Chapter 15: Cracks in Paradise
The knock at the villa door wasn't a knock at all—it was pounding, urgent, rattling the walls.
Keifer swung his legs off the bed in one fluid motion, his jaw already tightening. I grabbed the nearest blanket and wrapped it around myself, irritation boiling in my veins. "If this is Section E again, I swear I'm going to bury them in the sand."
But then Felix's voice cut through the night. "Jay! Keifer! Open up! This isn't a joke!"
Something in his tone made my chest seize. It wasn't teasing this time. It was fear.
Keifer glanced at me once, then strode to the door and yanked it open. Felix stood there, pale under the moonlight, his usual cocky grin replaced with worry. Behind him, Denzel and Eren shifted restlessly, their eyes darting toward the dark tree line beyond the villa.
"What is it?" Keifer demanded. His voice was low, dangerous—the tone he used when he was seconds away from snapping.
Felix swallowed hard. "We… saw lights in the forest. Moving lights. And… voices."
My heart lurched. This was a private island. No one was supposed to be here but us.
"Could be hunters?" Denzel suggested half-heartedly, though even he didn't sound convinced.
"Hunters don't show up on a private island that Keifer owns," Eren muttered. His gaze flicked to me, sharp. "Jay, you don't think…"
I masked my expression before he could finish. He couldn't know. None of them could. Not about Crownveil. Not about the underworld that belonged to me as much as this ocean breeze.
But inside, my blood ran cold. If the shadows I'd worked so hard to hide had followed me here…
No. Not tonight.
Keifer stepped outside, shoulders squared, protective fury radiating off him. "Stay here," he ordered.
"Like hell I'm staying behind," I snapped, moving to follow.
His eyes caught mine, amber burning against my defiance. "Jay." His voice was sharp, commanding. "Please."
The word softened me, just barely.
Section E exchanged uneasy glances, restless energy swirling in the air. For once, no one cracked a joke. No one teased. They knew something wasn't right.
Felix ran a hand through his hair. "If this is some horror-movie island plot, I'm not dying first."
"Shut up, Felix," Denzel muttered, though his hand clenched around the handle of a lamp like it was a weapon.
Keifer turned back to me, his voice lower now, meant only for me. "If someone's here, I'll handle it. You've done enough fighting for a lifetime."
I bit back the instinct to argue, to tell him I'd been fighting wars he didn't even know existed. But instead, I nodded once. Because tonight wasn't about secrets. Tonight was about trust.
And maybe, for the first time, I wanted to trust him completely.
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Minutes stretched into hours. Or maybe it just felt that way. The villa was silent except for the distant crash of waves and the hammering of my heartbeat.
Then—footsteps. Heavy, rushing, urgent. Keifer re-entered, his shirt damp with sweat, his jaw tight.
"Well?" I demanded.
He looked at me, then at Section E, then back at me again. His amber eyes softened, just barely, but the fury beneath them didn't fade.
"There's no one out there," he said finally. "Not anymore."
"Not anymore?" Eren echoed, suspicion sharp in his tone.
Keifer's gaze didn't waver. "Which means whoever it was… they left when they realized they weren't alone."
The room chilled, the weight of unspoken truths pressing heavy on my chest.
Section E murmured nervously, voices overlapping—jokes mixed with questions, fear hidden in sarcasm. But I barely heard them. My mind was somewhere else entirely, unraveling threads I'd kept bound for too long.
If shadows were truly following me here, this paradise wouldn't stay untouched for long.
And sooner or later, Keifer—and all of them—would learn exactly who I really was.
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I curled back into the sheets later, though sleep never came. Keifer sat beside me, his hand resting against mine, grounding me silently.
.
"You don't have to carry everything alone," he whispered, eyes locked on the moonlit horizon.
I closed my eyes, letting his warmth anchor me.
"Maybe one day," I whispered back. "But not tonight."
And with that, the villa slipped back into uneasy silence—our paradise cracked, the cliff's edge looming closer with every secret I refused to let go.
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