The key felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket all day at the coffee shop. Every time I touched the cold metal, I felt a surge of something I hadn't felt in years: hope. But hope was a dangerous thing in a city built on debt.
Julian had saved my father's legacy. He had gone against his own father to protect the Rossi archives. It was a crack in his "Ice King" armor so large I could see the man underneath—the boy who hadn't wanted to be a monster.
But the world has a way of reminding you why you built those walls in the first place.
That afternoon, after my shift, I didn't go home. I went to the storage unit. Using the key Julian gave me, I opened the heavy steel door. The smell of old paper and dust hit me like a physical blow. Inside were crates labeled Rossi Records. I opened one and found my father's original ledger. I found photos of me as a child, sitting on his lap at the piano.
And I found the medical files.
The sight of the hospital logo made my stomach turn. I sat on a dusty crate, my breath coming in shallow gasps as I read the report from three years ago. The "accident."
The car crash that killed my father and crushed my hands.
The report was clinical. Multiple fractures to the metacarpals. Permanent nerve damage likely. Professional career non-viable.
But tucked behind the report was a private investigator's note, dated two weeks after the crash. It was addressed to Thorne Senior.
Subject: Rossi Incident. The brake line tampering was successful. No witnesses. The estate is now ready for liquidation.
My heart stopped. I felt the blood drain from my face until I was lightheaded. It wasn't an accident. The Thorne family hadn't just bought our ruin; they had manufactured it.
They had killed my father and broken my hands to get a piece of real estate.
I stood up, the paper crumpled in my fist. I wanted to scream. I wanted to burn the city down. Julian's father had murdered mine.
And Julian… Julian had known. He had been the "shadow in the office."
When the black sedan arrived that night, I didn't get in. I stood by the curb, my eyes red and my heart filled with a poisonous, black rage.
"Get in the car, Miss Rossi," the driver said, rolling down the window.
"No," I spat. "Tell him if he wants to see me, he can come down here and look me in the eye."
The driver looked startled, but he made a call. Five minutes later, the back door opened. Julian didn't step out, but the interior light flickered on for a split second.
"Get in, Kira," his voice was a low warning.
"You're making a scene."
I climbed in, but I didn't sit back. I leaned forward, shoving the crumpled investigator's note into his lap.
"Did you know?" I hissed.
Julian didn't look at the paper. He didn't have to. He stared straight ahead at the back of the driver's seat, his profile looking like it was carved from granite.
"Kira—"
"Did you know your father killed him? Did you know he broke my hands on purpose because I was the only heir who could have fought the liquidation?"
The silence in the car was suffocating.
Outside, the rain began to tap against the glass, sounding like a thousand tiny fingers.
"I found out a month after it happened," Julian said. His voice was so quiet I almost missed it. "I was twenty-one. I tried to go to the police. My father… he showed me what happens to people who betray the Thorne name. He put Silas in a psychiatric ward for a year just for asking too many questions."
"So you just stayed?" I sobbed, the tears finally breaking through. "You stayed and you became him? You took the throne and you kept the money?"
"I stayed so I could dismantle it," Julian said, finally turning to look at me. In the dim light of the streetlamps, his eyes weren't icy. They were haunted. "I've spent ten years tearing down his allies. I've spent ten years making sure that when the Thorne empire finally falls, it falls on his grave, not mine."
"And what about me?" I cried. "Am I just another part of your dismantling process? Am I just a way for you to feel better about what your blood did to mine?"
Julian reached out, his hand hovering near my face before he dropped it. "I didn't bring you into the Night Clause to hurt you, Kira. I brought you here because I couldn't stand the silence anymore. I couldn't stand knowing the music had stopped because of my name."
"You bought me," I reminded him, my voice trembling with loathing.
"I bought your time to keep you close. Because Silas was already looking for you. Because I knew if I didn't claim your debt, someone much worse would."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. He didn't open it. He just held it out to me.
"What is this? More blood money?"
"It's a specialized hand brace," he said. "Designed by the best surgeons in Europe. It won't fix the nerves, but it will support the bone structure. It's what you were supposed to have three years ago if my father hadn't bribed your doctors to stop the treatment."
I looked at the box, then at him. My world was spinning. He was the son of a murderer, but he was trying to be a savior. He was the man who owned me, but he was the only one who had ever tried to mend me.
"I hate you," I whispered, even as my hand reached for the box.
"I know," Julian said, his voice cracking for the first time. "I hate me too."
The car began to move, heading toward The Vault. We didn't speak for the rest of the trip.
When we reached the penthouse, the darkness felt different. It didn't feel like a playground or a prison. It felt like a confessional.
I sat at the piano. I felt the weight of the brace on my hand—it was light, almost invisible, but it held my wrist with a firm, steadying pressure.
I played. I didn't play for my father, and I didn't play for my hate. I played for the broken pieces of us.
In the dark, I heard a sound I had never heard before. A soft, hitching breath.
Julian was crying.
The Ice King was gone. There was only a man, sitting in the shadows, listening to the girl he had inadvertently destroyed play the music that was supposed to save them both.
"Come here," I whispered, stopping mid-song.
"Kira, don't," he groaned from the dark.
"Come here."
I heard his footsteps. They were heavy, hesitant. He stopped right beside the bench.
I reached out, my fingers finding the edge of his jacket. I pulled him down until he was kneeling on the floor beside me.
I reached for the blindfold I knew was in his pocket, but I didn't put it on. Instead, I reached for his face. My fingers traced the line of his forehead, his straight nose, the curve of his lips. He was trembling. This powerful, terrifying man was shaking under my touch.
"You aren't your father," I whispered.
"I have his blood, Kira. It's a poison."
"Then let's drain it," I said.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to his. It wasn't a kiss of passion; it was a kiss of shared ruins. He tasted like salt and desperation. For a moment, the world of light and debt disappeared. There was no Julian and Kira. There was only the dark, and the music, and the terrifying realization that we were both drowning in the same sea.
He pulled away, his breath ragged. "I have to protect you. Silas... he's moving. He knows I've changed the terms. He knows you're not just a debtor anymore."
"Let him come," I said, my voice filled with a new, cold strength. "I've already looked at the devil. I'm not afraid of his brother."
Julian stood up, his silhouette tall and imposing again. "You should be. Silas doesn't want to own you, Kira. He wants to destroy the only thing I have left to love."
The word hung in the air, heavy and impossible. Love.
"Night nine is over," Julian said, his voice returning to a whisper. "Go home. Lock your doors. And don't talk to anyone."
As the elevator doors closed, I looked at my braced hand. I could move my fingers further than I had in years. The Ice King had given me back my hands, but I realized, with a sinking heart, that he had stolen something much more valuable.
He had stolen my right to hate him.