9. Ellie
ELLIE
Rain taps against the window, a persistent drumming that finally pulls me from sleep. Nathan’s gone. The relief hits me before my conscience has a chance to catch up. Making myself smaller so he can feel bigger. I’ve been doing that for months. Not with Killian. With Nathan.
The weight of that performance is gone.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. Three texts from him.
Nathan: You’re making the biggest mistake of your life.
Nathan: When this blows up in your face, don’t come crying to me. I won’t be there to pick up the pieces.
Nathan: You’ll regret choosing a criminal over someone who actually cared about your future.
I stare at the screen. I should feel something. Guilt, frustration, anything. But there’s a void where the obligation used to be. I block his number and delete the thread.
Nothing. Zero. Fucking. Guilt.
I put the phone face down on the nightstand and listen to the house. He’s finally gone. He’s out of my room, out of my life, and the only thing I can hear is the rain against the glass. I’m finished.
The house is too open. Nathan was never the reason for my sleepless mornings.
It was the man downstairs. I’ve watched him through the cracked gym door twice.
Watching him sweat, his muscles pulling and bunching under the scars on his back.
Both times I told myself it was professional curiosity.
Both times I stood there until my coffee went cold.
I pull on the navy skirt and silk blouse, my fingers moving by habit. I check my reflection and see the same face. Everything is in its place, but the composure I usually depend on is nowhere to be found.
Downstairs, he’s in the kitchen, his back to me. Already making coffee. My stomach flips the moment I see him.
I breathe in the scent of the house: dark roast and rain. And underneath it, the smell of damp leather and whatever soap he uses.
“Sleep better once you got back to bed?” he asks, his head tilting just enough to show he’s watching my reflection in the window.
I did. Better than I had in months. The noise in my head has stopped. I feel peaceful. Settled. A sensation so foreign I don't know what to do with it.
I watch him pour the coffee. This kitchen is different at three a.m. His big hand over mine. His voice rough and low when he talks about his grandmother. I’m thinking about it as he turns to hand me my cup.
"Yes, actually. Thank you." I take the coffee. When our fingers brush, heat climbs to my face. My skin still tingles when I take the first sip. It's exactly how I like it. I don't remember telling him that.
“I think we should try a different approach in today’s session.”
His stormy eyes fix on me with that unsettling intensity. “What kind of approach?”
“Less clinical. More open. Sometimes breakthroughs happen when we stop trying to force them.” I sip the coffee, tasting the bitter bite on my tongue. “I’m not interested in the facts in your file today, Killian. I want to know the real story behind you.”
“The real story isn’t something you’ll enjoy, Dr. Hart.”
“It’s Ellie.” The correction escapes before I register saying it. “In here, in private moments like this, it’s just Ellie.”
His eyes catch mine, darker now, pupils pulling wide, tracing the bridge of my nose, my lips. He nods once. “Ellie.”
We move to the office. I avoid the desk and sit in the armchair across from him. I want to be close enough to see the way he breathes.
“Tell me about being fifteen, before the choices that led you here.”
He looks out the window. For a moment, he’s gone. His face is a mask of stillness.
“Hungry,” he says finally. “Cold. Ninety-two days of sleeping in doorways before someone noticed me.”
“Someone found you?”
"He offered me twenty dollars and a coat.
I didn't care what was in the bag. I just wanted my stomach to stop aching.
He didn't look like a monster that first night.
" His laugh is bitter, aimed at himself.
"By the time I figured out what he was, I was already too deep to get out.
Or maybe I did. I just didn't want to go back to the doorways. "
He looks at me, and I can see the kid he was, the one who would've done anything just to be warm. I lean forward. I want to find out if his hands are as hard as they look.
"You were a child," I say. "Children can't be held responsible for survival decisions made by adults."
“Can’t they?” His eyes lock on mine, years of heavy self-hatred sitting there.
“Because I knew, Ellie. Maybe not the first night, but soon enough. I knew the packages carried things that hurt people. I knew it was blood money. And I kept taking it, because the alternative was starving alone in the rain.”
I've spent a career dissecting the mechanics of how men break. But this isn't data on a page. It's Killian, his fists curled on the armrests, and seventeen years of guilt sitting in the air between us.
“What was the alternative, really? Death?” I shake my head. “That isn’t a choice. That’s desperation. It was a failure of the system, not you.”
His throat works as he swallows, his jaw locking hard. He’s already pulling his distance back, the stone wall coming down behind his eyes before I can see what’s behind them.
"Why do you have so much faith in a man you’re supposed to be analyzing?"
“You could’ve become someone who took pleasure in the violence,” I tell him, my voice strengthening. “But you didn't. That self-awareness is the difference. It says more about who you are than what you had to do to survive.”
We sit in silence for a moment as he looks out into the garden. The vulnerability on his face hasn’t faded. My hands are restless around the coffee cup. I know this isn’t therapy anymore. It’s something I shouldn’t allow but can’t seem to stop.
“Why did you leave?” I ask. “After all those years, what made you finally break away?”
His body goes rigid. Every tendon in his neck strains, his fingers clenching and unclenching in his lap. It isn’t reluctance. It's a physical reaction to a memory that still has its teeth in him. The smug confidence he’s been hiding behind disappears. For a split second, he looks human.
“That’s a story for another day.” His voice is rougher than usual. He won’t look at me. Whatever broke him is still working on him.
“I’ll wait.” I offer him a small smile, letting the quiet settle. “When you’re ready.”
The flicker of surprise in his expression tells me no one has ever given him that kind of patience. He studies me for a long time, the silence humming with the shift in the room.
“Your turn,” he deflects. “What about the girl you were before your father’s death?”
The question catches me off guard, and for once, my training hasn't prepared a response. I’m already answering him before I can stop myself. Somewhere in the last three weeks, he stopped feeling like an assignment.
“Na?ve. Idealistic. I thought love and good intentions could fix anything.” I trace the rim of my cup, avoiding his eyes. “I believed in fairy tales. That good people were rewarded, and the world made sense.”
“And now?”
“Now I believe in second chances. That some people are worth saving, even when they don’t believe it themselves.” I finally look up, pinning his gaze. “And I believe that sometimes the most broken things can be the most beautiful when they’re put back together.”
I see the moment he realizes I’m not speaking in generalities. I’m talking about him.
“Ellie,” he says my name softly. It's a low vibration that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
Before I can think better of it, I reach across and cover his hand with mine. I feel him freeze. He stops breathing. His hands are massive compared to mine.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” He turns his palm, closing his fingers around mine.
“The same thing you’re doing to me,” I whisper, the words slipping out before I can stop them again.
In one motion, he’s on me. He pulls me out of the chair, my back hitting the wall behind us hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs as I wrap my legs around his waist, my arms locking behind his neck. His mouth crashes into mine.
“Do you have any idea?” he says against my lips. “How long I’ve been sitting across from you, starving for this?”
He rips my blouse open. The tiny pearl buttons scatter across the floor like hail.
It gapes open, and his eyes lock on my lace-covered breasts.
The power of his stare makes me feel both exposed and powerful at once.
His thumb traces over my nipple through the fabric, and I whimper as pleasure sparks through me as he drags his mouth lower toward my collarbone.
“Since the moment I saw you.”
I grab at his hoodie, fumbling to get it off. I need to feel skin. He yanks it over his head, and whatever I was going to say next dies. He's all dark ink and silver scars, muscle under my palms before I've even decided to reach for him.
Jesus Christ.
He shoves my skirt high and shreds the lace between my legs. I gasp as the material gives way, his fingers already finding me before the lace even hits the floor.
“This is my proof,” he growls, fingers circling my entrance without pushing in, a maddening tease. “Your body already knows what your mind is still fighting. It knows who it belongs to.”
He slides two fingers into me, and I moan into his shoulder. My hips tilt up to take more, my body failing me as his thumb finds my clit.
“I knew you’d be like this,” he mutters against my neck. “Exactly what I’ve imagined. Better, actually.”
I gasp, my head falling back against the wall as I arch into his hand, seeking more friction. If this is what he imagined, I’m done fighting it. I pull his head back to mine, my mouth hitting his as I drag my nails down his back. I need him. All of him.