#####Chapter 3

Elena

I didn't want to let him in. Every instinct I possessed was screaming that Damien Russo represented a complication I didn't need. But he was holding Thai food, and he was Liam's brother, and I was apparently the kind of woman who made bad decisions when emotionally vulnerable.

"Just for a minute," I said.

He smiled. It was a rare thing, I could tell—the kind of smile that made the sharp lines of his face soften into something almost dangerous in a different way. He wore dark jeans and a black henley that stretched across his chest like it had surrendered to the task of containing him.

When did Liam's brother become so... large?

I'd seen Damien at family events over the years. He'd always been there in the background, separate from the chaos of Liam and his parents' drama. Rosa doted on him with the particular desperation of a mother trying to compensate for something unspoken. Liam rarely mentioned him, and when he did, it was with a kind of resentment that suggested old childhood wounds.

But I'd never really *seen* Damien. Not like this.

"The place on Morrison," he said, setting the food on my small kitchen counter. "Liam mentioned you loved their panang curry. Extra spicy, no cashews."

I froze. "How would Liam—"

"I know things about your life," Damien said simply. He started pulling containers from the bag with an ease that suggested he'd been in people's homes, arranging their meals, controlling their space for a long time. "He talks about you constantly. Obsessively. I also looked you up."

That sentence should have been alarming. Instead, I felt something warm and unsettling bloom in my chest.

"That's not weird at all," I said flatly.

He glanced at me, and there was something knowing in his expression. "You're being sarcastic."

"Just slightly."

"You do that when you're uncomfortable. Liam mentioned that too." He pulled out a chair at my small kitchen table. "Sit."

I didn't sit. I remained standing with my arms crossed, which was apparently my default when confused or attracted to something I shouldn't be attracted to.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"Because my brother is having a breakdown, and my mother is worried about him, and you're the most important person in his life, and yet you told him you needed a break. And because..." He paused, and I watched something flash behind his eyes. "I'm curious."

"About what?"

"About the woman who's important enough to Liam that losing her sends him into a spiral, but not important enough for him to actually fight for."

The accuracy of that statement hit something deep and wounded in me.

"You don't know anything about our relationship," I said.

"I know that you've been in love with him since high school," Damien said, and there was no judgment in his voice, which somehow made it worse. "I know that he uses you as an emotional dumping ground while dating other women. I know that you came to his apartment at three in the morning last month and sat in your car for two hours waiting for him to come home because he'd drunk-texted you about Jessica. I know that you haven't been in a relationship longer than three months since I've been old enough to pay attention, because nobody wants to compete with the ghost of a man who doesn't even know he's haunting you."

I felt my throat close up.

"Fuck you," I said quietly.

"You want to," he said, and there was something like a smile in his voice. "But you're not going to. You're going to sit down, eat the curry I brought, and tell me why you finally decided to stop drowning yourself for someone who was never worth the cost."

I should have thrown him out. I should have been furious. Instead, I sat down. Artemis, traitor that she was, immediately jumped onto Damien's lap, and he started stroking her like they were old friends, like he understood cats better than humans, like he was comfortable with silence and presence in a way that made Liam's constant chatter feel like panic.

"He doesn't love me," I said finally, after I'd eaten half the curry without tasting it. "Not romantically. He never did. And it took me fifteen years to decide that wasn't good enough anymore."

"Took you some of the smartest, most painful years of your life," Damien corrected. "But yes. That's what happened."

"How do you know all of this about me?" I asked. "Liam wouldn't have told you. He barely mentions you at all."

"Because I have a security firm, and my brother is..." Damien paused, choosing his words carefully. "Complicated. I keep tabs on people he's close to. It's not personal. It's professional paranoia."

"That's insane."

"Probably," he agreed. He was still petting Artemis, and she was purring like she'd found religion. "My job is understanding threats before they arrive. It makes me methodical about knowing things. About knowing people."

"And what have you determined about me?" I asked. "Now that you've investigated my entire life?"

He turned to look at me fully, and the intensity of his attention was like being caught in a spotlight. His eyes were darker than Liam's—not warm brown but something closer to black, with an intensity that made me understand why mothers worried about men like Damien. Not because they were bad, necessarily, but because they were *intense*. Because they didn't accept easy answers or surface-level connections.

"I've determined," he said slowly, "that you're the most interesting thing in my family's orbit, and that Liam is an idiot for not recognizing it."

My heart did something that definitely wasn't healthy.

"That's not appropriate," I said.

"No," he agreed. "It's not."

But he didn't apologize, and I didn't ask him to leave, and we sat in my small kitchen eating Thai food while the rain intensified outside and Artemis purred like a traitor between us.

When he finally stood to go, he stopped at the door.

"For what it's worth," he said, "you were right to end it. The safety net. You deserve to be someone's first choice, Elena. Not their backup plan."

After he left, I stood in my kitchen for an hour, trying to understand what had just happened. Trying to understand why his words made me feel seen in a way that fifteen years with Liam never had.

My phone buzzed.

Damien: In case you're wondering, I'm not leaving Portland for at least six months. And I don't give up on things that matter.

I stared at the message.

I should have been alarmed. I should have told him that I wasn't interested in complicated. But I'd just ended a fifteen-year friendship because I was tired of being uncomplicated.

So instead, I did something dangerous.

I saved his number.