Chapter 9 Ronan
Ronan
Stupid.
I muttered it in my head with every step I took. Stupid for listening to him, stupid for following orders that weren’t Elias’s, stupid for not having killed him yet.
And yet here I was, spending the first half of my day searching for him. I checked the waterfront first, then that bookstore he liked, the market, then the cafe tucked under the awning with the peeling blue paint.
And when none of those turned up anything, I should’ve taken the hint and gone home. Should’ve told myself I was free from whatever invisible choke chain he’d looped around my neck.
Instead, I kept looking.
And when I finally saw him—tall, calm, perfectly put-together—my gut twisted hard.
My feet slowed, my pulse drumming unevenly against my ribs. His back was to me at first, the fall of his jacket clean and sharp, his hands resting in his pockets.
Elias wanted me to play the game, and I’d promised myself I would. Smile softly, voice unsteady; sell the story of wanting out, building on our last talk. But I already knew the second Wes turned those steady eyes on me, the words would twist and get stuck in my throat.
Because Elias had never looked at me the way Wes did.
I hung back for a beat, half-hidden by a crowd of tourists with maps of the city stretched out in their hands. My chest felt too tight, like I’d swallowed glass, sharp edges pressing outward every time I tried to breathe.
What the fuck was I doing?
Every time I saw him, my chest rattled with something I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t lust, not exactly, but it wasn’t fear either.
It was the way his voice stayed calm while he bent me with a single word. The way his hand had brushed the back of my chair, just lightly enough to feel like possession without pressure. The way my body had leaned into it before my brain could scream no.
Elias had never needed to be subtle. He’d used fists, chains, the kind of cold praise that left you hollow after. He called me “good boy,” but what he meant was “obedient tool.”
His deadly marionette.
But when Wes praised me, it felt like the world tilted on its side. It felt like my heart would burst.
I knew better. God, I knew better.
Still, when he turned just slightly, starting to walk off from the coffee stand on the corner, his profile cutting sharply against the crowd, I felt my breath stumble. My knees buzzed, restless, like they remembered what it felt like to be under his gaze and wanted more. Much more.
It was terrifying.
My life had been so much easier without this never-ending ache in my chest.
I forced my feet to keep moving, following behind as he leisurely strolled through downtown.
If I could only finish the job, maybe I could stop the ache.
Stop these feelings.
Fuck Elias’s plan. It was time to end this.
And this was my chance. He was away from the crowd now, slipping into one of the narrower side streets that spiderwebbed off the main road.
Tourists never strayed this far. The vendors thinned out, the noise died down, and soon we were left with the quiet slap of our footsteps against the damp pavement.
My pulse drummed in my ears. This is it. Do it. Now.
I quickened my pace. My knife was warm in my palm, thumb brushing the familiar grooves in the hilt. One clean strike between the ribs, and order would snap back into place. I’d be myself again.
I lunged.
But he spun fast—too fast. My blade cut across his side instead of sinking deep, a too-shallow slash that bloomed red against his shirt.
His hand clamped my wrist before I could adjust, grip iron, twisting.
Pain shot up my arm, but I snarled and slammed my shoulder into him, shoving him back against the brick wall.
He didn’t grunt, didn’t curse. He just looked at me, even as my knife hovered at his ribs, even as his other hand fisted in my sweater and yanked me closer.
“Finally,” he murmured, breath brushing my cheek. “Thought you might never try.”
My chest heaved. “Shut up,” I growled.
The knife pressed harder, but my hand trembled. His eyes flicked down, catching it, and when they lifted again, there was something dark and knowing in them.
“You’re shaking.”
“Because I—” I bit it off, shoving him harder against the wall. My thigh pressed between his legs. Too close. Too—God, it was wrong. This was all wrong.
His grip tightened on my wrist until the knife wavered, the tip dragging against his shirt. He leaned in, voice low and commanding, cutting through my growing panic like a wire pulled taut.
“Do it, then. If you can.”
The world narrowed to the heat of him against me, the sharp edge of his stare, the thud of our hearts colliding in the small space between our chests.
I hated him. I hated that I could feel his breath mix with mine, hated that my body betrayed me with a quiver that had nothing to do with fear.
“Fuck you,” I spat, but my voice broke on it.
His lips curved, slow and deliberate. “That’s the plan.”
The knife slipped in my grip, not from his strength but from mine faltering. And in that instant, with my arm twisted, my body caged against his, I realized with sick, sinking clarity—
I couldn’t kill him.
I didn’t want to seduce him, or trick him, or anything of the sort.
I wanted something much worse.
The blade was still between us, caught awkwardly in my hand, pressed against his ribs. One twitch could end it. One slip, one surge of willpower.
But Wes’s eyes held me there, like gravity itself had taken his side. Calm, unflinching, daring me to try.
“Go on,” he said, voice steady as stone. “If that’s what you really want.”
My throat closed. It is. It is. It has to be.
I pushed harder, but not enough to pierce.
My wrist trembled, and he felt it—of course, he did.
His grip tightened, forcing my hand just slightly higher, just slightly off course, so the knife was at his chest instead of his ribs.
Close enough that if my arm gave out, it would be his heart that I pierced.
“You’re hesitating,” he murmured. “Do you know what hesitation means?”
“Shut up,” I snarled, though it came out raw, ragged.
“It means you’ve already made a decision.”
Heat ripped through me—anger, shame, something else knotted so deep I couldn’t name it. I shoved into him harder, my chest slamming against his. The knife shook in my grip, still poised, still unspilled.
His lips brushed the shell of my ear, his breath maddeningly calm. “You don’t want to kill me. You want to see what happens if you don’t.”
My head spun. My body felt split between two hungers—end this, or surrender to something far more dangerous.
“Say it,” he coaxed, not demanding, not mocking, just steady, patient. “Say you want to.”
“I don’t—” My voice cracked. My fingers slipped on the hilt.
“Yes, you do.”
His certainty burned worse than the cut on his side.
The knife hovered uselessly now, my strength bleeding out of me.
“You’re fucking insane,” I whispered.
His lips curved, almost a smile, though his voice stayed deadly quiet. “So are you, doll.”
The knife slipped the rest of the way from my fingers before I even realized I’d let it go. Wes caught my wrist and twisted, not hard enough to break, just enough to remind me who was stronger, to force a pained whimper from my throat.
The blade clattered to the pavement, echoing down the empty street.
My breath came in ragged bursts. I lunged to grab it back, but he flipped us, shoving me into the wall instead, forearm pressing across my chest, the rough brick biting through the back of my sweater.
“Pathetic,” I spat, trying to find my strength again. “You think you’ve won because you pinned me to a fucking wall?”
He leaned closer until his body caged mine in, his voice a low growl at my jaw. “I don’t think. I know.”
I twisted, tried to throw him off, but he only pushed harder. I could feel the warmth of his blood smearing against me. The smell of iron mixed with the faint spice of his cologne, and it made my stomach twist with a desperate need.
His fingers closed around my throat, and his thumb brushed lazily over the pulse hammering under my skin. “You’re shaking,” he repeated, as calm as if he were commenting on the weather.
“I’m not—” My denial cracked into a shocked hiss when he tilted his head, lips grazing just beneath my ear.
“You tried,” he murmured. “I’ll give you that. But deep down, you wanted me to stop you. Didn’t you?”
My nails dug into his arm, not pulling away, not pushing him closer either—caught in the paralysis of fury tangled with want. “No!”
His laugh was quiet. “Whatever you say, doll.”
He angled my chin up, making me look him in the eye. No smugness there, no softness either—just an unflinching control that stripped me bare. My lungs felt too small for the air I was dragging in.
“Stop calling me that,” I shakily said.
“Would you like me to call you something else?” he asked. His grip tightened at my throat just enough to make the air thin, then eased again—a rhythm that left me dizzy. “Good boys,” he said, voice like a brand searing through me, “don’t disobey twice.”
The pressure at my throat eased, only for Wes to catch both my wrists and slam them above my head against the wall.
His body pressed flush to mine, his weight solid, unyielding.
I bucked against him, a snarl tearing out of me, but the movement only rubbed heat into the sharp line of his thigh between mine.
“Still fighting,” he murmured, tone almost fond. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from my boy.”
My chest heaved. “What?! I’m not your boy! I’m not your anything.”
“Yes,” he countered, his mouth brushing the corner of mine, “you are. You proved it the second you dropped the knife.”
I should’ve spit in his face. Should’ve cursed him, clawed until I drew blood. Instead, I gasped when his hand fisted in my hair, yanking my head back to bare my throat. His lips trailed the exposed line slowly, teeth scraping just enough to make my knees threaten to give.
“You’re still trembling,” he whispered against my pulse.