Chapter 6 Unfinished Business
Coralyn
It felt like I was in a dream… or more accurately, a nightmare.
That was the only way I could truly explain how I felt standing, frozen in the suffocating space between two men who shared the same blood.
One of them was shielding me, a silent protector whose warmth I’d come to crave in just the short amount of time we'd spent together, while the other was looking at me with a predatory glint, like I was nothing more than a misplaced toy he had found.
Orion and Kade.
Related.
The realization hit me with a blow and my stomach turned so violently that I had to swallow back the bile rising in my throat just to keep myself steady on my feet. It didn’t make sense.
In the logical corners of my mind, I knew there was a 100% chance of relation between strangers.
As I looked at the sharp lines of their jaws and the shared intensity in their eyes, it made a while lot of sense.
Kade didn’t belong here in this sanctuary of elegance. He was a parasite in this place. His very presence seemed to stain the pristine, cream-colored walls and disrupt the quiet life of the suite.
He tried to step forward, his movements fluid and cocky, like he owned the damn place, but Orion didn’t move an inch. He didn’t raise his voice to a shout, nor did he reach out to touch Kade with force. He just stood there, blocking the doorway like a wall that refused to show even the slightest crack of weakness.
Kade laughed under his breath, a raspy, irritating sound.
“Still playing hero, huh?” he said. “You always did like pretending you’re better than me.”
My heart pounded against my ribs like a trapped bird. I hated how close Kade was, hated the way his presence made the air feel thin and used. I especially hated the way his eyes kept sliding back to me, crawling over my skin with a familiar, oily touch, like a memory I’ve tried to scrub off a thousand times but couldn’t quite erase.
“You don’t belong here,” Orion said, his voice dangerously calm.
Kade smirked, his lips curling back to reveal a flash of teeth. “Funny. That’s exactly what I was about to say to you.”
Then his attention sharpened, the mock playfulness vanishing as he zeroed in on me with a terrifying focus.
“Well, look at you,” he drawled, his voice dripping with a mock-appreciation that made my blood run cold. “Upgraded, I see.”
My hands clenched at my sides until my nails bit into my palms.
“Still working at the old place?” he continued, his tone suggestive and cruel. “Or did you finally decide to just sleep your way into a better life?”
Something hot, sharp, and agonizingly painful bloomed in my chest at the blatant disrespect. Orion’s grip tightened on the doorframe. I heard the expensive wood creak and groan under the sheer pressure of his hand. His knuckles turned a ghostly white, but his face remained a mask of unreadable stone.
Controlled.
Kade noticed the shift in the atmosphere, his eyes darting to Orion’s hand.
“Oh,” he said, sounding genuinely amused by the display of restraint. “Did I hit a nerve?”
I forced myself to breathe, even though that felt like a chore on its own. This was familiar territory for me, a landscape of shame I’d walked through far too many times. The insults, the implications, the way he tried to shrink me into something cheap and disposable just so he could feel larger in comparison.
Not today.
“Leave,” I said, my voice coming out steadier than I ever felt possible. “Before I call security.”
Kade laughed outright, the sound echoing harshly off the high ceilings.
“Security?” he repeated, mocking my authority. “You hear that, brother? She actually thinks she runs this place.”
He looked at Orion, his expression twisting into something ugly and demeaning. “So what is it? You sharing the club rat now?”
The word hit me like a physical slap across the face. Before I could even find the breath to react, a small, curious voice piped up from behind us.
“Daddy?”
Zilla peeked around the corner, her small face filled with confusion and her eyes wide as she took in the thick, suffocating tension vibrating through the room. She looked at Kade, studying his face with the serious, unfiltered intensity of a child, then asked, “Are you the Grinch my teacher told us about?”
The question was so entirely unexpected, so heartbreakingly innocent, that it almost broke the tension in the room.
Emphasis on almost.
A shaky, hysterical laugh escaped my throat before I could stop it. Kade blinked, his cocky facade faltering as he found himself clearly thrown by the observation of a six-year-old. Orion’s hand settled firmly on Zilla’s shoulder, a gesture meant to ground her and, perhaps, to anchor himself against the rage simmering beneath his skin.
“No,” Orion said evenly, his voice brooking no argument. “Go sit down.”
Zilla hesitated for a second, sensing the shadows in the room, then nodded and padded back toward the sofa, glancing over her shoulder once more at the stranger in the hall.
Kade’s amusement faded instantly, replaced by a cold, sharp bitterness. Orion shifted his weight, his voice dropping into a register that was low, guttural, and laced with a promise of violence.
“If you don’t leave right now,” he said quietly, “I will forget that we share the same mother.”
The threat landed heavy in the air, a physical weight that settled over all of us. Even I felt the hair on my arms stand up at the absolute lethality in his tone. Kade stared at him for a long, silent moment, his eyes measuring the distance and calculating the risk of staying.
Then his smile returned, though it was much thinner and more brittle this time.
“Relax,” he said, raising his hands in a mock gesture of peace. “I’m going.”
He stepped back slowly, retreating into the hallway, but his eyes never once left mine.
“This isn’t over,” he told me, a parting shot designed to linger. “We’ll talk. Privately. Soon.”
He blew me a mock kiss, a final insult intended to claim a piece of my peace. I flinched despite myself, the gesture feeling like a physical violation. Then he turned and walked away, his heavy footsteps echoing down the long, marble hall long after his shadow had vanished.
The door finally closed with a soft, final thud.
The silence that followed was deafening, ringing in my ears like a scream. My legs finally gave out, the adrenaline draining away and leaving me hollow and empty. I collapsed onto the plush sofa, my body finally acknowledging the paralyzing fear I’d been holding back since the moment I saw his face.
My hands shook uncontrollably in my lap. My heart felt like a frantic animal trying to escape the cage of my chest. My vacation, this beautiful, gilded dream, was ruined. It was shattered into a thousand jagged pieces I didn’t even know how to begin putting back together.
Orion turned toward me, his expression softening, but the fire was still there in the depths of his eyes. I looked up at him, disbelief and betrayal swirling in my head, and whispered the only question that mattered.
“How could you be related to him?”
.