Owned by my step uncles

I stood in the doorway of the guest suite and watched my mother fold a silk blouse like she was packing for a long weekend instead of disappearing. The ocean wind rattled the French doors behind her, salt and cold air pushing into the room, but Seraphina didn’t even glance up. She just kept folding, precise, unhurried, as if the massive house around us wasn’t about to swallow me whole the second her car cleared the gates. “You’re staring, Kirrily.” she said, her voice was soft. It always was when she was about to leave. I hated how well I knew that tone. “I’m not,” I said. My arms were crossed tight over my chest. “I’m just… making sure you didn’t forget anything.” She smiled without looking at me. That careful, polished smile she used on board members and strangers. The closet was half empty already. Two large suitcases stood open on the bed, filled with things that cost more than most people’s rent. She moved around the room like the room belonged to her, like the whole estate still did, even though she’d been the one who married into it and I’d been the one raised inside its walls. My mother had always been good at occupying space without ever really staying. I stepped farther into the room. The carpet muffled my bare feet. Outside the windows the Atlantic stretched gray and restless under a low sky, newport looked beautiful from up here as it always did and that was the problem. Everything about this place looked perfect until you lived in it long enough to feel the quiet rotting underneath. “How long this time?” I asked. Seraphina paused with a pale blue scarf in her hands. “A few weeks if not up to a month, Dorian needs me in Zurich for the negotiations.” she replied with a soft tone. Zurich?? Last time it was Singapore, before London, always somewhere far enough that phone calls became short and visits became optional. I nodded like I believed her but I didn’t. Something in the way she avoided my face told me this leaving was different, heavier and final in a way the others hadn’t been. “You’ll be fine,” she said, almost gently. “Jarrah and Reeve are here.” The names landed between us like stones, I felt heat creep up the back of my neck and hated myself for it. My step-uncles were older and quiet. They’d kept their distance for years, polite, careful, always on the other side of a long table or a closed office door. Lately that distance had started to feel thinner, Like something was stretching. I didn’t say a word. Seraphina finished with the scarf and closed the first suitcase. The click of the latch sounded too loud. “They’re good men,” she continued, her voice lighter and almost breezy. “They’ll look after you. This house is safest with them in it.” Safest, the word stuck and I looked at her properly then. Perfect ash-blonde hair swept back. Cream sweater that never wrinkled. The same cool beauty that had always made people stop talking when she entered a room. My mother had never looked like someone who ran from anything. And yet here she was, packing while the house felt like it was holding its breath. “Why now?” I asked. “ I will be back in less than two weeks.” She zipped the second suitcase. “Business doesn’t wait for convenient timing.” “That’s not an answer.” For a second her hands stilled. Something flickered across her face, something too fast to name. Then it was gone, smoothed away like it had never been there. “You’re twenty-three, Kirrily, not a child. You don’t need me hovering.” She turned and finally met my eyes. “Besides. You have everything you need here.” The silence that followed was thick, I could hear the waves hitting the rocks below the bluff. I could hear the distant hum of the staff somewhere deeper in the house. And underneath it all, I could feel the weight of the two men who lived under this same roof with me, the way their presence had started pressing against the edges of every room I walked into. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Jarrah looked at me across the table last night. His gaze was dark and steady, like he was slowly measuring every soft place in me and deciding, in silence, whether he would finally take what he wanted. And Reeve… when he passed behind my chair, his hand brushed the small of my back. It was so light it could have been nothing, yet it lingered just long enough that my body knew it was everything. The warmth of that single touch stayed under my skin for an hour, a quiet, private heat that made me ache in the softest way. I looked away first. Seraphina’s phone buzzed on the dresser. She glanced at the screen, then slipped it into her bag without answering. “ the Car’s here.” She reached for the smaller suitcase and I didn’t offer to help. Something stubborn and small refused to make this easier for her. She pulled the handle up and walked past me into the hallway. The scent of her perfume trailed behind, very expensive, clean and already fading. I followed because I didn’t know what else to do. The main staircase curved down into the foyer like something out of an old film. The kind of space that made ordinary people lower their voices. Today it felt cavernous, empty even with both of us in it. The front doors stood open and cold air poured in. Beyond the wide steps a black car waited with a running engine and the driver standing with the rear door held open like this was any other departure. Jarrah stood near the base of the stairs, one hand resting on the banister, the other in the pocket of his dark trousers. He didn’t smile when he saw us. He simply watched, His eyes moved from Seraphina to me and stayed there a second longer than they should have. Something tight pulled low in my stomach and I told myself it was nerves. I almost believed it. Reeve appeared from the east hallway a moment later with his phone in his hand and sleeves rolled to the elbows. His gaze flicked between us the same way his brother’s had, very quick, assessing and deliberately casual. He slipped the phone into his back pocket and nodded once at Seraphina. “Safe flight,” he said. His voice was easier than Jarrah’s. Warmer on the surface but It still didn’t reach his eyes. Seraphina kissed the air near my cheek. “Be good,” she murmured. Then she was walking down the steps, suitcase rolling smoothly behind her. The driver took it and she slid into the back seat without looking back, closing the door by her side. I stood on the threshold and watched the car pull away. The car grew smaller and smaller then it was gone. The silence that rushed in afterward was worse than I expected. I turned around and both brothers were still there, Jarrah hadn’t moved from the banister and Reeve leaned one shoulder against the wall, arms loosely crossed. The entrance suddenly felt smaller and the walls had moved closer the moment the car disappeared. Jarrah’s voice came low. “You should eat something.” I shook my head. “I’m not hungry.” Reeve’s mouth tilted, not quite a smile. “You haven’t eaten since breakfast.” I didn’t ask how he knew that. I took it as another small proof that they watched more carefully than they let on. I started up the stairs because standing there any longer felt dangerous. My hand trailed along the cool railing and behind me I heard quiet footsteps, not following exactly but just present, close enough that the air changed. The silence wasn’t empty and It was waiting. I looked back over my shoulder and found Jarrah’s dark eyes already on me, Reeve’s too and neither of them looked away. Outside, the wind picked up and rattled the tall windows. Somewhere deeper in the house, a door closed that no one should have been opening. Jarrah’s voice came low, almost soft. “Kirrily.” Just my name. Nothing else. But the way he said it made the space between us feel suddenly, dangerously small. And for the first time since my mother started packing, I understood the house wasn’t empty at all. It was full of things that had been waiting for her to leave. And they were no longer waiting.