Chapter 182: The Sister Has Entered the Chat
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I frowned, still holding the glass. The thin rim pressed against my fingertips, colder than it had any right to be in the warm air of the apartment. "Better?"
"This dorm."
She looked toward the window. Evening light spilled through the glass in long, honey-colored bars, catching the sharp line of her profile and turning the edges of her dark hair almost bronze. For a moment she seemed less like a person who had just walked into my life uninvited and more like something painted—precise, deliberate, and slightly out of place against the ordinary furniture.
"I don’t understand why Damien insists on staying somewhere like this."
I glanced around the apartment, trying to see it through the eyes of someone who clearly considered marble countertops and private rooms a form of mild exile. The open-plan kitchen gleamed under recessed lighting. The counters really were marble, cool, veined stone that still felt faintly luxurious under my palm whenever I set a mug down. Stainless-steel appliances hummed quietly. Beyond the living area, two bedroom doors stood closed, each leading to a private room with its own window and a decent amount of floor space. This was Preston Hall. The best student residence on campus. Most people would have killed for a place like this.
Somewhere like this?
If this didn’t cut it... just how wealthy were the Lockwoods?
I already knew the answer in theory. Billionaires. The kind of family whose name appeared in business journals and charity gala guest lists. But knowing it abstractly and standing in front of someone who treated marble and privacy as mediocre were two different things. The gap between those two realities suddenly felt wider than the room.
And then it clicked.
Brother, the eyes.
No wonder she looked familiar.
She resembled Damien enough that I was surprised I hadn’t seen it sooner. The same shape to the gaze...cool, assessing, capable of taking in an entire space without seeming to search for anything. The same controlled way of occupying a room, as if the air itself made room for her rather than the other way around. Even the slight tilt of her head when she considered something mirrored his. The resemblance wasn’t identical, but it was unmistakable once you noticed it.
Which raised an unsettling question. Why had Damien never mentioned having a sister?
I walked over and handed her the glass. The simple gesture felt oddly formal given the circumstances, like I was serving tea to a visiting dignitary rather than offering water to someone who had just appeared in my living room.
"Here."
She took it with a slight nod. "Thank you."
Her fingers brushed mine for half a second—cool, manicured, steady. She didn’t smile when she said it. The words were polite, but they carried the same careful distance as everything else about her.
I sat down across from her. The chair creaked under me like it suddenly had something to say, the sound sharp in the quiet that had settled between us. I folded my hands in my lap, then unfolded them again, unsure what to do with the sudden weight of her attention.
"I... uh, didn’t know Damien had a sister."
"I can see that."
She took a small sip before placing the glass carefully onto the coaster I’d put down earlier. Her motions were precise enough to suggest that even accepting a drink required a specific standard—set the glass down exactly in the center, release it without a sound, straighten her posture afterward as if the act itself needed to be completed correctly.
"I’m glad to meet you."
She smiled, but it wasn’t warm. It was the kind of smile people wear during business negotiations while already strategizing their next three moves. Polished. Measured. Completely unreadable.
"Curious."
"What is?"
"Damien has never mentioned you."
The words landed harder than they probably should have. A quiet reminder that whatever was happening between Damien and me existed in a different universe from the one his family inhabited. I had spent enough time with him to feel like I knew the shape of his days—the way he texted, the way he came home late with takeout, the rare moments when the carefully maintained distance between us thinned. None of that, apparently, had made it into whatever conversations he had with the people who shared his blood.
"...Oh."
"I suppose that makes us even."
Silence stretched between us, less like a pause and more like a test. The kind of silence that waited to see who would flinch first. Outside, the last of the daylight was fading; the streetlights hadn’t kicked on yet, so the room sat in that in-between hour where everything looked slightly softer and more uncertain.
I couldn’t help but wonder, if Damien never mentioned me, how the heck did she even know my name when I said I was Damien’s roommate? The thought sat uneasily at the back of my mind. I was about to ask, but Dianne was the first to break the silence, shifting comfortably into the role of interviewer.
"So."
She crossed one leg over the other, the movement elegant and unhurried. The fabric of her trousers made a soft sound as it settled. She rested one hand lightly on her knee, the other still near the glass she had set down.
"Which family are you from?"
"...Excuse me?"
"What do your parents do?"
This felt like an interview I hadn’t signed up for, and one I was pretty sure I was failing. The questions came without preamble, delivered in the same calm tone she might have used to inquire about the weather or the time. Why did she feel the need to know? We had just met five minutes ago, for crying out loud. The apartment still smelled faintly of the takeout containers from last night and the coffee I’d burned that morning. There was nothing about this setting that suggested formal introductions or lineage checks.
"My dad..."
I hesitated. The straightforward answer suddenly felt like it needed more context than it should. Like it required footnotes and explanations and a whole history I didn’t feel like unpacking for a stranger who already looked at me as if she had already decided what category I belonged in.
"He used to work in a factory."
Before I could add anything—before I could mention the long shifts, the calloused hands, the way he still checked the news every morning like the world might rearrange itself overnight—she let out a soft laugh. Light. Almost musical. And somehow more cutting than if she’d raised her voice.
"Oh." She tilted her head. The evening light caught the edge of her earring. "So you’re not from any important family."
Something inside me snapped. Not loudly. Just enough to make the polite version of me step aside and leave the less careful one standing in its place.
I frowned, the exhaustion of the day mixing with her subtle condescension, leaving little room for careful wording. The glass of water on the table between us suddenly looked like the only ordinary thing left in the room.
"My family’s unimportant?"
She raised an eyebrow. The movement was small, but it carried the weight of someone who had been raised never to raise their voice and therefore had learned to communicate everything with the smallest possible gestures.
"I didn’t say they were."
"You implied it."
I crossed my arms, feeling defensive more than I intended. The fabric of my sleeves pulled tight across my shoulders.
"Just because my family isn’t royalty or wealthy and all that stupid shit doesn’t mean they aren’t important."
The corner of her mouth lifted. Amusement danced in her eyes, quiet, controlled, almost fond in a way that felt worse than open disdain. As if my irritation was some kind of performance she had seen before and found mildly entertaining.
"Oh my..." She looked almost entertained. "You’re quite the rude one, aren’t you?"
I actually laughed. The sound came out sharper than usual, edged with something that wasn’t quite humor. "You should see me when I’m really trying to be rude."
"I don’t doubt it."
"I also don’t appreciate people looking down on me or on my family."
"They’re simply facts."
"So?"
She smiled again, that cool, polished smile that never quite reached her eyes. "You’re proving my point."
"Oh?"
"You get emotional really easily."
"I’m just defending my dad."
"Exactly."
The word hung in the air between us, neat and final. I was ready to tell her exactly where she could take her expensive opinions. The words lined up behind my teeth with force, sharp, unfiltered, the kind that would probably get me into trouble later but felt necessary in the moment. My hands had curled into loose fists against my arms. The apartment felt smaller than it had five minutes ago.
But just then, the apartment door clicked open.
The sound of a key turning in the lock was followed by the soft shuffle of someone entering. The familiar scrape of the door against the frame. The quiet thud of a bag being set down.
"Sunshine, I’m home."
Damien stepped inside, carrying a bag from the convenience store. The plastic crinkled in his hand as he shifted his grip. He looked up, saw me, then Dianne.
Everything about him froze.
The warmth that had been in his face when he first stepped through the door vanished so rapidly it scared me a little like the guy who’d texted for me to come home only moments ago had been replaced by someone cold and completely composed. The change wasn’t dramatic. It was precise. Controlled. The same way a light switch flips and the entire room goes dark.
"...Dianne."
She stood up gracefully, the motion as precise as everything else about her. No sudden movements. No awkward scramble. Just a smooth rise to her feet, the kind of elegance that looked effortless because it had been practiced for years.
"Hello, little brother."
His icy blue eyes shifted from his sister to me.
The room felt a few degrees colder all of a sudden. The air that had been merely tense a moment ago now carried something heavier...And judging by the unreadable look on Damien’s face, the careful blankness that settled over features I had grown used to reading in quieter moments, things were about to get a lot more complicated.
Finally Damien asked;
"What are you doing here?"