13. Killian
KILLIAN
I haven’t slept, and I know I won’t. Instead, I lie in the gray predawn light and listen to the house settle, analyzing every creak of the floorboards and every distant muffled footstep that might signal the approach of what’s coming for us.
Outside, Gabe’s size thirteens thud on the porch with a heavy, rhythmic weight, a stark contrast to the constant, frantic typing coming from the dining room where Jackson has successfully colonized Ellie’s elegant table.
In the kitchen, Kai is moving through the cabinets, whistling softly as if preparing for a massacre is just another day in an otherwise unremarkable week.
Well, for us, it is.
In less than forty-eight hours, I’ve systematically turned Ellie’s sanctuary into a reflection of my own mind.
It’s a trap now. A killing ground with weapons cached behind the bathroom mirror and the kitchen pantry, and motion-activated sensors threaded through the jasmine vines outside.
I’ve mapped out escape routes through rooms where she once felt safe, bringing my specific brand of violence into her world and calling it protection.
Let them fucking try to take her.
Beside me, Ellie sleeps deeply, her breathing soft and perfectly even.
Two mornings ago she woke in my arms with her skin flushed, looking at me as if I were her center, but now that gaze is reserved for the mechanics of survival.
She spent yesterday learning how to kill, absorbing the technical details of violence with the same clinical attention she brings to therapy sessions.
She’s curled on her side now in gym leggings and a hoodie, fully dressed for the fight with one hand resting instinctively near the loaded Glock on her nightstand.
I resist the urge to touch her, to trace the line of her cheek or the junction of her throat where her heart beats steadily at sixty-two beats per minute.
She looks younger when she’s asleep, more vulnerable in a way that makes me want to both protect her and fuck her simultaneously.
I should be ashamed of that duality, but I’m not. I’ll never be ashamed of wanting her.
She chose me over safety and sanity, ignoring every rational instinct that should have sent her running into the night.
Now the woman whose father I executed sleeps beside me, preparing to fight a war I brought to her doorstep.
And while I know I don’t deserve a second of her trust, I’m keeping it anyway, because I’m too fucking selfish to do anything else.
The Bluetooth earpiece Gabe insisted I wear sits uncomfortably in my ear, a tether to the reality waiting outside this room. His voice comes through low.
"All good out here," Gabe's voice rumbles. "Nothing moving but the occasional raccoon. You should try to sleep."
I don’t answer.
“Killian.” Gabe again, reading my silence the way he always does. “She’s as safe as we can make her.”
As safe as we can make her. From everyone except me.
“Thanks,” I finally respond, the word barely a whisper against the darkness.
I allow myself one small indulgence, brushing a stray strand of auburn hair from her forehead. She stirs but doesn’t wake, turning her face instinctively toward my touch in a way that proves she trusts me even in sleep.
Only two days ago, she didn’t know how to check a chamber, and by yesterday, I had her shooting center mass without a flicker of hesitation.
Today she’ll learn what it feels like to have that violence pointed back at her, to understand that the men coming through her door won’t give her the luxury of a second thought.
I’m training her to survive the storm I brought to her doorstep, but in doing so, I’m training her to be exactly like me.
The thought should snap me back to reality and make me wake her gently to tell her to run, but stopping now means her death.
I’m past the point of no return, where doing the right thing is just a fantasy.
God knows how easily I could destroy that trust with a single sentence.
“Again.”
I watch her execute the disarm sequence. Grab. Twist. Disarm. She’s getting good at this. Too good.
“Faster. You’re thinking too much.”
The basement gun range is colder than the rest of the house, with stone walls and fluorescent lighting that makes everything feel clinical. We’ve been at this for hours. Grip, stance, breath control. She's remembered everything from yesterday; muscle memory is already forming.
Then we move to hand-to-hand. Disarms, strikes, defensive positions.
Now, three hours in, she’s running through combinations with the focus of someone who understands exactly what a mistake costs. I’m training her to survive the same violence that turned me into a weapon.
Her determination makes my own stomach tie in knots. She’s absorbing the technical nuances of violence as if she were born for them, but I’m not teaching her how to understand the dark anymore.
I’m teaching her how to live in it.
"Like this?"
She executes the maneuver again, this time with smooth efficiency, twisting the practice knife from my grip and stepping back into a defensive stance.
"Better," I nod, feeling a surge of pride. "Your size is an advantage if you use it correctly. Most attackers will underestimate you. Use that."
I circle her slowly, gauging her reaction as I move into her space. Her eyes track my movement, alert but not panicked. Good. Fear makes you hesitate, and hesitation gets you killed.
“Most important weapon you have?” I tap her temple lightly. “This. Read your opponent, anticipate their moves. Then strike first and make it count.”
“Is that what you do?” she asks, the training knife still held in a defensive grip. “Read people before you kill?”
“Yes.” First time I've said it out loud to her. Just like that. No dressing it up.
“Understanding the target's psychology gives you the first two seconds of any situation. That’s usually all you need.”
“The way you understood my father’s,” she says quietly.
My pulse doesn't just spike, it fucking thrums behind my eyes. One-thirty. One-forty. I can feel the adrenaline-dump beginning to constrict my chest.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Stay in the room. Don’t look away.
For one terrible moment, I think she knows. That she's pieced it all together. The guilt must be written across my face.
My hands want to shake. I lock them behind my back.
My throat has gone completely dry. I swallow past it. Hard.
Every instinct screams at me to run. To confess. To tell her exactly what her father’s last expression looked like.
But her expression is just... curiosity. Not an accusation. Not yet.
“Your father was investigating the Order.” My voice is steadier than I feel. “He understood the work. That made him a liability to the people I worked for.”
“And to you?”
She doesn’t know what she’s asking. I’m balancing on a knife edge, every word carefully weighted so I don’t fall. She doesn’t see I’m the answer to every question about her father’s death.
“The Order would have seen your father as a threat.” I force myself to hold her gaze even as shame eats at me.
She deserves better than a liar. “His understanding of their psychology, of people like me, went deeper than anyone else’s.
He could see patterns others missed, connections that remained invisible to law enforcement. ”
I’m praising him to his daughter. This is beyond fucked up.
“Your father understood killers because he could think like one without becoming one. That’s a rare gift. And a dangerous one when you’re exposing an organization built on shadows, lies and corruption.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, her fingers absently checking the Glock’s safety. Once. Twice. A tell I’ve learned means she’s processing something painful.
“I miss him,” she says finally, voice soft. “Every day. The way he’d quiz me on case studies over breakfast. His terrible dad jokes. How he’d call just to check in.”
Her eyes meet mine. “He would have liked you, I think. Before he knew... what you are.”
He did know me. Briefly. Right before I killed him. How does she not see the guilt in my fucking eyes?
“Show me your stance again,” I say.
She watches the way my jaw tightens, then simply nods and picks up the weapon. Her trust is the one thing I didn't plan for. Seven years of preparation, and I still don't know what to do with it.
One day she’ll look at me and finally see the man who killed her father, and whatever this is between us will die as well.
I move closer, my hands finding her hips as I guide her into the correct stance. Handing her the Glock, I double check the safety.
She takes the weapon with hands that are surer than the last time, falling into a perfect stance with her arms extended and her shoulders squared.
I stand directly behind her, so close that I can feel the heat radiating from her back.
She’s finding the technical center of the room, and I’m finding the technical center of her.
"Breathe out as you fire," I murmur, my mouth close enough to her ear that I can smell the faint trace of vanilla on her skin. "Squeeze the trigger. Don't pull it."
I breathe it in, and my focus drifts. I close my eyes and for a second I forget we're preparing for a fight. I’m just a man standing too fucking close to a woman he wants.
Has wanted for seven years. Four months. Sixteen days.
But who’s counting.
She fires in rapid-fire succession, the rounds punching through the target with impressive accuracy as if she’s been doing this her entire life. Six shots. Five in center mass, one slightly off.
“Not bad,” I say, though the words sound wrong. She shouldn't be good at this. She shouldn't need to be. “Again. This time, imagine it’s someone coming through your front door to hurt you."