39. Killian
KILLIAN
The monitors hum, the light from the screens cutting through the dark.
Six facilities burned. Piles of bodies in mass graves for the men who stood in our way.
We’ve been picking Julian apart, stripping away his layers until there’s nothing left but the heart of his network in Wyoming.
Denver was the warning. This is the end.
He’s cornered. He has nowhere left to hide.
Jackson slides a tablet across the steel table. "Latest intel from the Seattle facility. They were moving money through shell corporations faster than we anticipated."
I scan the financial data, a roadmap of Julian's increasingly desperate attempts to protect his assets. We've seized over forty million in the last month alone.
"He's running out of places to hide." I zoom in on a compound nestled in the mountains of Wyoming. "And more importantly, he's running out of people to die for him."
I stopped counting the bodies after the fourth facility we stormed.
They were just the things I had to move to reach the heart of the problem.
No names. No history. Just more debris in my way.
I’ve been clearing a path through Julian’s life for three months, and there’s finally only one wall left between us.
"The Feds are finally catching the scent," Jackson says. He doesn't look away from the scrolling data on his screen. "Three investigations into what they’re calling a coordinated purge. To them, it looks like a new cartel moving into the territory. They’re still a mile away from realizing it’s us digging a hole for Ross. "
"Let them talk. Our work will be done before they even get a name." I stand, my back cracking after four hours of staring at the same ridgeline. "Where are we on the Wyoming facility?"
"Perimeter’s mapped. Security is heavy on the front, light on the service routes. Standard for him." Jackson’s fingers blur over the keys as he pulls up the schematics. "Gabriel thinks he’s living there. It’s his bunker."
I look at the feed as the pixels refresh. "Good. I like that he feels safe. It means I can take my time showing him exactly how alone he really is. I want him alive for as long as possible after I break into that place. I want to see the second he realizes that money can’t buy him another breath."
I stand in the doorway, leaning on the frame with my arms crossed over my chest. The air is thick with steam and the scent of bubble bath.
Ellie is in the copper tub, her hair pinned up, wet stray curls stuck to the nape of her neck.
The water is high, brushing her collarbones.
Her skin is a deep, raw pink from the heat.
I love seeing her like this. Relaxed. Peaceful. God, she’s beautiful.
I wait for her to find me. There’s that split-second hitch in her breathing before she realizes it's me. I see the recognition wash over her, settling into her eyes, and the tension bleeds out of her shoulders. She looks back at me and just exhales, and I can almost feel the weight of the last few months lifting off her. In the quiet of this bathroom, with the steam and the heat, she’s finally just Ellie again.
I let my gaze wander over her shoulders, watching the water bead on her skin. I don’t hide how much I want her, but I don’t parade it either.
"Join me?" she asks. Her voice is soft, but it cuts right through the steam. "The water's still hot."
I nod once, pushing off from the frame. I start unbuttoning my shirt, my eyes never leaving hers. I’ve waited three months for her to ask, and I'm not going to let a single word interrupt the moment.
I shed the rest of my clothes, discarding them on the stone floor. I stand in the condensation, letting her look. I’m in no hurry.
Her eyes travel over my chest, tracing the lines of the scars and the ink. I stay perfectly still. If she’s going to change her mind, this is the moment.
"Come here," she says, moving forward slightly to make room.
I step into the water. It’s hot, but I barely feel it. I slide in behind her, drawing her back against my chest until there’s no air left between us. I wrap my arms around her, caging her in, and rest my chin on the top of her head. I don't say a word. I simply breathe her in.
We stay like that for a long time. The only sound is the water against the copper and her breathing.
I keep my arms clamped around her waist, holding her so tight there’s no room for anything else.
In here, the mass graves don't exist. Julian doesn't exist. There’s only the heat and the woman in my arms.
Her fingers find my forearm under the water.
She traces the black ink, her touch light against my skin.
I let her. I’d break the hand of anyone else who tried to touch me like this, but her fingers are a relief.
She stops at the inside of my wrist, her thumb brushing the seven tiny stars right over my pulse.
"You've never told me about this one," she says quietly, thumb brushing over the seven tiny stars. "It's different from your other tattoos. It looks more personal."
"It's Cygnus," I say. My voice feels like it’s being dragged through gravel. I haven't said the name in twenty years. "The swan constellation."
She doesn't push. She waits, knowing there's more to the story.
"My sister," I say. "Evelyn."
I tighten my hold on Ellie, my arm a heavy bar across her middle.
"She used to have these plastic stars on her ceiling.
Glow-in-the-dark things that never stayed stuck.
She made constellations out of them so she wouldn't be afraid of the dark.
She loved stars. Cygnus was her favorite because our grandmother told her swans mate for life. "
I feel her fingers go still. "You never told me you had a sister."
"She died when I was seven. My mother was driving. Drunk. She walked away without a scratch and left us a year later because she couldn't look at me without seeing what she’d done. My father told me I was the reason she drank so much. Said she’d still be here if I’d been the one in the passenger seat. "
Ellie doesn't say anything. She takes my wrist and brings it to her mouth, her back still pressed against my chest as she kisses the stars on my skin. The heat of her breath hits my wrist, and for a second, I’m paralyzed.
I haven’t spoken Evelyn's name out loud in over two decades, and I’ve never told a soul about her.
"That's why you're so protective." Her voice vibrates against my ribs.
I don't answer. I tighten my arm around her waist. My hand splays across her stomach, my skin against hers, needing to feel the slow rise and fall of her breath. I feel exposed, like she’s reached inside me and pulled out the one part of myself I’d buried the deepest. But I don't pull away. I keep hold of her.
"After everything I've done," I say, my voice thick. "All the blood on my hands... it doesn't fix anything. It doesn't bring her back. But every time I make sure you're safe, it feels like I’m finally doing what I was supposed to do twenty-seven years ago."
She turns in my arms, the water sloshing slightly over the copper tub as she shifts. The water swirls between us until she’s facing me, her knees brushing my thighs. She looks at me with those clear hazel eyes that strip me bare.
"Is that why you do it?" she asks softly. She reaches out, her hand dripping as she touches the ink on my wrist. "All the violence... it’s your way of trying to save someone who's already gone?"
"Evelyn didn't make me a killer. She just left a hole.
" I meet her gaze, not hiding the coldness in my eyes.
"It wasn't until Julian took me off the streets that I learned how to fill that space with violence.
He found a boy who had already lost everything and spent a decade showing him how to make the rest of the world pay for it.
He didn't break me, Ellie. He finished what my parents started. "
I don't move my hand from her waist, but I let my thumb graze her thigh. "The only way to keep the dark from taking what’s mine is to be darker than the things coming for it."
She doesn’t look away. She rests her forehead against mine, her hand still flat over the ink on my wrist. I can feel the warmth of her breath, the slow, steady rhythm of it. She’s looking at the seven-year-old boy who survived. I close my eyes and let her hold me in the steam.
She doesn't say anything for a long time. She stays there, her skin slick and hot against mine. Her hands slide into my hair, her fingers tightening until it almost hurts.
"Look at me," she says. "I'm still here, Killian. I survived them. I can survive you, too."
She's right. I've been trying to protect her from the dark, forgetting she's already learned how to live in it.
"My grandmother used to tell Evelyn and me a story," I whisper.
My voice is quiet, the words drifting in the steam.
"About how the sun and the moon were in love, but because of their time differences, they could never meet. So God created the eclipse. One moment where they could finally touch, so the world would know there’s no such thing as an impossible love.
For that one second, they're the same thing. "
I reach out and trace the line of her collarbone, my thumb lingering on the pulse there. "You're my eclipse, Ellie. The only moment in my life where the dark and the light finally make sense."
Ellie is quiet. She looks at me, and I can see the way my words are sinking in, filling the spaces between us. Her eyes go soft, shimmering with a reflection of the steam and the stars she’s still tracing on my wrist.
"An eclipse," she repeats, her voice a bare whisper. She leans forward, resting her head against my shoulder for a second. "No such thing as an impossible love."
She takes my hand and presses it against her chest. "You’re the only person who doesn't look at me like I'm a victim. And I'm the only person who doesn't look at you like you're a monster. That's our eclipse."