His By Contract

His Sister

*Elena's POV*

A knock came at exactly seven.

The same woman from earlier stood in the doorway. "Dinner's ready, miss."

I followed her down a curved staircase, my stomach in knots the entire way. I didn't know what to expect — a silent, formal meal with a man who barely looked at me the last time we spoke, maybe more questions I didn't want to answer.

What I didn't expect was the sound of a girl's voice carrying down the hallway before I even reached the dining room.

"—but you said I could go if I finished the assignment, and I finished it, so technically—"

"Mia."

"I'm just saying, technically—"

"Sit down."

I stopped in the doorway.

A girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen, was already sliding into a chair at the long dining table, still mid-argument, her dark hair pulled into a messy bun like she'd done it herself in a hurry. She looked up and caught sight of me immediately.

"Oh." Her eyebrows shot up. "Who's this?"

Damian was seated at the head of the table, a glass of something dark in front of him, untouched. He didn't look up from his phone right away.

"Elena," he said simply. "She's staying with us for a while."

"Staying?" Mia's eyes lit up with open curiosity, the kind only a kid could get away with. "Staying like a guest, or staying like—" She narrowed her eyes at her brother. "Wait. Is she your girlfriend?"

I felt my face go hot.

"No," I said, at the exact same moment Damian said, "No."

Mia looked between the two of us like she'd just found the most interesting thing that had happened in this house in weeks. "Okaaay. So what is she, then?"

"Sit down and eat, Mia."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting."

Mia turned to me instead, undeterred, resting her chin in her hand. "I'm Mia. His sister. In case that wasn't obvious from the — " she gestured vaguely between herself and Damian, " — general lack of personality we apparently share."

Despite everything, I felt the corner of my mouth twitch. It was the first thing close to a smile I'd managed since I left home.

"Elena," I said again, quieter this time.

"I know, he already said." She grinned. "Where are you from? Are you staying in the blue room? That's the nicest guest room, I picked out the curtains myself—"

"Mia."

"I'm making conversation."

"You're interrogating her."

"Same thing."

I sat down slowly, unsure whether I was allowed to sit before being told to, unsure of anything in this house yet. Mia didn't seem to notice my hesitation — or if she did, she didn't care, already reaching for the bread basket and continuing to talk like the silence at this table was something personally offensive to her.

"Don't mind him," she said, tilting her head toward Damian. "He's like this with everyone. Client, houseguest, doesn't matter. You get used to it. Eventually. Maybe."

"Mia," Damian said, not even looking up this time, but there was something almost like warning laced under the flatness of his voice.

"What? I'm being nice. I'm helping her adjust." She looked back at me. "He's not going to tell you anything useful, so I figured someone should."

I glanced at Damian, half expecting him to shut this down harder. He didn't. He just reached for his glass, expression unreadable, like this was a conversation happening somewhere far away from him.

"How long have you two—" I started, then stopped, unsure how to even finish that question. Lived together. Been alone. Been like this.

"Since I was seven," Mia said, easier than I expected. "It's just us. Has been for a while."

Something in her voice — light on the surface, but with an edge underneath it — told me not to ask more. Not tonight.

"That's..." I didn't know what to say. "That's a lot for both of you."

Mia shrugged, poking at her food. "You get used to it."

The same phrase she'd used about Damian a minute ago. I wondered if she'd learned to say it about everything.

For the first time since I'd arrived, Damian looked at me directly — not at the table, not through me, but at me — and something about his expression shifted, just slightly. Not warmth, exactly. More like he was recalculating something.

"Eat," he said, to both of us, or maybe just to me. "It's getting cold."

I looked down at the plate in front of me, then back up at him.

"Since when do you care if my food gets cold?" The words came out before I could stop them — sharper than I meant, my defiance from earlier creeping back in now that I had an audience.

Mia's eyebrows shot up, delighted, glancing between us like she was watching a tennis match.

Damian's expression didn't change. "I don't."

"Then why say it?"

"Habit." He picked up his fork. "Manners exist whether I care or not."

It wasn't an answer. Not really. But it was more words than he'd given me all night, and something about the way he said it — flat, almost bored, but not unkind — made it hard to tell if I'd won that exchange or lost it.

Mia looked far too pleased with herself, glancing at me like we'd just formed some kind of alliance.

I picked up my fork and said nothing else.

But for the rest of dinner, I found myself watching him — the way he answered Mia's endless questions with more patience than I'd expected, the small, automatic way he moved her water glass out of reach of her elbow without even looking, like he'd done it a thousand times before.

He was still the man who'd had me dragged out of my house that morning.

I hadn't forgotten that.

But sitting at that table, watching him with his sister, I found myself wondering — not for the first time that day — if my mother's warning had told me the whole truth about Damian Cross, or only the part he wanted people to see.

A few minutes later, the same woman from earlier reappeared to walk me back up.

My room looked exactly the way I'd left it — the wardrobe still full of clothes that weren't mine, the bed still too large, too soft, too much like something out of someone else's life. I changed out of the dress the woman had given me earlier, pulled on an old t-shirt from my own bag, and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing.

I didn't hear the door at first.

Just a soft creak, then Mia's head poking through the gap, glancing over her shoulder like she was checking for something.

"Hey. You still up?"

"I—" I blinked at her. "Aren't you supposed to be doing homework?"

"I said I was *supposed* to be." She slipped inside and shut the door quietly behind her, then flopped down onto the end of my bed like this was something she did every night. "I finished it in, like, ten minutes. It's fine. Don't tell Damian."

"I don't really have anyone to tell," I said dryly.

"Fair point." She grinned, pulling her knees up to her chest. "So. Tell me something. What's it actually like, being in the same room as him for the first time? Because I've literally never seen anyone talk back to him like you did at dinner. Ever. In my whole life."

"It wasn't exactly a choice," I said. "It just came out."

"Well, it was iconic." She said it so simply, so genuinely impressed, that I almost laughed again. "Most people just go quiet around him. Like really quiet. Business people, twice-his-size security guys, everyone. You basically told him off over bread."

"I don't think he cared."

"He cared." Mia tilted her head, studying me in a way that felt older than thirteen. "You just can't tell with him. He doesn't really *do* faces, if that makes sense. But he noticed. Trust me."

I didn't know what to do with that, so I picked at a loose thread on the blanket instead.

"Can I ask you something?" I said finally. "Why doesn't he... talk about things? Like, at all?"

Mia was quiet for a second, and for the first time since I'd met her, some of the brightness dimmed out of her expression.

"I don't know the whole story," she said. "I was really little. But I know he had to grow up fast. Faster than he should have." She picked at the hem of her sleeve. "He doesn't talk about our parents. Like, ever. So I stopped asking a long time ago."

Something in my chest tightened, unexpected and unwelcome. I didn't want to feel anything for Damian Cross. Not sympathy, not curiosity. Nothing.

"That's..." I didn't finish the sentence.

"Yeah." Mia shrugged, but it wasn't as light as her usual shrugs. Then, like flipping a switch, the brightness came back. "Anyway. Enough sad stuff. Do you like movies? I'm going to need someone to watch bad reality TV with me who isn't judging me for it. Damian judges me for it constantly."

Despite everything, I felt myself smile. A real one this time. "I might be judging you a little."

"Rude. I already like you better than the last person he almost—" She stopped herself, eyes going wide, like she'd nearly said something she wasn't supposed to.

"The last person he what?"

"Nothing." She stood up too fast, suddenly very interested in straightening my blanket. "I should go before he notices I'm not asleep. Night, Elena."

She was gone before I could ask anything else, the door clicking softly shut behind her, leaving me with a question I had a feeling wouldn't get answered anytime soon.

I lay back against the pillows, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling.

*He doesn't really let people in.*

I told myself it didn't matter — that whatever cracks Mia saw in her brother, whatever history he kept locked away tighter than any door in this house, none of it changed why I was here.

I was still collateral.

He'd said so himself.

But as I finally closed my eyes, I couldn't quite make myself believe that as easily as I had this morning.