Chapter 157
Chapter 157:
Eliza laughed — a light, genuine sound that broke the tension cleanly.
“Fine. Come over,” she said.
They crossed the hall to her apartment. It felt warm and lived-in, still carrying the faint scent of the vanilla candle she had burned earlier. She handed him a jar of sugar from the kitchen.
“Stay for dinner?” she offered, before she’d quite decided to say it.
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, and smiled.
𝗦t𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘆o𝘶 𝘸on’t put 𝖽𝗈𝗐n 𝘰n
Azalea emerged from the bathroom. “Water pressure is fine. Can we order pizza? I’m starving p>
They sat on the floor of Eliza’s living room and ate pepperoni pizza straight from the box. It felt like a college dorm gathering — except with a billionaire and a teenage heiress sharing a single pizza box on the rug.
Eliza found herself watching Dallas laugh at something Azalea said. He looked younger in moments like this. Lighter.
She realized she didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t want him going back to that empty, box-filled apartment across the hall.
Later, after Azalea had been collected by the driver, Dallas lingered in the doorway.
“Goodnight, neighbor,” he said.
Eliza closed the door and leaned against it, her heart still moving at a pace she couldn’t justify. She stood there for a moment in the quiet, then reached for her phone.
Eliza: He’s not that crazy.
A few nights later, a thunderstorm hit the city.
Lightning flashed in harsh, strobe-like bursts that bleached Eliza’s living room white. Thunder shook the windows in their frames. Eliza hated storms. They reminded her of the night her parents died.
A knock at the door made her jump.
She opened it to find Dallas. He was holding a bottle of wine and two heavy-duty flashlights.
“I figured you might need backup,” he said.
She let him in. The power flickered but held. They settled on the rug by the balcony window and watched the rain lash against the glass.
“You’re not scared?” Eliza asked, taking a sip of the wine he poured.
“I’ve seen worse,” he said, with a darkness that suggested he meant something far beyond weather.
He shifted, and his sleeve rode up.
Eliza saw a jagged scar on his forearm. It wasn’t the clean line of his recent wound. This was older — puckered, discolored skin. A burn mark.
“What is that?” She reached out and touched it without thinking.
Dallas pulled back slightly, a reflex, then made himself be still.
“A souvenir from a Koch family ‘re-education’ compound,” he said, his voice flat. “It was disguised as a military academy. In Siberia p>
“Siberia?” Eliza looked at him in shock. “I thought you went to a Swiss boarding school. The one with the equestrian program p>
“That’s the PR version,” Dallas said, with a short, bitter laugh. “My father’s mother — the old matriarch, Genevieve. ‘Gigi’ to the family. She believed I was cursed. A bad omen after my mother’s death. She thought I brought bad luck p>