"Use everything your father taught you at the escort agency—train him well, and you'll have earned the eternal gratitude of the Governor's Residence."

That year, Barnaby was ten years old.

He tucked his cricket cage deeper into his sleeve and tilted his head to study me, eyes bright as stars.

Something in my heart—so long strangled by the hatred of my family's massacre—loosened, just a little.

He reached for my hand first.

And held it for seventeen years.

I'd made a habit of finding excuses for him.

He hadn't proposed because he was too busy.

He fooled around because he hadn't matured yet.

But day after day, year after year—from youth into middle age—the excuses wore thin.

I was done lying to myself.

Done enduring.

I stepped forward and dragged the woman off him.

Two slaps. Sharp and clean.

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Spreading your legs for him right in front of me?"

She shrieked and scrambled behind Barnaby.

"Commander! She hit me—"

I let out a cold laugh. "That wasn't hitting."

I drew the leather whip from my belt.

Raised it high.

My gaze caught the character Gilbert tooled into the handle.

My grip faltered.

This whip—Barnaby had given it to me five years ago. A birthday gift.

He'd hunted the beast himself, cured the hide, braided the core.

He'd even lined the handle with soft felt.

So you won't hurt yourself when you're disciplining me, he'd said with that grin.

The Barnaby of those days—even when my palm cracked across his face, he never flinched. Just smiled that infuriating smile and asked if my hand was sore.

Not like now.

The whip hadn't even fallen before his fingers locked around it.

"Rose."

A smile still played on his lips, but his eyes had gone cold.

"She's young. Doesn't know any better. Let it go."

The whip stretched taut between us.

Like everything we'd been.

Suddenly, I felt the absurdity of it all.

I let go.

Barnaby tossed the whip aside and pulled the woman into his arms, murmuring soft reassurances.

"There, there. Don't be scared."

"I'm here. No one touches you."

I watched him pull a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dab the tears from her cheeks.

Watched him drop it on the floor.

One corner of the silk bore a crooked embroidered letter: H.

I recognized it. The handkerchief I'd used to stop his bleeding when he was eighteen, wounded after a bandit raid.

He'd been so weak then, pressing my hand with trembling fingers.

The blood will stain it... your handkerchief... I can't bear to ruin it...

He'd taken it so carefully. Tucked it beneath his pillow like something precious.

But now—he'd clearly forgotten every word he'd ever said.

What he once treasured, he could discard without a second thought.

My chest felt hollow. Wind whistling through the void.

"Barnaby."

My voice came out quiet.

He didn't look up.

I continued anyway. "If you really want her, bring her home."

"I'll make room."

That made him raise his head.

"Rose."

His tone darkened.

"Don't talk nonsense."

"It's not nonsense. I mean it." My voice stayed level. "Barnaby, I'm done waiting for a title that's never coming."

"And I'm done clinging to feelings that have gone sour."

"Let's set each other free."

His gaze turned glacial.

His voice carried a warning: "Rose Henson. Know when to stop."

I met his stare without flinching. "From this day forward, I'm leaving the Governor's Residence."

"Without me in your way, you can play however you like. Marry whoever you want."

He studied me for a long moment.

Then laughed.

"You think this little performance will frighten me?"

"You think I'm still the child you could bend to your will?"

I lowered my gaze.

Of course he wasn't.

Not anymore.

The boy from before—the one who'd sneak candy into my cabinet after making me angry. The one who wished on every birthday candle to grow up fast so he could marry me. The one who'd kissed me at his eighteenth birthday celebration, clumsy and reverent, in front of a room full of guests.

That boy was gone.

I drew a slow breath, forcing down the tightness in my chest.

I didn't respond to Barnaby.

Instead, I turned to Carolyn.

"Are you really content being a mistress for the rest of your life?"

"Once he's bored with you, you'll crawl back to The Velvet Paramount as a dance girl."

"Old patrons chase new faces. New patrons will call you washed up. Do you think there'll still be a place for you there?"

Her face went pale.

Her nails dug into Barnaby's arm.

"Commander," she breathed, her voice dripping honey, "I want... to be with you properly."

"Please?"

Barnaby swept her into his arms.

"Nonsense," he chided.

As he carried her toward the door, he tossed back over his shoulder: "If you want me to coax you, just say so."

"You're decent with knives and guns, but competing for attention like some simpering girl? You're not even close."

He actually thought I was throwing a tantrum.

That I was playing the same games as his parade of women, vying for his favor.

I didn't know what to say.

So I followed them.

All the way to the Governor's Residence.

Barnaby settled the woman in my room.

Her drooping expression lifted instantly.

Barnaby kissed the corner of her mouth. "Happy now?"

She threw herself into his arms. "Commander, you won't let her leave—does that mean she's still in your heart?"

My footsteps faltered.

I heard Barnaby's low laugh. "Rose has been by my side for seventeen years. Of course she's in my heart."

"But that doesn't conflict with wanting you."

Then came the wet sounds of kissing.

Carolyn pushed him away, breathless and pouting. "Then why put me in her room? Aren't you afraid your precious darling will run off in a fit?"

"Run?" Barnaby's smile deepened. "Where would she run to?"

"Her entire family is dead. She needs the Residence to find their killers."

A dull ache spread through my chest.

Even though I'd long since stopped expecting anything from Barnaby.

Those words still cut.

Carolyn's voice turned coy. "Your proposal was the talk of the town back then. 'One life, one love, one person'—that's what you said."

"Turns out you didn't love her that much after all."

She paused, then added:

"But she's still technically your fiancée. Are you really going to let her run around with your sworn enemy?"

Barnaby scoffed.

"Sworn enemy?"

"Nat Vance?"

His tone dripped contempt.

"That waste of space? Why would I care about him?"

"He can't perform. He's not even a real man. You could strip the most popular girl at The Velvet Paramount naked and throw her in his bed—he still couldn't touch her."

Barnaby paused, then continued: "Besides, I know my woman."

"She's an old-fashioned traditionalist at heart. Believes in all that 'three obediences' nonsense. Once she gave herself to me, she'd die before letting another man have her."

"Whatever she's doing with Nat Vance—it's just a show. For my benefit."

My fingers tightened around the doorframe, knuckle by knuckle.

So he knew.

He knew how traditional I was at my core.

That's why he dared to trample on me like this.

Because he was certain.

Certain I'd never escape his grasp.

Carolyn pressed further. "But what if... she actually falls for him?"

"The Azure Dragon Syndicate bought up the thousand-acre rose garden on Lafayette Avenue this morning. Cleared out every bolt of silk at Rutherford & Co. too. All in Nat Vance's name—all for her."

"What woman wouldn't be tempted?"

"Tempted?" Barnaby let out a derisive snort. "She's nothing like you. She doesn't care for the things other women fawn over."

I looked down at my dust-gray clothes.

Do I really not care for nice things?

Don't I like perfume? Don't I like silk? Don't I like bright, beautiful dresses?

I remembered the year Old Mr. Gilbert passed away. Barnaby was just a teenager then, and every faction in the city circled like vultures, hungry to seize the Governor's Residence.

During one assassination attempt, I took a blade meant for him.

I happened to be wearing a white cheongsam that day.

The blood turned it red.

Barnaby was terrified. For nights afterward, he burned with fever, thrashing through nightmares.

After that, I replaced everything in my wardrobe with dark military uniforms. Easier to fight in. And when you're wounded, the bloodstains don't show.

Later, as things stabilized, I'd sometimes think about dressing up again. I'd linger at the ladies' cosmetics counter in the department store, fingers hovering over compacts and lipsticks.

But then I'd remember the sweat and grime of the barracks, and I'd walk away.

It wasn't that I didn't want these things.

It was that I couldn't let myself want them.

Barnaby's voice drifted out from the room, mingled with the rustle of fabric.

"Women should act like women. The ones who have to prove themselves, who insist on outdoing men at everything—" He made a sound of disgust. "Revolting."

Carolyn giggled, a breathy, simpering sound.

In that moment, the three of us shared a perfect, unspoken understanding.

No name was mentioned.

But we all knew exactly which woman he found revolting.

I stepped back.

A chill spread through my chest.

He'd forgotten, apparently. Forgotten the night he burned with fever and no doctor would come—how I carried him on my back through ten miles of pouring rain to find one.

Forgotten the time he was captured by bandits. How I rode in alone, guns blazing, and dragged him out from a pile of corpses.

All those years of bullets and bloodshed, with me charging ahead to clear his path.

And this was my reward. Revolting.

My hands began to tremble.

Then I heard him say: "A woman who knows how to depend on a man—now that's a smart woman."

"She'll figure it out soon enough."

Carolyn asked why he was so certain.

Barnaby's voice dropped, smug and conspiratorial.

"I have a secret."

"I'll only tell you."

"The man who slaughtered her family? I found him five years ago."

"But I'll never tell her. She can spend her whole life searching and never know."

"She'll have to beg me—"

Whatever he said after that, I couldn't hear.

A deafening roar filled my skull, like something had detonated inside my head.

My whole body shook. I grabbed the corridor pillar just to stay upright.

When my family was massacred, I nearly died trying to take the killers down with me. If Old Mr. Gilbert hadn't saved me, I would have.

After I came to the Governor's Residence, Barnaby consumed most of my energy. In a way, he diluted my grief.

But I never forgot. Not for one day.

He knew this. He knew it was the wound that never healed.

When I woke screaming from nightmares, he would hold me. "Don't be afraid. I'm here."

"Your enemies are my enemies."

"I'll find whoever did this. I'll make them pay."

I still remember the way he looked when he said those words. His eyes rimmed red. His face twisted with anguish and rage on my behalf.

He searched relentlessly. He even dealt with gangs he despised, trading favors for the smallest lead.

But every trail went cold.

I thought it was fate.

I never imagined he was the one making sure I'd never find the truth.

I stumbled away from the main courtyard.

Only one thought pounded through my mind:

I will find that man myself. I will drag him back. And the Shen family will have their justice.

I used Nat's connections and tore through every corner of Port Haven.

But I never expected Barnaby to have hidden the man in the dungeon beneath the Governor's Residence.

So close. He'd been so close to me all along.

I stormed toward the dungeon.

Along the way, I imagined a thousand ways to take my revenge.

But when I arrived—