Chapter 16
Shadows and Silk
The light crept in slowly like guilt, filtering through the tall windows with a haze that refused to
warm the room. Dust floated in the air, aimless, just like everything else in this forgotten wing of
the Calloway estate.
Ares Calloway lay half–curled in the massive bed, tangled in sheets he hadn’t changed in a
week, beard grew wild, and the once–hardened jaw was now shadowed and weary. He blinked awake
not because he wanted to, but because the silence screamed louder than sleep ever could.
Another day.
Another bloody day inside this mausoleum of marble and regret.
His fingers twitched. He could still feel the cold burn in his joints. He sat up slowly, his ruined leg
dragging like dead weight as he tried to position himself upright.
“Goddamn this,” he muttered under his breath, voice thick from disuse.
The mirror across from him didn’t flinch.
It never did.
He stared. The man staring back wasn’t Ares Calloway, not the one etched into headlines,
whose face once graced magazines and whose presence cleared boardrooms in seconds.
No. That man was gone.
What remained was a ghost in the flesh. Scarred. Hollow–eyed. Forgotten by the same world that
used to kneel at his feet.
He reached for the cane beside the bed but knocked it over. It clattered to the floor. Echoed.
“Of course,” he breathed, slamming a palm against the mattress.
Footsteps.
Soft, deliberate. Not hurried, not hesitant. Measured.
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Not Roman’s.
Not housekeeping.
The bedroom door creaked open just slightly. He squinted.
A figure stepped in. Tall. Poised. A woman.
She wore a pale blue blouse beneath a white coat, slacks pressed into razor lines, and gloves on
het hands. Her hair was dark, rich, coiled into a bun so tight not a strand dared rebel. Her face was
hidden behind a sterile white mask and a wool scarf looped once around her throat.
Only her eyes showed smoky gray with flecks of something colder. Familiar and unfamiliar at
once. They held no fear. No apology.
“What now?” Ares rasped, voice bitter as acid. “My uncle sent another one of you?”
She said nothing. Only took three steps forward and paused.
He looked her over, disgust barely masked. “You’ll last a week. Maybe two, if you can stomach
spoon–feeding me like a child. Or cleaning the blood off my sheets.”
Still silence.
“I don’t need a nurse,” he snapped.
Still, she did not move.
He reached for the cane again, gripping it this time and leveraging himself into a slouched seat.
Pain flared up his spine. He bit back a curse.
“Go on, then. Walk away. That’s what they all do. You don’t get to be the exception.”
“Would you like tea or water first?” her voice came, low, smooth. Slightly raspy just enough to
curl into his skin like smoke.
Ares froze. That voice. He’d heard it before somewhere between a dream and a scream.
He looked up, eyes narrowing. “What did you say?”
“Tea or water,” she repeated. “I assume caffeine helps with the migraines.”
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Chapter 16
“You assume too much.”
194
She approached the side table and placed a small silver thermos down without glancing at him.
He didn’t blink as she turned back toward the door, gliding like she’d always belonged in this
house.
He cleared his throat. “Name.”
She paused.
“No name?”
She faced him. “Names are irrelevant.”
His brow furrowed. “To you, maybe. To me, it’s everything.”
“Then give me one,” she said simply.
His lip curled. “Fine. Angel of Death. That fit?”
She didn’t react.
He hated her already.
And yet, something about her silence unsettled him more than words ever could.
She stepped out. The door clicked shut behind her.
Ares stared after her, eyes hard. “What the hell…”
The thermos sat untouched beside him, steaming faintly.
He didn’t touch it.
“Tolstoy. Shakespeare.”
Her gloved hand paused on a hardcover.
She looked at him then. “Your mother used to say it.”
He scowled. “You’re damn right she did. And she died five years ago.”
“Then why are her books still in the wrong place?”
Ares wheeled forward. “Who told you about her?”
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Chapter 16
She didn’t shek.
He stared. “You wearing gloves list bryglene or to hide something?*
“Why hot bath**
” Think pom’re clever.”
“No I think I’m necessary.”
He grifted his teeth. “Not to me.”
“You’re welcome to fire me.”
“Oh, I will”
“Then why haven’t you?”
That stopped him.
He didn’t know.
He hated not knowing.
He glanced down. Something glinted as she bent to adjust the bottom shelf.
A chain.
Silver. Thin. Peeking just above her blouse. And hanging from it
His breath caught.
The pendant. Oval–shaped. Carved ivory. Gold trim around its edge. An heirloom passed
through generations, something he’d only given to one woman in his life.
His voice dropped to a whisper. “Where did you get that?”
She froze.
For a second, only a second, her body language shifted. Not fear, Not guilt,
Pain.
“I asked you a question.”
She straightened slowly. “It was a gift.”
必啡
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Chapter 16
“No,” he said, eyes locked on the chain. “It was my gift. I had it custom–made,”
She said nothing.
“That pendant “his voice cracked, a mix of disbelief and fury, ” belongs to Selene Calloway.”
Silence stretched, heavy as storm clouds.
Then she turned, slowly, meeting his gaze again with those unreadable gray eyes.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said.
He lunged forward in his chair, grabbing her wrist.
She didn’t fight him.
His fingers curled around the pulse point, his thumb brushing over the glove’s seam.
“Take off the mask.”
“No.”
“You will.”
Her voice dipped. “And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll find another way to see the face behind the betrayal.”
That earned him a flicker just a flicker of something in her eyes. Not fear.
Regret.
But she pulled away, firm and calm.
“You should rest. You’re unstable on the ramp incline. You could fall again.”
He hissed. “You think I care?”
“You should,” she said gently. “Someone has to.”
He sat back, chest rising and falling.
The necklace still gleamed.
But she didn’t explain it.
Didn’t even reach to hide it.
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She left the study without another word.
He watched her go, mind racing.
There was no question now.
She was no ordinary nurse.
And that necklace… it was a ghost from the past.
Ares Calloway didn’t believe in coincidence.
Not anymore.
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