Chapter 3
By the end of the first week, the impossible had happened. Bane was walking. It wasn't the proud, commanding stride of the massive beast he used to be, but a slow, shuffling limp. Still, it was movement. Harper spent her days entirely on the floor with him, hand-feeding him small bowls of the chicken and broth mixture, gently massaging his atrophied leg muscles, and reading to him in a low, rhythmic voice.
The estate staff—a tight-knit group of silent, hyper-competent professionals—watched Harper with undisguised awe. The head of security, a towering man named Vance (a terrifying coincidence of names that Harper tried to ignore), even offered her a rare, respectful nod when she managed to coax Bane out onto the sun-drenched terrace for the first time.
Silas remained a ghost during the daylight hours. He left the estate in armored SUVs, returning late in the night smelling of expensive scotch, cold rain, and something metallic that Harper refused to identify. But every night, without fail, she would hear his heavy footsteps stop outside her guest suite door. He would linger there for exactly ten seconds, listening to ensure she was safe, before walking to the living room where Bane now slept on a velvet dog bed instead of the cold slate.
One evening, a violent thunderstorm rolled in off the Pacific. The lightning cracked like artillery fire, rattling the reinforced glass of the estate. Harper was in the library, trying to distract Bane from the thunder, when the heavy oak doors swung open.
Silas walked in, dripping wet. His suit jacket was ruined, his knuckles were bruised and split open, bleeding freely onto the imported Persian rug. His face was a mask of absolute, terrifying fury. He looked like the monster the rumors claimed him to be.
Bane immediately stood up, a low growl rumbling in his chest as he stepped protectively in front of Harper.
Silas stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at the dog, then at Harper. The sight of his own loyal hound guarding a stranger against him seemed to shatter the violent haze surrounding him. The fury in his eyes dissolved into bone-deep exhaustion. He swayed slightly, leaning against the doorframe for support.
"I'm sorry," Silas rasped, his voice hollow. "I didn't mean to frighten him."
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Harper didn't run. She looked at the blood on his hands, then at the despair in his eyes. She stepped around Bane, grabbed a clean towel from the side table, and walked right up to the most dangerous man in California.
"Sit down, Silas," she said softly, using his first name for the first time. "Before you bleed all over the books."
