THE VOW OF ICE

IVY

"Who" Eagan asked.

“Ivy Sinclair,” he repeated, then tilted his head. “What did you freeze your eardrums too?”

The name dropped like a stone in still water.

Eagan froze. His composure, so polished in front of Kaia, cracked for the first time. His voice came sharp, almost too fast.

“Ivy Sinclair?”

Leroy,“Old flame, if memory serves. Oh, don’t give me that look please. Everyone knows she wasn’t just some passing face in the crowd.”

Eagan looked tensed, his brother noticed.

Leroy begins to have little laughs,

“She’s in town,” Leroy went on, pushing off the desk with a lazy stretch. “And, judging by the way she came strolling up to the Ice Tower like she owned it, she’s not here for me.”

Eagan said nothing. His hands flexed once at his sides, curling into fists before forcing themselves open again. He hated that his brother was right, hated that the name stirred something sharp in his chest. Surprise. Reluctance. A buried nervousness he hadn’t felt in years.

“You’re going to see her,” Leroy said casually, though his eyes were sharp. “You have to.”

“No.” Eagan’s voice was cold, certain. “I’m not.”

“Aww, you scared kiddy kiddy cat.”

“Oh, come on,” Leroy laughed, though there was no humor in it. “You think she flew across the world just to admire the skyline? No, brother. She’s here for you. And unless you plan on locking yourself in this office until she leaves, you’re going to face her.”

Eagan’s silence was an answer in itself.

Leroy tilted his head, dropping his voice. “Yiou still haven’t told me what really happened, Eagan. The night it all burned down. The Sinclairs. You.”

Eagan’s eyes flicked to him in an icy warning. “Drop it.”

But Leroy didn’t. He never did. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks a lot like betrayal. And Ivy Sinclair? She’s carrying that history in her smile.”

The temperature shifted again. For a heartbeat, frost whispered faintly along the edge of the desk before Eagan forced it back, grinding out words like stone. “I said, drop it.”

A long pause stretched between them. Then Leroy’s grin slid back into place, lighter, as if the moment hadn’t just threatened to c***k open the past.

“Fine. Change of subject.” His amber eyes sharpened again. “Why was Kaia Keen in your office, slipping you an envelope?”

Eagan’s gaze narrowed. “You saw that?”

“Please,” Leroy scoffed. “I miss nothing." Pretty little thief walks in, bats her lashes, and suddenly you’re frosting the walls? I’ve seen you brush off women with more curves and cash than she could ever dream of. So why her?”

“Cash? Don’t tell me you don’t know who Miss Keen is. Kaia Keen the double K, stamped on every expensive gallery in the world.”

“Oh you mean thee K.K.? "Wait… he is a she?” His face twisted in puzzled amusement.“Huh… who knew women could be good at the arts?” Leroy said, eyes widening in mock surprise, his smirk making it clear he was only stirring the pot.

Eagan shook his head. “You know nothing about women.”

“And I suppose you do?” Leroy shot back, one brow arched. “Since you nearly froze the whole damn building a minute ago.”

Eagan didn’t answer. Instead, he reached for the envelope on the all-glass conference table. As his fingers brushed the paper, he caught sight of something new etched across his skin, light markings, curling like smoke along the veins of his hand.

“Brother,” Leroy said quickly, his tone sharper than before.

The memory hit him then the shard. The rune-carved fragment that had seared into his palm the instant he touched it. The heat of it still seemed to smolder in his skin.

The rune carved was lying in the conner of the room and the items a photograph ,obsidian stone with a crescent-shaped void circled in red, a small velvet sleeve and strange glyphs, half-burned at the edges.

Leroy picked up the rune carved with his handkerchief .

“What is this?” Leroy said, circling closer. “Is it hers?”

“It’s not hers,” he said quietly. “She’s a messenger. Someone wanted this in my hands.”

“And you don’t know who? how do you know it's not hers?”

Eagan shook his head once. His silence was heavier than words.

Leroy smirked faintly, though unease flickered beneath it. “So, let me get this straight. We’ve got Kaia Keen delivering mystery relics, Ivy Sinclair showing up at our home, and you pretending like you’re in control.” He leaned back in the chair with a lazy sprawl. “Sounds like the start of a beautiful disaster.”

Leroy leaned against the desk. “If you say so. But the timing’s not great”

Eagan puts everything back into the envelope and into the drawer, sealing the envelope away. His tone was final. “Kaia’s a distraction. Ivy is the problem.”

Leroy chuckled low. “Brother, you don’t get it. Kaia might be the temptation. Ivy? She’s the fuse. And if you’re not careful, both will blow.”

As they walked out of the room, Leroy glanced back and asked, smirk tugging at his lips,

“By the way… how is it you’ve got a desk in your conference room?”

The Ice Tower loomed above the city, a spire of glass and steel laced with frost that caught the evening light. Home, if a fortress could be called that.

But tonight, Eagan treated it like a trap.

He stood in the back of the car, staring out at the skyline, expression carved from ice. His cufflinks glinted as he adjusted them, every motion deliberate, controlled. Too controlled.

“You’re avoiding her,” Leroy said from the opposite seat, swirling a glass of whiskey he’d poured himself the moment they’d left Eros Tower. “That’s new. Usually you run toward the fire, not away from it.”

Eagan didn’t look at him. “This isn’t fire.”

“No,” Leroy said lightly, “it’s Ivy. And you’ve been dreading her since the second I said her name. Don’t insult me by pretending otherwise.”

Eagan’s hands flexed once against his knees, jaw tight. He said nothing.

The silence stretched, filled only by the hum of the engine and the muted sound of the city outside.

“You can’t keep ducking her forever,” Leroy went on. “She’s in our tower, brother. Our home. If you don’t face her, she’ll find a way to make you. And when she does…” He let the words trail, a pointed glance toward Eagan’s hands where faint frost threatened to bloom before receding again.

Eagan closed his fists, hard, forcing the cold down.

“Stay out of it,” he said.

Leroy smirked faintly, but his eyes stayed serious. “Not a chance.”

Leroy’s voice dipped, softer now, stripped of its usual mockery.

“You act like this is just Ivy. But it isn’t, is it? It’s all of them. The Sinclairs.”

Eagan’s Eagan sighed, the air in the car cooling by degrees.

“They didn’t just take from us,” Leroy went on, eyes narrowing. “They broke something. Something you’ve never forgiven.”

The frost pulsed once, faint but sharp, crawling across Eagan’s knuckles before he forced it down.

Outside, the Ice Tower loomed closer, its mirrored glass catching the city lights like shards of a shattered past.

A car cut across their path, brakes screeching sharp against the asphalt.

Jesussss...