Lena's POV
He found his voice after a moment.
Of course he did.
Aiden Norman had never been short of words. Words were what he'd always had, loud ones, cutting ones, the kind that landed in the chest and stayed there for days, the kind that you woke up hearing at three in the morning six months after they'd been said. Six years of his words living in my body like splinters I couldn't reach. Six years of learning exactly which tone meant what was coming next and bracing accordingly.
I sat down at the head of the table.
Slowly. Deliberately. The way Damien sat in rooms, like the furniture had been placed specifically for him and the timing of his arrival was the only correct one and everything else was simply waiting for him to begin.
I folded my hands on the table.
I looked at Aiden.
