Page 3 of Their Arrangement
Then twenty-seven.
No one spoke to me. No one offered water. My phone stayed silent. The cracked screen lit up once with a calendar notification I didn’t remember setting.
My back ached. My feet throbbed. And I started to wonder if this was the first test. If this humiliation was step one in their evaluation.
I stood and walked back to the receptionist.
“Excuse me,” I said, voice barely holding. “I’ve been waiting a while, and I?—”
She looked up, mid-call. Annoyed.
“Name again?”
“Cloe. Cloe Woods.”
Her eyes sharpened slightly. Not with familiarity. With realization.
“Oh.” A pause. “You’re expected. Go ahead. Last door.”
She nodded to the far end of the hall. No apology. No warmth. Just a flick of her fingers.
I walked.
Each step dragged like it was being pulled from my bones.
And when I reached the door, my hand trembled as I curled my fingers around the handle.
Barron. Wolfe. Royal. Loyal.
They were on the other side of this door.
The last people in the world who had loved Camille.
The only people left who remembered me.
The men I was about to beg.
Then I turned the knob and stepped inside.
Silence met me. Sharp and immediate. Not the kind that welcomed you into stillness—but the kind that warned you, the kind that bristled like a live wire.
The office was cavernous, drenched in mid-morning light pouring in through floor-to-ceiling windows. Glass stretched behind them like the wall of a cathedral—only instead of stained glass, it was clean and cold, offering a sweeping view of the skyline. There were no signs of clutter. No hint of softness. Just hard edges and white walls and the weight of silence thick enough to drown in.
And at the center of it, like kings at a war table, sat the four Lawlor brothers.
They were as beautiful as they were brutal. And every one of them looked at me like I was a memory they’d tried to bury.
Barron sat at the head of the desk, a throne more than a chair, a statement more than a seat. Black-on-black suit, no tie. His storm-gray eyes were the same—unblinking, unreadable. He didn’t look surprised. Didn’t look angry.
He just stared like I was a risk he hadn’t decided whether to take.
Royal lounged across from him with one ankle propped on his knee, drink in hand. He wore his grin like armor, all sin and teeth. His eyes dragged down my body in a slow, deliberate pass—from my worn shoes to the curls pinned too high on my head—like he was already bored by the sight of me and was daring me to try and change his mind.
Wolfe stood apart, leaning against the far glass, arms crossed. His dark shirt strained at the shoulders, sleeves rolled to his elbows, exposing forearms lined with tension. He didn’t look at me at first. Didn’t have to.
Because even from the corner, I could feel him watching.
Loyal was the only one who moved.
