Chapter 10: Unwelcome Homecoming
Even if it meant keeping her safe from himself as well.
He waited until the murmuring from her room stopped, until he heard the soft click of her phone being set down. He gave it another five minutes, then knocked gently on her door. “Sera? You decent?”
A muffled “Yeah” came through the wood.
He opened the door to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at her hands. The haunted, glazed look was gone, replaced by a deep, weary emptiness. The news played silently now on the small television on her dresser, a scroll of text recounting the horrors.
“Eloise talk you down?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe.
“She reminded me to breathe. To feel my feet on the floor.” Sera’s voice was scraped raw. She finally looked at him. “Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That he was dead.Before the news. Did you know?” Her gaze was direct, unnervingly calm.
Jules held it. His face was a mask of careful neutrality. “I hear things. Rumors. I heard something had happened to him. I didn’t know the details.” It wasn’t quite a lie, but it felt like one, thick and oily in his throat.
She studied him, and for a second he thought she saw right through him, saw the midnight drive, the gloves, the careful, righteous violence. Then she just nodded, accepting the half-truth. “They said he wrote it all down. In blood. Why would he do that?”
“Guilty conscience?” Jules offered, the words bitter.
“He didn’t have one.” She said it with absolute certainty, a fact colder than stone. She stood up, wincing slightly as the movement pulled at the fresh tattoo. “I need air. Just… on the fire escape. I won’t go far.”
He wanted to say no. The text from her mother was a live wire in his pocket. But the look in her eyes, the sheer effort it took for her to remain in her own skin, stopped him.“Five minutes. I’ll be right here.”
She slipped past him, the scent of antiseptic ointment and salt from her tears lingering in her wake. He listened to the window in the living room slide up, the faint clang of her feet on the iron grating. He pulled out his phone and stared at her mother’s message. His thumb hovered over the keyboard, but he didn’t type a reply. Instead, he opened a different thread and sent a quick text: Need a sweep.My place. Possible eyes soon.
The reply was instant.On it.
He was pouring two fingers of whiskey when the apartment door buzzer shattered the quiet. It wasn’t the coded entry from the restaurant below. It was the street-level door. Sera’s head appeared at the top of the fire escape ladder, her eyes wide and questioning through the window.
“Get inside. Now,” Jules said, his voice low.
She scrambled in, pulling the window closed as the buzzer sounded again, insistent. He moved to the intercom panel by the door. “Yeah?”
“Baby, it’s me! My key’s not working. Did you change the locks again?” The voice was smooth, melodious, laced with a playful pout.
Lena.
Jules closed his eyes, a wave of sheer irritation tightening his jaw. He jabbed the button to unlock the downstairs door. “Perfect timing,” he muttered to the empty room.
Sera hovered by the couch, unconsciously pulling the hem of Jules’ old shirt further down her thighs. The sound of high heels clicking up the metal staircase grew louder, a staccato rhythm of impending drama.
The door swung open and Lena flowed in, a vision of curated chaos. She was all tousled chestnut hair, a leather jacket slung over one shoulder, and a suitcase that had clearly seen more airport carousels than pavement. She dropped the suitcase with a thud and beamed, her perfume—a dense cloud of jasmine, bergamot, and something smoky—filling the small space instantly.
“Surprise!” she sang, then her eyes landed on Sera. They flickered, just for a microsecond, taking in the girl’s bare legs, the oversized shirt, the defensive posture. Her smile didn’t falter, but it hardened at the edges. “Oh. Hello.”
“Lena, this is Sera. My niece,” Jules said, the words deliberately heavy. “Sera, this is Lena. She was… out of town.”
“Hi,” Sera managed, her voice small. The perfume was cloying, invasive. It coated the back of her throat.
“The niece!” Lena’s expression melted into one of theatrical warmth. She crossed the room, her heels echoing, and grasped Sera’s stiff hands. “Julian has told me so little about you. Just that you were staying for a bit. I’m so sorry about… well, whatever it was.”
Sera extracted her hands, taking a subtle step back. The smell was now mingling with the scent of coffee Jules had made hours ago. Jasmine, bergamot, coffee. It was a specific, horrifying combination. It was the scent of the room where they’d anointed her, where the incense had swirled as Damien explained the sacred geometry of her sacrifice. Her breath hitched.
Lena seemed not to notice. She turned her full attention to Jules, closing the distance between them. She draped her arms over his shoulders, leaning into his space. “I missed you, you know. Tokyo was endless meetings. Dreadfully boring.” She planted a firm, possessive kiss on his mouth.
Jules didn’t reciprocate. He stood rigid, his hands at his sides. Over Lena’s shoulder, he saw Sera’s face drain of color. She was staring at them, but her eyes were unfocused, looking through them to some other place.
“Lena,” he said, his voice a warning rumble as he gently but firmly pushed her back by the shoulders.
“What? Can’t a girl welcome her man home?” Lena laughed, a tinkling sound that grated. She ran a hand down his chest. “You’re tense. I can help with that.”
“Not now,” he bit out. “And we talked about this. You don’t just show up.”
“I texted! You didn’t answer.” She pouted, finally glancing back at Sera, who was now gripping the back of the couch, her knuckles white. “Oh, don’t be shy on my account, sweetie. I’m sure you’ve seen worse.”
Something in Sera snapped. The cloying perfume, the kiss, the casual dismissal—it was a钥匙 turning in a lock deep in her trauma. The room seemed to tilt, the peeling floral wallpaper morphing into dark stone. She heard a low, rhythmic chanting underneath Lena’s voice.
“I… I need to…” Sera stammered, pushing off from the couch. She stumbled towards the hallway, towards the bathroom.
“Is she okay?” Lena asked, her tone dipping from playful to mildly annoyed. “She looks a little peaky.”
Jules watched Sera flee. A cold, sharp fury ignited in his chest. He took a step back, putting clear space between himself and Lena. “What are you doing here, Lena?”
“I told you. I came home.” She shrugged, dropping her jacket onto his armchair. “To my boyfriend. To our place.”
“This is not our place. It’s my place. And we are not together. We are off. Permanently off.” His words were clipped, precise, each one a nail.
“You don’t mean that.” She waved a hand, but her confidence was cracking. “We always cycle back, Jules. You know we do. It’s our thing.”
“Our thing is over.” He pointed a finger towards the door. “You need to leave. Right now.”
Lena’s smile finally vanished. Her eyes narrowed, flicking between him and the hallway where Sera had disappeared. A new, ugly understanding dawned on her face.“Oh my god. Is that it? She’s not really your niece, is she? All this time you were giving me shit about ‘space’ and ‘boundaries’, and you’ve got some barely-legal thing playing house in your shirt—”
The change in Jules was instantaneous and terrifying. His casual slouch vanished. His shoulders squared, his head lowered slightly, and his eyes turned flat and dark. He didn’t raise his voice. It dropped, becoming lethally quiet.“Finish that sentence. I dare you.”
The air froze. Lena took an involuntary step back, seeing the man she’d only heard rumors about. “Jules…”
“You do not,” he said, advancing a single step, “come into my home. You do not insult her. You do not touch me. You are a guest who wasn’t invited, and your welcome just expired.” He picked up her leather jacket and held it out. “Get out.”
“You’re serious.”
“I have never been more serious in my life. If you ever come near her, if you ever so much as say her name again, the part of your life you enjoy? It ends.” He tossed the jacket at her. It hit her in the chest. “Out.”
Lena fumbled with the jacket, her face a mask of shock and fury. She looked like she wanted to argue, to scream, but the look in his eyes stripped her of all courage. She snatched up her suitcase. “You’re a bastard, Julian Valois.”
“I know,” he said, holding the door open. “Now you know, too.”
She stomped out, the sound of her heels descending the stairs fading into a furious, fading tattoo. Jules slammed the door shut and locked it. He leaned his forehead against the cool wood for a second, mastering the rage that still vibrated through him.
Then he went to find Sera.
She wasn’t in the bathroom. He found her in her room, sitting on the floor in the corner, her arms locked around her knees. She was rocking slightly, her breathing a rapid, shallow pant. The window was open a crack, letting in the cold night air to fight the lingering trace of perfume.
He didn’t approach. He knelt on the floor several feet away, keeping his posture open, non-threatening. “She’s gone.”
Sera didn’t look at him. “The perfume,” she whispered. “It was the same.As the incense. I couldn’t… I couldn’t get the smell out of my head.”
“It’s gone now. I’ll burn sage if I have to.”
A choked, almost-laugh escaped her. “She’s your girlfriend?”
“Was.A long time ago. It’s… complicated. But it’s over. I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Sera finally lifted her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry. “You were scary.”
“Sometimes I need to be.”
They sat in silence for a long moment. The distant wail of a siren filtered in from the street. Sera uncurled a little. “My mom texted you.”
It wasn’t a question.He nodded. “She’s worried. With the news about Damien… they might start looking for you more actively. To ask questions.”
“I can’t see them. Not yet.” A fresh panic edged her voice.
“I know. Which is why we might need to take a trip for a few days. Just until things settle. There’s a place up north, by the water.Quiet. Belongs to a friend.” He watched her carefully, gauging her reaction. The idea of another new place, another disruption.
Sera looked around her little room, at the cracked mirror and the thrift-store furniture. It was a sad, cramped space, but it was hers. The first place that had felt remotely safe in over a year. She thought of the phoenix, still bandaged and tender on her skin, a declaration of a new self hidden under gauze.
She took a deep, shuddering breath, pulling in the clean, cold air from the window.She met his eyes. “Okay. When do we leave?”
“Now,” Jules said, the word cutting through the lingering scent of perfume and panic. “Pack light. Just what you need.”
They moved in a tense, efficient silence. Sera shoved jeans, her few shirts, and her sketchbook into a worn duffel. She paused, her fingers brushing over the bandage on her hip, the phoenix a secret warmth beneath. She packed the tube of ointment Leto had given her. Jules’ packing was faster, more methodical: a black tactical bag filled with clothes, a locked metal case whose contents she didn’t ask about, and a worn leather jacket.
“We’ll swing by the restaurant,” he said, shouldering his bag. “Grab some cash from the safe. Check in with Roxy.”
The back office of the restaurant felt claustrophobic at two in the morning. The neon from the empty dining room bled through the blinds, painting stripes across Roxy’s worried face. “You two look like hell warmed over,” she said, handing Jules a thick envelope.
“We’re taking a breather up north,” Jules said, stuffing the envelope inside his jacket. “A week, maybe two. Hold down the fort.”
Roxy’s eyes flicked to Sera, who was leaning against the doorframe, staring at a faded poster for a band that had broken up a decade ago. “You okay, kid?”
Sera nodded, not trusting her voice. The news about Damien felt like a ghost in the room with them.
As they turned to leave, the back door opened and two of Jules’ men stepped in, their expressions grim. The taller one, Kaito, gave a slight nod. “Boss. We did the sweep like you asked. Found something.”
Jules went still. “What?”
“A woman. Blonde, well-dressed. She was at your apartment building earlier, asking the super about a young female tenant. Said she was a relative doing a welfare check.” Kaito’s voice was flat. “Then she came here, maybe an hour ago. Peered in the windows. Took a picture of the posted hours.”
Sera’s blood turned to ice. Her mother. The clinical, persistent curiosity that had always felt like an interrogation.
Jules’ jaw tightened. “You talk to her?”
“No. She left before we could make her. You want us to find her?”
“No.” The word was final. “That’ll just lead her right to us. We’re gone. You see her again, you’re closed for renovations, you don’t know me, you never heard of Sera. Clear?”
“Clear, boss.”
The train station was a cavern of echoing footsteps and stale, recycled air. They boarded a nearly empty car, sitting apart in worn cloth seats that smelled of disinfectant. Sera watched the neon-lit cityscape bleed into sprawling suburbs, then into dark, anonymous fields. She rested her forehead against the cool glass, the rhythmic clacking of the tracks a numb, hypnotic beat.
They switched to a bus at a dingy terminal, its interior lit by a sickly yellow glow. The passengers were a collection of shadows, sleeping fitfully or staring at their phones. Jules sat beside her, a solid, silent presence. His arm rested along the back of her seat, not touching her, a barrier against the rest of the world.
Hours later, in a grey dawn, they got off in a town that was little more than a crossroads. A short walk led them to a private garage. Inside, a dark, decently-sized SUV sat waiting, keys in the visor. Jules loaded their bags into the trunk, mostly necessities, the metal case going in last with a solid thud.
He drove. The world outside became forests and rocky coastline, the air through his cracked window sharp with salt and pine. Sera finally slept, her head lolling against the window seal, her short hair mussed.
He woke her gently as dusk fell again. “Hotel for the night. Can’t drive straight through.”
The room was generic and clean, two queen beds with stiff floral spreads. The silence felt different here, charged with the exhaustion of their flight and the weight of everything unsaid.
“You first,” he said, nodding to the bathroom.
Sera showered in a blur of steam, washing away the grit of travel. The plastic wrap over her tattoo had held. She dried off and pulled on a thin, worn tank top and a pair of plain cotton panties, her bare legs still damp. She climbed into the bed farthest from the door, pulling the blankets up to her chin.
She heard the shower run, the muffled sound of water hitting tile. When he emerged, dressed in a pair of low-slung sweatpants, the room felt smaller. He turned off the main light, leaving the television on low, a news channel muttering about a storm system out at sea. He took the other bed.
Sera pretended to sleep. She listened to the rustle of fabric as he shifted, the low murmur of the TV. The digital clock on the nightstand glowed 2:17 AM. Her body was tired but her mind raced, a torrent of her mother’s face, Damien’s smile on the news, the crushing scent of Lena’s perfume.
Sometime in the deep night, the trapped heat became unbearable. She kicked the blankets off in her sleep, one leg splaying out, then the other. The cool air of the room washed over her bare skin from the thighs down.
Jules had not been sleeping. He’d been watching the weather radar loop on the screen, thinking about garages and safe houses and blonde women asking questions. His gaze drifted to her. The blue light of the television played over the smooth skin of her legs, the curve of her hip under the thin cotton, the vulnerable line where her tank top had ridden up.
He let out a slow, controlled breath. Then he got up.
The mattress dipped behind her. She stirred, not fully awake, as his body settled against hers. His warmth was immediate, solid. His hand, calloused and heavy, came to rest on her hip. Then it began to move, a slow, deliberate caress down the outside of her thigh. His touch was teasing, sensual, mapping the territory of her skin.
A pulse of pure, startled heat flared between her legs. She didn’t open her eyes, but her breathing changed. She shifted, a subtle arch of her back, and spread her legs just an inch. An invitation.
He took it. His hand slid up the inside of her thigh now, higher, until his palm cupped her over her panties. He rubbed her there, a slow, circular pressure through the dampening cotton. A low sound escaped her throat.
He cuddled closer, his chest to her back, and she could feel the hard line of his arousal against her. His lips brushed the shell of her ear, his voice a dark, dominant whisper. “You’re so eager, baby girl. Soaked for me already. You think you can be quiet?”
She began grinding back against his hand, desperately seeking more friction, more pressure. “Please,” she breathed, the word barely audible.
“Please what?” he whispered, his teeth grazing her earlobe.
“Jules… please.”
He shifted then, pulling his boxers down just enough. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her panties and drew them down, just below the curve of her ass. He freed himself, his length hard and hot against her skin. He ran the head of his cock along her entrance, a slow, maddening drag that made her gasp. Then he slid it up through her slick folds, coating himself in her, but he didn’t push inside.
The denial was exquisite torture. She pushed back against him, trying to impale herself, but he held her hip firm. “Jules, please, I need you. Please, just…”
“We can’t cross that line, baby girl,” he murmured, his voice thick with a strain that mirrored her own.
Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. “We’ve already crossed too many lines,” she begged, her voice breaking. “This won’t hurt anyone.”
He didn’t answer. He just kept that slow, torturous glide, letting her feel every inch of him against her, but never giving her what she craved.
With a frustrated sob, she flipped herself around in his arms. Before he could stop her, she straddled him, her knees on either side of his hips. She looked down at him, her face shadowed, her eyes glistening. “We have already crossed too many lines,” she repeated, her voice stronger now, pleading. “This one won’t matter.”
He looked up at her, his hands coming to rest on her waist, his thumbs stroking her bare skin. His resolve was a visible war in the tightness of his face. “Sera…”
She saw his hesitation. A new, desperate determination took hold. She leaned forward, her short hair falling around her face as she lowered her head. She took him into her mouth, her movements unpracticed but fueled by a frantic need to break his control.
She went down on him hard, with a focused intensity that shattered his restraint. A guttural groan was torn from him. His hands fisted in the sheets. “Fuck, Sera… stop…”
But she didn’t. She pushed him to the very edge, and then over it. With a sharp curse, he pulled her up by her shoulders, his body bowing off the bed. He lined himself up at her entrance, his hands shaking. The tip of him barely pressed inside, a searing, promising inch.
He came.
A harsh, ragged sound ripped from his chest. “Fuck!” he cursed, the word explosive in the quiet room. “God damn it.”
He collapsed back, his body trembling with the aftershocks, his face a mask of sheer, hot embarrassment. He was a man who prided himself on control, in every facet of his life. This was a loss of it he hadn’t experienced since he was a teenager. He couldn’t even look at her.
“Fuck,” he whispered again, the anger directed inward. In one abrupt motion, he pulled out of her and rolled off the bed, striding quickly to the bathroom and locking the door behind him.
Sera was left on the tangled bed, soaking with his release, her body still throbbing with unmet need. She heard the shower turn on. She slowly drew her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees, staring at the closed bathroom door. The blue TV light flickered over the empty space where he had been.