CHAPTER 256

**ZION**

The soup on the nightstand steamed in a sad little curl, untouched and cooling, an apology I hadn't earned. The smell should have been comforting, something ordinary to steady me. Instead, it tasted like what was missing: safety.

Silence had settled in the room like dust. 

No jokes. No easy banter. Just the thin, taut quiet after something that could have gone so wrong. 

My left arm throbbed under the bandage—sharp little stings with every spike of my pulse—but the ache in my gut was worse.

Not from the cut.

From the fact that the psycho had walked into Winter’s room and left with nothing but a smeared trail and a threat in his wake.

Clark stood by the window like a statue carved from bad light, hands buried deep in his pockets, shoulders wound tight enough to snap. His jaw was locked, but the muscle under his skin twitched—a storm with nowhere to go.

Claire leaned against the dresser, arms folded, gaze sharp and cool. She wore that businesslike distance like armour, already running three steps ahead of the rest of us, calculating, hunting for weaknesses.

Harry paced in front of the door like a caged predator, every step a warning. His energy bled into the room—restless, violent, the kind of air that cracked right before something exploded.

Ariel sat on the edge of the bed, clutching the soup bowl like a talisman, shoulders hunched. 

Ro was sprawled across the armchair in the corner, boots planted wide on the floor, head tipped back like he didn’t have a care in the world. 

But his fingers were drumming against his thigh in a steady, hard rhythm—too controlled, too deliberate. 

His eyes weren’t lazy like usual; they were sharp and fixed on the door, like he was waiting for someone to give him the green light to burn the world down.

Winter sat beside me, knees turned in, eyes fixed to the floor but not really seeing it. The colour had left her face. 

That should have made me want to smash something. Instead, I felt cold, sharp protective instincts carving straight through me.

“So enough talking shit,” Clark said at last, his voice low and steady—the kind of voice that snatches the room and won’t let go. 

“What the fuck happened, Z?”

I drew in a breath, as if it could steady me, and it didn’t. My fingers kept worrying at the edge of the bandage, as if I could pick the memory apart, thread by thread, and find something worth holding. There wasn’t. 

Just a bruise in my skull and a fist full of questions.

“The fucking alarm went off,” I spit, hard. The words left like a knife. 

“I knew before I even saw it — knew in my bones that someone was in the house.”

Anger rolled under the sentence, a low, hot thing that wanted to tear something down. 

“Fucking knew something was wrong,” I hissed. The memory tightened my chest; my pulse picked up just thinking of it.

“When I got to Winter’s room, the backup was already screaming—the one I installed myself.”

I dragged a hand through my hair until it hurt, jaw grinding. 

"The main system—our primary sensors, the network that should have screamed the moment someone crossed the threshold—hadn’t registered a thing. No red lights. No cascading alerts. It was clean. Sterile. As if it had never existed.

I pushed myself up before anyone could find words to soften it.

My boots ate the distance across the floor in two long strides. 

The room smelled of antiseptic and fear; every head turned, but I didn’t look up. I went straight to the alarm console, fingers already ghosting over switches I knew by touch. 

The backup was screaming in the logs; the main line lay mute like a corpse.

Harry, Clark, and Ro all leaned in as I held the alarm, their shoulders nearly brushing mine. 

The tension was thick enough to taste—

Harry’s restless energy made him shift constantly, every muscle taut, while Clark’s slow, sharp focus pinned him to the moment, eyes narrowing at every flicker of the diagnostics. 

Ro stood slightly to the side, silent, his presence like a shadow pressing in—watching, calculating, every inch of his body ready to react.

I shoved the panel cover all the way open, the hinges groaning against the sudden force. 

My thumb hit the access lock, flipping the diagnostics to manual as the room fell quiet behind me.

Lights scrolled under my hand — green, then a deliberate, cruel gap where the main system should have been. I traced the hidden bus with my fingertip, following the erased heartbeat until my eyes caught the telltale scratch marks on the casing. Whoever’d got to it knew how to be surgical. Not sloppy. Not random. Inside work.

“This system’s been here for years,” I said, voice low but sharp. 

“Top of the line. My father put it in himself when he was alive, and it’s still the best fucking alarm system out there. You can’t just waltz in and bypass it. It gives you a few seconds—seconds—before the alarm kicks in.”

My hand dragged across the bundle of cables, tracing the exact place the heartbeat should’ve been. 

“But the fucker knew,” I bit out. 

“He knew exactly which lines to disconnect. Not a stumble. Not a goddamn false start. He cut it clean. Surgical. Like he’s done it before.”

The backup feed blinked red, steady and mocking. I forced a breath through my teeth, jaw locked so tight it hurt.

“Whoever did this wasn’t guessing. He walked through my father’s failsafes like he’d been born in them.”

“He disarmed the system,” he said flatly, eyes narrowing like he was already piecing the whole thing apart in his head. 

“And not just any system. That’s a full-grade perimeter alarm—layered encryption, biometric override, timed lockdowns. You don’t just disarm that. You have to dismantle it from the inside.”

I turned back, eyes hard. 

“This isn’t some punk testing his luck. This is someone who knew exactly what the fuck he was doing.”

I let out a rough breath. 

The bandage on my arm itched where the blood had dried; the sting made my jaw snap shut.

“Someone slipped right through. But they didn’t know about the backup—the one I installed myself a few days ago because I don’t trust anyone with her safety.” My voice went flat with something close to fury. 

“He muted the primary alarm, then moved through the house like he’d mapped it. No frantic footsteps, no yelling—just purpose. Calm. Like he’d done this a hundred times in his head before he set a single foot across the threshold.”

Harry’s hands balled into fists. 

The room felt colder when I said it out loud. Because whoever did this hadn’t just tried to get in—they’d almost fucking succeeded.

Harry swore under his breath, fists clenching at his sides.

“If he’d known about the second system, he wouldn’t have come in… He’d have known he was walking into a trap.” 

His voice was low, tight with anger, and his glare flicked to me like fire. 

“He thought he had the upper hand. Thought he could scare her. Thought he could get away with it.”

I let out a short, bitter laugh—half disbelief, half fury. It sounded jagged in the silent room, sharp against the tension. 

“Yeah,” I muttered, teeth clenched. 

“Thought wrong.

The sadistic psycho didn’t know I’d had a second one installed. After Ethan’s death. Double security.” 

My jaw clenched. 

“Thank fuck for that, because that’s the only reason I got there when I did.”

The room went quiet again. 

A tight, suffocating kind of quiet. 

Claire straightened slightly. 

Ro’s eyes narrowed. Ariel’s fingers tightened around the bowl in her hands.

Winter flinched at the last part, her arms instinctively wrapping around herself like she could hold her fear in place.

Ro muttered something under his breath, pacing a slow circle before snapping back toward us, the tension coiling in his movements like a predator ready to strike. 

His jaw was tight, a muscle ticking hard with barely contained frustration.

“That’s not some random punk off the street,” he said, voice low, rough with anger. 

“This is someone who knew every step before they took it. He didn’t stumble in. He didn’t panic. He knew the system, the layout, the timing… No hesitation.”

“Yeah,” I bit out, the word tasting like iron on my tongue. My chest burned with the memory of the attack, of the way he moved—calm, controlled, like this wasn’t the first time he’d done it. 

Harry’s eyes swept the room, sharp and calculating, like he was already piecing together the shape of something none of us wanted to say out loud. 

His voice dropped lower, steady but laced with something grim.

“And the worst part?” he said slowly, like the words themselves were dangerous. 

“He didn’t just want to get in. He came with purpose—intent to leave his mark, something that cuts deep, that stains more than just walls… something that lingers, that reminds you he was there.”

The silence that followed was thick, the kind that gets under your skin.

“Whoever this is—they’re patient, methodical… dangerous as hell. If you hadn’t shown up when you did…” 

His jaw clenched, cutting the rest off, but the unfinished words hung there, heavy.

He didn’t need to finish. We all knew exactly what he wasn’t saying.

My glare pinned him in place.

Winter’s voice cut through the tension, small but steady, carrying the weight of fear she couldn’t hide.

“I’d probably be dead,” she said, and the words hit me like a blade twisting in my chest.

I spun to her, eyes dark, jaw tight, pulse hammering so hard I thought it might shatter my ribs. 

My hands curled into fists at my sides, trembling, barely under control. Every nerve in me was screaming, hot and raw.

“No,” I growled, voice low but jagged with something almost feral. 

“You wouldn’t be. Not while I’m breathing. Not while I’m standing here. You hear me?”

I stepped closer, close enough that my shadow swallowed hers, every movement deliberate, sharp. 

My fingers twitched, like I wanted to grab the world by the throat, to make it understand that no one—no one—was allowed to touch her.

“You don’t get it,” I hissed, voice fraying at the edges. 

“If anyone ever lays a hand on you again… if you so much as think you’re in danger, I will find them. And I won’t stop. I won’t fucking stop until I’ve torn every last piece of them apart.”

My breath hitched, frantic, nearly strangling me with its intensity. My gaze locked on hers, dark, unrelenting. 

“Do you understand? Not maybe. Not probably. You are mine. And no one—no one—is allowed to hurt you. Not tonight. Not ever.”

I leaned a fraction closer, my gaze locking onto hers, burning with a heat she could feel without seeing. 

“I don’t care who he is, what he planned, or how fast he moves—he doesn’t get you. Not on my watch. Not ever.”

The words lingered in the air, rough and unwavering, but beneath them simmered something fiercer—anger, frustration, and a raw, possessive need to shield her. 

My chest tightened at the thought of what might’ve been, and I couldn’t let it go unspoken.

“You mean everything to me, Snowflake,” I added quietly, voice dropping just enough that only she could hear. 

“And anyone who thinks they can touch you—anyone—better be ready to deal with me.”

The room fell silent after that. My words hung between us, heavy and charged, a promise and a warning all at once. 

And even as she looked at me, eyes wide and shaky, I swore under my breath that nothing—not fear, not a shadowed intruder—would ever take her from me.