I still wear my wedding ring — not out of grief, but because it feels wrong to slip it off under his watch. He’s my husband’s brother: the man who arrived three days after the funeral and never left. He didn’t ask if I needed help. He moved in, took over the house, the dog, my bed.

Now he stands in the doorway of our bedroom and looks at me like I’m prey. Rain ticks the glass. The room smells faintly of smoke and cheap cologne.

“You can’t keep pretending,” he says, voice low and even. “You feel it too. This thing between us.”

My throat tightens. My hands want to do something — anything — but they hang limp at my sides.

He steps closer. Close enough that I can count the way his jaw flexes. “I know you touch yourself at night,” he says, calm as if naming the weather. “I hear you. I smell you. You want me, sweetheart. Admit it.”

“You’re insane,” I manage.

A slow smirk lifts one side of his mouth. “No. I’m inevitable.” He reaches out and tucks a stray curl behind my ear, his fingers brushing my skin like a promise. “Say yes. Or I’ll start taking what’s mine without permission.”

The words fall between us like a sentence. My pulse is loud enough to be a threat.