The manor was silent, save for the rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway. I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Detective Vance's cold, predatory smile. I saw the way Ethan's jaw had tightened when he defended me. But mostly, I thought about Oliver.
He had been avoiding me. Not physically—we shared meals and lived under the same roof—but his spirit was elsewhere. He was like a ghost haunting his own house.
I walked toward his study, seeing a sliver of light beneath the door. I knocked softly. No answer.
"Oliver?" I whispered, pushing the door open.
He wasn't at his desk. He was standing by the large bookshelf, his back to me. He looked tense, his shoulders squared as if he were carrying the weight of the entire city. He was wearing a simple black t-shirt, and for the first time, I noticed how much broader he had become over the years. He wasn't the lean athlete I remembered; he was a man built for war.
"You should be in bed, Emily," he said without turning around. His voice was gravelly, tired.
"I could say the same to you," I replied, stepping further into the room. "You've been staring at the walls for days, Oliver. Talk to me. Is it the company? Or is it... what's happening in the news?"
He finally turned, his eyes dark and unreadable. "It's nothing you need to worry about. I have everything under control."
"That's the problem!" I said, my frustration bubbling over. I walked closer to him, stopping just a few feet away. "You always have 'everything under control.' But I see the way you look at the door. I see the way you flinch at loud noises. You're scared, Oliver. And if you're scared, I should be too."
"I'm not scared for myself," he snapped, taking a step toward me. The air between us suddenly felt hot. "I'm scared of what happens if I fail to keep you safe."
"I don't need a guardian, I need my—"
I stepped forward to emphasize my point, but my heel caught on the edge of the thick Persian rug. My balance vanished instantly. I gasped, my hands reaching out instinctively to grab onto something.
I grabbed the front of his shirt, but my momentum was too much. Oliver reached out to catch my waist, his reflex lightning-fast, but the sudden weight sent us both stumbling backward.
We hit the leather sofa behind him. He fell back, and I landed directly on top of him, pinned between his strong arms and the soft cushions.
For a heartbeat, time stopped. My breath hitched. I was staring directly into his eyes—eyes that weren't cold anymore, but wide with shock and something else I couldn't name. His hands were still locked around my waist, pulling me flush against his chest. I could feel his heart hammering against mine, a wild, frantic rhythm.
I tried to push myself up, my face inches from his. "I... I'm sorry, I tripped—"
But as I moved, my hand slipped on the leather, and I fell forward again. This time, there was no space left.
Our lips met.
It wasn't a planned kiss. It wasn't a cinematic moment. It was a collision of gravity and suppressed emotions. It was soft, hesitant, and tasted faintly of the coffee he'd been drinking. For a split second, I felt him freeze, and then, his grip on my waist tightened, just a fraction of an inch, as if he were finally letting go of the control he fought so hard to keep.
Panic flared in my chest—not because I hated it, but because it felt too right. It felt like a truth we weren't allowed to have.
I pulled away abruptly, my face burning like a fever. My heart was thundering so loud I was sure he could hear it.
"I... I have to go," I stammered, scrambling off him.
Oliver stayed on the sofa, his hand hovering near his mouth, his expression completely stunned. He looked like I had just hit him with a physical blow.
"Emily, wait—" he started, his voice cracking.
"Goodnight, Oliver!" I nearly shouted, not looking back.
I turned and bolted out of the room, my lab coat fluttering behind me. I didn't stop until I reached my bedroom and locked the door. I leaned against the wood, my hands shaking as I touched my lips.
Outside, the city hummed with danger and detectives and secret missions. But inside, in the silence of my room, I realized the biggest threat wasn't the Obsidian Circle or Detective Vance.
It was the fact that I was falling for the one man I could never truly have.
The next morning, the sunlight felt too bright, too intrusive. I had spent half the night staring at the ceiling and the other half scrubbing my face, trying to wash away the phantom sensation of Oliver's lips on mine.
I walked into the dining room, my heart doing a nervous dance against my ribs.
Oliver was already there.
He was sitting at the head of the long mahogany table, a tablet in one hand and a black coffee in the other. He looked impeccable—crisp white shirt, perfectly knotted tie—as if the chaos of last night had never happened. But as I sat down across from him, I noticed the slight tremor in his hand as he set the cup down.
"Good morning," he said. His voice was forced, devoid of its usual rhythmic calm. He didn't look up from his screen.
"Morning," I replied, my voice sounding small even to my own ears.
The silence that followed was suffocating. It wasn't the comfortable silence we usually shared while planning our day. This was a thick, heavy wall. Every sound seemed magnified: the clink of my spoon against the porcelain bowl, the rustle of his newspaper, the distant hum of the city outside.
I reached for the orange juice at the same time he reached for the cream. Our fingers brushed for a fraction of a second.
We both flinched as if we'd been electrocuted.
"Sorry," we said in unison.
Oliver finally looked at me. His dark eyes were filled with a turbulent mix of regret and something that looked dangerously like longing. For a second, the mask of the billionaire CEO slipped, and I saw Andrew—the boy who had lost everything and was terrified of losing the one thing he had left.
"Emily, about last night—" he began, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"It was an accident, Oliver," I interrupted quickly, my cheeks beginning to heat up. I couldn't let him say it. If he apologized, it would mean it was a mistake. If he didn't, it would mean it was real. I wasn't ready for either. "I tripped. You caught me. Physics happened. Let's just... let's move on."
Oliver tightened his grip on his tablet until his knuckles turned white. "Physics. Right."
"Is everything okay in here? It feels like a funeral."
I nearly jumped out of my skin as William walked in, followed closely by Ethan.
Ethan's sharp eyes darted between me and Oliver, lingering on my flushed face and Oliver's rigid posture. He didn't say anything, but his eyebrows pulled together in a subtle frown. He knew us too well. He could smell the tension like ozone before a lightning strike.
"We have news," Ethan said, pulling out a chair and sitting down without being asked. He looked at Oliver, his expression turning professional. "Vance isn't waiting for the Commissioner. She just filed an emergency request to review the hospital's security footage from the night of the pier raid."
The romantic tension vanished, replaced instantly by cold, hard reality. Oliver stood up so fast his chair scraped loudly against the floor.
"She's looking for me," Oliver said, his jaw set.
"She's looking for anyone who doesn't belong," Ethan corrected, his gaze shifting to me. "And since you were on duty that night, Emily, she's going to check who visited your office."
I looked at Oliver. He looked back at me, the 'accident' on the sofa forgotten. The shadow of the mask was back between us.
"I'll handle it," Oliver said, his voice regaining its cold, protective edge. "William, get the legal team on the phone. Ethan, I need to know exactly which cameras she's looking at."
As they began to talk strategy, I sat there, picking at my food. The moment of intimacy we had shared felt like a dream—a beautiful, dangerous dream that was being swallowed by the nightmare of our reality.
Oliver was protecting me, and Ethan was protecting the secret. But as I watched them, I realized that the kiss hadn't just been "physics." it had been a warning. The closer we got to each other, the more we had to lose. And Sarah Vance was counting on that.
The tension in the room was already thick enough to choke on, but then William did something he rarely does. He put down his newspaper, took a slow sip of his tea, and looked directly at Oliver.
The silence that followed wasn't just quiet; it was heavy.
"You know, Andrew," William said, his voice unusually calm, "you were always a terrible liar as a child. You think you've become better at it because you wear expensive suits now, but you haven't."
Oliver froze. He was halfway through cutting a piece of toast, but his knife stopped mid-air. Even Ethan, who was usually the master of staying emotionless, narrowed his eyes.
"William, what are you talking about?" Oliver asked, his voice low and cautious.
William leaned back in his chair, his eyes moving from Oliver to Ethan, then finally to me. "I'm talking about the masks. The late nights. The bruises that you claim are from 'gym accidents.' I'm talking about Hotdog."
I felt the air leave my lungs. My fork clattered onto my plate. "William... what did you just say?"
Oliver didn't move. He looked like a statue carved from ice. "William, you're tired. Maybe you should—"
"I am not tired, Andrew. And I am not blind," William interrupted. A small, sad smile touched his lips. "I've known since the very beginning. Did you really think I wouldn't notice my own brother sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night? Did you think I wouldn't recognize your fighting style in those grainy viral videos from Brooklyn? I saw the way you moved. I saw the way you stood. No mask can hide a brother's soul."
I looked at Oliver, waiting for him to deny it, to laugh it off. But he didn't. He slowly lowered his knife and looked down at his plate. The silence was his confession.
"You knew?" I whispered, my voice trembling. I turned to William. "You knew all this time and you didn't tell me? You let him go out there and risk his life every night?"
"I knew that if I tried to stop him, he would only go further into the shadows," William said, his voice softening. "I knew he needed a way to fight the darkness that took our family. So, I stayed quiet. I cleaned the bloodstains from the laundry before you could see them, Emily. I hacked the security feeds of the manor to make sure no one saw him leaving. I've been his silent partner long before Ethan ever stepped in."
My head was spinning. Everything I thought I knew about my family was a lie. The cousin I was falling for was a masked vigilante, and the brother I trusted was his secret accomplice.
"Why tell us now?" Ethan asked, his hand instinctively reaching for his phone, probably wondering if the room was bugged.
"Because of Detective Vance," William said, his expression turning grim. "She's not just looking for a criminal, Andrew. She's looking for a Thompson. And if she finds the truth, she won't just take you down—she'll take Emily and me with you. We are all in this now. No more secrets."
I looked at Oliver. He finally raised his head, and for the first time, I saw the raw, unfiltered truth in his eyes. He wasn't just Oliver Thompson. He was the ghost, the protector, the man with the note.
The kiss from last night suddenly felt even more complicated. He wasn't just a man I wasn't allowed to have; he was a man who lived on the edge of a cliff every single day.
"I'm sorry, Emily," Oliver said, his voice barely a whisper.
I didn't know what to say. I felt betrayed, terrified, and strangely... relieved. The wall between us had finally crumbled, but the ruins were dangerous.
"We need a plan," I said, surprised by the steadiness in my own voice. "If Vance is coming for us, she won't stop at CCTV footage."
Oliver looked at me, a flicker of pride crossing his face. "She wants a ghost? Fine. We'll give her a ghost. But from now on, we do this together."