Storm didn’t move as the door slammed shut behind them. He stood perfectly still, tension coiled in every muscle, his shoulders rising and falling in slow, measured breaths. But the silence in the room crackled, heavy with the storm building in his chest.
Livvy barely had time to brace herself before he turned, his glare burning into her like fire.
“You went to your parents’ house?” His voice was low, edged with something sharp enough to cut.
She met his fury head-on, lifting her chin. “They’re my parents.”
A laugh—cold, humorless—escaped him. He ran a hand through his hair, jaw tight, as if trying to reel himself back. “They sided with that bastard, Livvy. They handed you over like a fucking business deal, and you thought what? That they’d help you?”
Her heart clenched. She didn’t want to admit it, but some part of her had still hoped. Some foolish, desperate part of her had wanted to believe that deep down, beneath all the money and power and self-interest, they were still her parents.
But they weren’t.
She thought of her mother’s hands, smoothing the veil over her hair on her wedding day. You look beautiful, darling. The way her father had squeezed Stanley’s hand at the altar, sealing the deal. She’s yours now.
The memory left a bitter taste in her mouth.
“I had to try,” she snapped. “Michael is still missing. We have to go to the disputed territory—”
“Absolutely fucking not.”
His voice lashed through the air, a dark command that left no room for argument.
Livvy’s nails dug into her palms. “We don’t have time to sit around while Michael is out there, alone—”
“You think I don’t know that?” His voice dipped lower, rough with frustration. “But walking into that territory is a fucking death sentence. You go in, you don’t come out.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Disputed land meant bodies in the streets, men with no loyalty to anyone but bloodshed. It was a wasteland of power struggles, filled with people who would kill for a glance in the wrong direction.
But Michael was out there.
Livvy stepped closer, her hands pressing against Storm’s chest. The tension beneath his skin pulsed like a live wire, but she didn’t back away.
“Please,” she whispered. “You promised.”
His hands twitched at his sides.
Storm had always been a force of nature—untamed, unstoppable. But this—this was something else. Something dangerous.
Livvy had spent years learning how to bend men to her will with a look, a word, a touch. But Storm?
Storm had never been tameable. Still, she played the game anyway, fingers trailing lower, lips curving into something slow and knowing.
“You owe me,” she whispered, voice teasing, coaxing. “A deal’s a deal, Storm.”
His breath hitched. His fingers, already gripping her waist, tightened.
And then—his control snapped.