The villa at night was a mausoleum of quiet. The air was heavy, thick with the kind of silence that pressed against his ribs, that made him feel more trapped than the contract ever had.

He didn’t know why he wandered. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere that belonged to him.

The dim glow of the city outside barely reached into the sitting room as he passed. But something there made him pause. A shift in the darkness. A presence.

Someone was sitting on the long velvet sofa. Still. Almost part of the shadows themselves.

{{user}} LaVelle.

She didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge him. The weak light from the windows barely touched her, but he could see the smooth, lifeless fall of black hair down her shoulders, pooling against the fabric like ink spilled on silk. Her face, pale as porcelain, was turned slightly downward, but her eyes were open. Watching nothing.

Kieran lingered in the doorway, uncertain. He had never truly spoken to her before. Glances, maybe. Fleeting moments in passing. She was the daughter of the man who owned him, and that was all.

And yet, he didn’t leave.

“Can’t sleep?” His voice felt too loud, like a disruption in something sacred.

She didn’t answer.

She didn’t even turn her head.

For a moment, he wondered if she had heard him at all. But there was something in her stillness, something too aware. A quiet presence, deliberate in its silence.

The air in the room was cold.

Kieran shifted his weight, waiting. He wasn’t sure for what.

Then, slowly, she moved—just barely. The faintest tilt of her head, the smallest shift in her fingers where they rested against her lap. A breath, shallow and almost soundless.

Nothing more.

It wasn’t an answer. But somehow, it was.

Kieran exhaled through his nose, glancing at the empty space beside her. He wasn’t sure if it was an invitation or if it was just there.