Dangerously Mine

Chapter 15

The gates of the mansion opened without a sound.

The SUV glided up the long, winding driveway, its headlights cutting through the heavy desert dark. I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the passenger window, my chest tight. My stomach was still heavy from the fast food, a greasy weight that did nothing to calm the shaking in my hands.

We were back. I didn't understand why, but we were back.

Every instinct I had was screaming at me to run away from this place. This was where the air had been ripped apart by a scream. This was where the maid’s blood had turned the white rug into a horror scene. As Jacob parked the car in the underground garage, the exact spot where he had shot a man in the forehead just an hour ago, I squeezed my eyes shut. I gripped the edge of my oversized nightshirt until my knuckles pulled white.

I expected to see the police. I expected yellow tape, flashing red and blue lights, and loud voices. At the Santos house, even a minor mistake meant hours of screaming and chaos. But here, the garage was completely empty. The air smelled faintly of exhaust and cold concrete. Nothing else.

Jacob turned off the engine. The sudden silence wrapped around us like a thick blanket. He didn't move for a long moment. He just sat there, his hands resting on the steering wheel, his breathing shallow. The dark jacket he wore was zipped all the way to his chin, hiding the mess underneath, but I could smell the sharp, metallic scent of blood mixing with the scent of his cologne.

"Get out," he said.

His voice didn't have a scratch in it. It was just a flat line of sound.

I pushed my door open, my bare feet flinching as they touched the cold stone floor. I stayed close to his side as we walked toward the private elevator. I kept my eyes locked on the ground, terrified that I would step on a stray bullet casing or a smear of red that someone had missed.

When the elevator doors slid open on the main living area, I braced myself. I held my breath, ready to cover my eyes.

But when I stepped out, my mind completely stalled.

The room was perfect.

The massive glass walls were spotless, reflecting the distant, twinkling lights of the Vegas strip. The obsidian floors were so clean they looked like black ice, polished to a high shine. I looked over at the velvet sofa where I had seen a dead man sprawled just hours earlier. The fabric was smooth, dark, and dry. There was no smell of iron or gunpowder. Instead, the room smelled faintly of expensive citrus cleaner and fresh wax.

It was like the nightmare had never happened. Like my brain had just invented the whole thing.

"How..." The word caught in my throat, sounding small and scratchy. I turned around in a circle, my eyes wide as I scanned the ceiling, the pillars, the rugs. "Jacob, how is it like this? There were... there were people here. The floor was covered in..."

I couldn't even bring myself to say the word blood. My fingers flew to my mouth, my breathing turning shallow and fast. I felt a familiar bubble of panic rising in my throat, making me dizzy.

Jacob didn't stop to look around. He walked past the sofa, his boots making a soft, regular thud against the stone. He didn't look surprised. He didn't look relieved. He just walked toward the long hallway that led to the guest wings, completely indifferent to the magic trick that had just cleared away a m******e.

"A clean house is a safe house," he said without looking back.

"But those men," I babbled, hurrying after him, my bare feet padding softly behind his heavy steps. "They were there by the door. I saw them. Who came here? Did the police come? Why is it so clean? It’s like—it’s like a ghost house, Jacob. We shouldn't be here, what if they come back? What if the men with the masks are waiting in the kitchen?"

The words just kept tumbling out of my mouth, a frantic chain of questions that I couldn't stop. When I was scared in the attic, talking was the only thing that kept the walls from crushing me. I needed noise. I needed him to say something, anything, to tell me that I wasn't losing my mind.

Jacob stopped at the end of the eastern corridor. He turned around slowly. His face was the color of chalk, and there were small beads of sweat tracing his hairline, but his eyes were like two pieces of flint. He looked down at me, and the sheer weight of his stillness made my jaw click shut.

He reached out, his gloved hand moving past my shoulder to push open a heavy charcoal door.

"This is your room for tonight," he said.

I peeked past his arm. The room was smaller than the master suite, but it was still larger than the entire top floor of the Santos house. A massive bed with crisp, grey sheets sat against the far wall. A single lamp was turned on, casting a warm, low glow over a plush armchair and a neat stack of fresh clothes on the dresser.

"My room?" I whispered, looking back up at him. "But my things are in the other closet. My books... my bear..."

"The other room is being repaired," he said flatly. His hand remained on the doorknob, holding it open. It wasn't an invitation; it was an order.

I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell him that I was terrified to be alone in a strange room in a house that had just been washed of its dead. I wanted to ask him who was going to fix the hole in his stomach, or if he was going to bleed to death while I was asleep. But as I looked at the dark crease in his jacket where he was still favoring his right side, the words died on my tongue.

I was so tired. My legs were heavy, my eyes felt like they were full of grit, and the confusion of the past few hours had drained every single drop of energy I had left. I didn't have the strength to fight the Mikaelson silence anymore.

"Okay," I said quietly.

I stepped past him into the room. The air inside was cool and still. I turned around to say something else—maybe a quiet thank you, or a warning for him to be careful—but Jacob was already pulling the door shut.

"Sleep, Jhannara," he murmured.

The door clicked into place, the lock turning with a soft, solid sound from the outside.

I stood alone in the center of the grey room. I walked over to the bed, the carpet soft beneath my toes, and climbed under the heavy duvet without even changing out of my dirty nightshirt. I pulled the sheets all the way up to my nose, staring at the unfamiliar shadows on the ceiling.

My first day in this house was over. I had spent eight years praying for a change, praying for someone to open the door to my attic. But as I lay in the dark, listening to the absolute, terrifying quiet of the mansion, I realized that the outside world didn't have any rules. And the man who owned me now didn't just break the rules—he erased them completely.