tightened, the device creaking in his palm.