Pov(Kira)
The encounter at the coffee shop left me feeling exposed, like I was walking through the streets without any clothes on. Every time a customer looked at me, I wondered if they could see the "Thorne" brand on my soul. Every time the door chimed, I jumped, expecting the Ice King to return and finish the job of shredding my dignity.
By the time my shift ended, I was a walking ghost. My muscles screamed for sleep, but my mind was a chaotic loop of Julian's voice—the cold, public dismissal versus the hot, private intensity of his touch.
I dragged myself up the stairs to our apartment, expecting to find Leo slumped on the couch in a gloom of guilt. Instead, I found him standing in the middle of the living room, staring at his phone with an expression I hadn't seen in years.
He looked… hopeful.
"Kira! You won't believe it," he said, turning to me. He held up his phone, his hands actually steady for once.
"What? What happened?" I dropped my bag on the floor, my heart instantly bracing for bad news. In our world, "unbelievable" usually meant another disaster.
"The debt. Not the one to Thorne—the local ones. The guys from the docks, the ones who were following me to work?"
"What about them?"
"I got a call. Or rather, my lawyer did—the public defender. Apparently, an anonymous 'settlement' was reached. The interest was wiped, the principal was paid in full, and a restraining order was filed against them on my behalf."
I froze. I felt the air leave my lungs. "Paid? By who?"
Leo shook his head, a dazed smile on his face. "I don't know. The bank record just says 'Equity Trust.' It's a ghost company. But Kira, I'm clean. For the first time in three years, I don't owe anyone a dime."
He moved to hug me, swinging me around. He was laughing, crying, and talking about getting his life back. I hugged him back, but my eyes were wide and staring at the peeling wallpaper over his shoulder.
Equity Trust. I knew that name. I had seen it on a line item in a business journal I'd peeked at while waiting in Julian's lobby. It was one of a hundred shell companies owned by the Thorne empire.
Julian had done this.
But why? He already had me. He already had the contract. He had no reason to be "kind" to the boy he had threatened to bury just days ago.
"This is a miracle, Kira," Leo whispered, pulling back.
"We can finally breathe."
"Yeah," I lied, my voice sounding like it was coming from underwater. "A miracle."
I spent the rest of the evening in a state of growing agitation. Julian Thorne didn't do miracles. He did transactions. If he had cleared Leo's external debts, it wasn't out of the goodness of his heart. It was a tactical move. He was clearing the board so that he was the only player left. He was making sure I didn't have any other "monsters" to fear except for him.
By the time 11:45 PM rolled around, I wasn't just tired. I was furious.
The black sedan was waiting. I climbed in, my jaw set so tight it ached. When the car arrived at The Vault, I didn't wait for the driver. I marched to the elevator, rode it to the top floor, and stepped out into the familiar, suffocating darkness.
"Did you think I wouldn't find out?" I shouted into the void. My voice echoed off the marble and glass, sharp and jagged. "Did you think I'd just be grateful?"
Silence.
"I know it was you," I continued, walking blindly toward where I knew his chair was. "Equity Trust. You paid off the dock workers. You cleared Leo's slate."
"You're late," the voice rumbled from the dark. He sounded closer than I expected. He was right in front of me.
"I don't care!" I snapped. I reached out, my hands landing on the lapels of his jacket. I could feel the rhythmic thump of his heart beneath the fine wool. "Why did you do it?
What do you want from me that you don't already have?"
I felt his hands come up, but he didn't push me away. He gripped my wrists, holding me in place.
"I want you to focus," he said. His voice was a low, dangerous velvet. "I want you at that piano without the distraction of wondering if your brother is being beaten in an alleyway. You were playing with fear last night. It ruined the tempo."
"You're a liar," I hissed. "You did it to own me completely. You want to be the only person in the world I have to look to."
"Perhaps," he admitted. The honesty was more shocking than a lie would have been. "But does the 'why' matter, Kira? Your brother is safe. The monsters are gone."
"The biggest monster is still in the room with me!"
Julian let go of my wrists. He moved so fast I didn't have time to react. He stepped into my space, his body pressing mine back until I felt the edge of the grand piano hitting the small of my back. He leaned down, his face so close I could feel the heat of his skin.
"I told you," he whispered, his breath ghosting over my lips. "In the dark, there are no names. No Julian Thorne. No Rossi debt. Just the sound. If I choose to spend my money clearing your distractions, that is my business. Your business is to play."
"I won't be your puppet," I said, though my voice was losing its edge. The proximity was doing things to my brain, melting my resolve into a puddle of confusing, traitorous heat.
"You aren't a puppet. Puppets don't have fire. Puppets don't look at me in the light like they want to scream."
He reached out. I felt his fingers graze my cheek, moving slowly down to my jaw. It was a gentle touch, almost… tender. It terrified me more than his anger ever could.
"Why use my name today?" I asked, my voice trembling. "In the shop. You said my name."
"A lapse in judgment," he murmured. "The light does that to a man."
He leaned even closer. For a second, I thought he was finally going to kiss me. My heart was a drum, a frantic, wild thing. I found myself tilting my head up, my lips parting. I wanted to know. I wanted to see if the devil tasted like the heaven I was imagining.
But he pulled back.
"Play, Kira."
The use of my name again felt like a physical blow. It was the first time he had used it in the dark. It sounded different here—heavier, more intimate.
"Why?" I whispered. "Why do you care about the music this much?"
"Because it's the only thing in this city that isn't for sale," he said, and I could hear the bitterness in his voice.
"Now, sit. I want the Chopin piece. The one that sounds like a funeral for a heart."
I sat. My hands found the keys. But as I began the first chords, my mind wasn't on the music. It was on the fact that Julian Thorne was a man of contradictions. He was the man who had bankrupted my father, yet he was the man who was quietly protecting my brother.
He was the Ice King who treated me like a ghost in the light, but in the dark, he called me by my name like it was a prayer.
I played for hours. I played until the darkness didn't feel like a prison, but a veil. I started to wonder what he was doing while I played. Was he closing his eyes? Was he thinking of the empire he had built on the ruins of families like mine? Or was he just… listening?
As the dawn began to break, the door opened.
"The night is over," Julian said.
I stood up, my body heavy with exhaustion and something else—a strange, aching sense of loss. I walked toward the elevator.
"Julian?" I called out as the doors began to close.
"No names," he reminded me, his silhouette standing tall against the rising sun in the hallway.
"Thank you," I whispered. "For Leo."
The doors shut before I could hear his answer. But as I descended back to the real world, I knew the truth.
The debt wasn't being paid off. It was being rewritten. And I was becoming more entangled in his web with every note I played.