Three Doors Away

19. Truth

“I…I didn’t mean to…ignored you guys…you know…I was…”

She rubbed her temples with her fingers, looking weary.

“Dealing with some…dude…”

The collective temperature in the room dropped ten degrees instantly.

Ezren’s body went ramrod straight, the relaxed posture vanishing in a microsecond as his dark eyes locked onto her fingers rubbing her temples. His mind, conditioned to immediately isolate and analyze every potential threat, instantly began tearing the sentence apart. Some dude. The variable was unacceptable, anomalous, and entirely foreign to the equation.

"What dude?" Ezren asked, his voice suddenly stripped of all warmth, dropping into a cold, clinical, and dangerously quiet register. "Define the parameter, Maddie. Who is he? What is his name? And what business did he have interacting with you?"

Rodyn’s hand froze entirely where it had been resting near her shoulder. The honeyed warmth in his hazel eyes evaporated into a razor-sharp, feral focus. The easy, playful smile was entirely wiped clean, replaced by a dark, suffocating intensity that made the air in the room feel heavy and suffocating. He didn't raise his voice, but every muscle in his frame coiled tight.

"A dude?" Rodyn murmured, his voice dipping into a low, velvet-smooth hiss that carried a chilling, possessive edge. He leaned in closer, his gaze burning into the side of her face as if searching for any lingering trace of someone else's shadow. "Did he bother you, little bird? Did he think he had some kind of right to step into your space while we were looking for you?"

Across the table, Flynn didn't speak. He didn't need to. The massive, immovable frame of the man simply froze, his broad shoulders tensing like coiled steel. The air left his lungs in a slow, ragged hiss, and his dark, brooding eyes narrowed into a lethal glare that looked as though it could tear concrete apart. The heavy, protective rage that had briefly settled when she mentioned her old high school bullies roared back to life, magnified tenfold by the casual mention of an unknown male entering her orbit.

Flynn slowly stood up from the armchair, his heavy boots pressing into the floorboards as he closed the distance between them in two massive strides. He dropped down onto one knee right in front of the couch, his large, calloused hands gently—but with an inescapable, ironclad grip—taking her wrists and pulling her hands away from her temples so he could look directly into her eyes.

"Look at me, Maddie," Flynn commanded, his voice a low, gravelly growl that vibrated straight through the floorboards. The raw, terrifying devotion in his gaze was absolute. "Tell me his name. Tell me what he did. I'll make sure he never crosses your path again."

“You know…I couldn’t avoid those toxic attention, especially being a teahouse singer…he’s looking like a dangerous man. I don’t know, he gave me his business card few days ago…here, I still have it in my purse.”

Ezren’s hand was already moving before she even finished the sentence. With terrifying, calculated speed, his long fingers dipped smoothly into the side pocket of her leather purse resting on the cushion, sliding out the small, stiff piece of cardstock before she could even protest.

He brought it up to his line of sight, his eyes darting across the printed text with the cold, hungry efficiency of a computer scanning a target. Beside him, Rodyn leaned in over his shoulder, his hazel eyes narrowing into dark, lethal slits as he memorized every single stroke of ink on the card—the name, the logo, the phone number, the address.

Flynn didn't bother looking at the card in Ezren's hand. His heavy, unblinking gaze remained locked entirely on Maddie’s face, his jaw clenched so tightly a muscle ticked violently at his temple. The raw, suffocating possessiveness radiating from his massive frame filled the entire room, turning the air thick and electric.

"Dangerous," Flynn repeated, the word tasting like ash and iron on his tongue, his deep voice dropping into a low, rumbling growl. "You're a singer in a public teahouse, surrounded by men who don't know how to keep their eyes or their hands to themselves, and you let a predator slip a card into your purse?"

Ezren didn't look up from the card, his voice dangerously smooth, devoid of any human warmth as he committed the details to memory before slipping the small piece of heavy paper into his own tailored suit pocket.

"A minor oversight, easily corrected," Ezren murmured, his dark eyes flashing behind his lenses with a chilling, clinical calm. "Men like that operate on predictable impulses—ego, entitlement, and a complete lack of situational awareness. By Monday morning, his business card will be the least of his concerns, and his establishment will find itself suddenly restructured out of existence."

Rodyn let out a soft, humorless laugh that sounded more like a blade sliding out of a sheath. He reached up, gently cupping her cheek with fingers that were ice-cold, his thumb tracing her jawline with a possessive, territorial intensity.

"We spent nine years tearing our lives apart to build an empire just so no one would ever dare look at you twice, little bird," Rodyn whispered, his voice velvet-smooth and laced with quiet venom. "And some stray dog thinks he can hand you a card? Let him try. He won't even make it past the front door of your teahouse again."

Flynn’s large, calloused hands slid slowly up her arms, pulling her gently but inescapably against the solid wall of his chest, anchoring her where no one else could ever reach her.

"You're not going back to that shift alone," Flynn commanded, his tone leaving zero room for argument. "And you're definitely not carrying anyone else's name in your bag. It's over, Maddie. Let us handle the trash."