Kendra’s POV
When we stepped back inside, the energy had shifted.
At first, I thought maybe I was imagining it, that the ringing in my ears was from the heat still coursing through my body. But no. The music had stopped. The laughter. The hum of conversation. All of it gone.
Everyone was staring toward the door.
Even the band stood awkwardly with their instruments half-lowered, the silence stretching too long, too heavy.
“What’s going on?” I whispered, but no one answered.
Footsteps echoed in from the front of the room, heavy and deliberate. Then I saw him.
Tall. Broad. Moving like the room already belonged to him. He wore a charcoal suit that fit his thick frame too well to be off-the-rack. His shoulders were wider than Scott’s, his face older, more severe, but just as unreadable.
