Chapter 22
KANE
Iwasn't quite as shocked as Ella about the child appearing in that doorway.
But I was close.
Closer than I would have expected given everything I'd seen and done in my life.
Standing in that narrow Parisian hallway watching a five-year-old girl wrap herself around étienne's leg with the kind of complete, unselfconscious trust that only children possess, hearing her say Papa in that clear, innocent voice full of love—
It hit differently than I expected.
Differently than any tactical situation I'd ever processed or any mission briefing I'd ever absorbed.
I didn't know what to do with it.
What to say or where to look or what my role was supposed to be in this moment that felt simultaneously intimate and world-shattering.
Luckily for me, Ella and étienne did all the talking.
I stayed back near the door, silent, just watching it all unfold.
Observing like I was on security duty instead of standing in a dead woman's secret family's apartment while her sister discovered she was an aunt.
The little girl—Sabine, he'd called her—avoided me entirely after that first curious glance.
Smart kid. Survival instincts intact. She could probably sense something fundamentally off about me the way animals sense predators before they strike.
That primal awareness children have before the world teaches them to ignore their gut feelings and trust appearances instead.
Instead of approaching, she just stared at me occasionally when she thought I wasn't looking. Big dark eyes—Rose's eyes, unmistakably—studying me like I was a puzzle she couldn't solve but knew was dangerous.
I didn't blame her.
I had zero experience with children.
Never spent time with them beyond brief, uncomfortable encounters in markets or on streets during operations. Never thought I'd have them. Never even considered the possibility as something in my future.
Kids were for normal people. People with normal lives and futures that didn't regularly involve violence and death.
People who hadn't been raised in institutional hell and systematically turned into weapons.
People who knew instinctively how to be gentle instead of having to consciously suppress the impulse to scan for threats and calculate exit strategies.
People who could be trusted not to break soft things.
But when I saw Ella crouch down to Sabine's level—
When I watched her reach out and touch the girl's hair so gently, like she was afraid of breaking something infinitely precious—
When their eyes met and I saw Ella's raw grief transform in real-time into wonder and fierce, immediate protectiveness—
Something deep inside me cracked.
It was subtle at first. Just a hairline fracture. A tiny opening in walls I'd built so carefully over years of survival. Walls specifically designed to keep emotion out. To keep vulnerability locked away where it couldn't be exploited or weaponized against me.
But then my heart gave in completely.
Just ... surrendered.
And the scene playing out in this ordinary Paris apartment threatened to tear me down with feelings I didn't have names for and hadn't experienced since I was too young to remember them.
Ella talking softly to her niece in that gentle voice I'd never heard her use before.
Sabine showing her crayon drawings with shy pride, seeking approval.
étienne explaining with quiet, devastating pain how Rose had wanted to tell her family, eventually. How she'd been actively planning it. How death had stolen that choice and left only secrets behind.
A whole life hidden with surgical precision. A whole family built in secret and maintained with careful, exhausting lies to everyone she'd supposedly loved.
And watching it all, I felt something I hadn't felt in years.
Maybe ever.
Not in any way I could remember or acknowledge.
Want.
Not the physical kind I'd been fighting desperately since I met Ella, though that was still there, constant and demanding and getting harder to ignore with every passing hour.
This was something deeper. More fundamental. More dangerous to everything I'd carefully built.
I wanted this.
Not just her body, though God knew I wanted that.
Not just temporary connection or momentary comfort.
But this entire scene. The domestic reality of it. The family dynamics. The normalcy I'd never experienced and never thought I deserved or could even survive in without destroying it.
The possibility of a life that wasn't just violence and missions and running and looking over your shoulder.
The thought terrified me more profoundly than any firefight or operation ever had.
Because you could survive bullets if you were fast enough.
But this kind of vulnerability? This kind of exposed emotional position?
That could destroy you in ways physical damage never could.
The rest of the visit blurred into emotional haze that I couldn't fully process.
I heard words but didn't properly absorb them.
Just stood there like a statue or a sentinel, watching Ella discover in real-time that she was an aunt.
Watching her grief transform into something active and purposeful and fierce.
Watching her fall in love with a child she'd only just met but who carried her sister's eyes and smile.
When Sabine started getting fidgety—climbing on furniture, asking rapid questions in French I only partially understood, clearly ready for her normal day to start—étienne glanced at the clock mounted on the kitchen wall.
"I should take her to school," he said apologetically, hand settling protectively on Sabine's small shoulder. "She'll be late. Her teacher is strict about timing."
I saw the hesitation in Ella immediately.
Saw it in the way her entire body went rigid. The way her hand lifted slightly toward Sabine before she consciously caught herself and forced it back down.
Like she wanted to physically make them stay. Make them promise not to disappear. Like if she let them walk out that door now, they might vanish the way her sister had—suddenly, permanently, without warning or explanation.
But she said her quiet goodbyes with visible effort and control.
"Can I come back later?" she asked, voice carefully steady despite the emotion underneath. "Maybe bring dinner? I'd like to ... spend more time with you both. Get to know Sabine. If that's okay."
étienne smiled then, something genuine breaking through the grief that had settled permanently into his features.
"I like to cook. It helps me think. If you can help, I would love to host properly.
There are many things we should discuss.
About Rose. About Sabine. About what happens now. About the future."
The future.
The word hung in the air with weight.
Ella hugged him then. A real, full embrace. The kind that said I see your pain and I share it and we're in this together now whether we planned it or not.
When she pulled back, Sabine wrapped herself around Ella's legs without warning, giggling when Ella bent down to hug her back properly.
The sound—pure, innocent, joyful, untouched by adult complications—cut through me like a blade I hadn't seen coming.
We left.
Walking down the stairs together. Out into Paris streets that felt somehow different than they had an hour ago.
The silence between us was thick and heavy with everything neither of us knew how to articulate or process.
I was still scanning everything automatically despite the emotional overload.
Every face in the crowd. Every car that passed too slowly or appeared more than once. Every person who looked at us a second too long or with too much interest.
Old habits. Survival instincts I couldn't turn off even when I desperately wanted to. Even when they felt inappropriate for the moment.
But underneath the tactical awareness, my heart still beat with that same overwhelming feeling from the apartment.
That same emotion I couldn't name. That same magnetic pull toward Ella that had nothing to do with protection or tactics and everything to do with something I'd never let myself want before.
It was deep. Oppressive. Consuming.
All I wanted was to hold her. Pull her close and never let go. Promise her things I had absolutely no business promising to anyone.
When we stepped onto the train and found seats tucked in the corner away from other passengers, she wordlessly grabbed my hand and pulled it into her lap.
Held it there with both of hers like a lifeline. Like I was the only solid, real thing in a world that had just shifted completely beneath her feet.
No words. Not the whole trip back across Paris.
And I wasn't going to break the silence.
Because what the hell could I possibly say that would help?
Your sister had a secret family and it's beautiful and terrifying and it makes me want things I've never let myself want?
I watched you with that little girl and something inside me that I thought was dead just broke wide open?
I think I'm falling for you and that's the most dangerous thing that's happened to me in years?
No.
None of that would help.
So, I just held her hand and let the train carry us through the city.
We got off at her stop and walked back to Rose's apartment building, still wrapped in silence that felt sacred. Like speaking would shatter something fragile and important.
Inside the apartment, I took off my coat with deliberate, careful movements, hung it over the chair where it had hung before.
Trying to give her space. Time. Whatever she needed to process what had just happened.
"You want anything?" I asked quietly, as gently as I knew how. "Coffee? Tea? Something to eat?"
She hadn't said a single word since we'd left étienne's apartment. Not one syllable the entire journey back.
She turned to me slowly, movements precise and deliberate like she was executing a plan she'd already fully formed.
And then, like it was the most natural thing in the world—like she'd been thinking about this and had simply made a decision and was now acting on it—she started removing her clothes.
One piece at a time.
Never breaking eye contact with me.
The red sweater came off first, pulled over her head in one smooth, unhurried motion. Then the shirt underneath, revealing skin I'd only imagined in moments I'd tried very hard not to imagine.
My brain stopped functioning entirely.
Higher reasoning just ... shut down.
She kept going with calm deliberation. Unfastening her jeans. Pushing them down over her hips. Stepping out of them. Panties following. Everything coming off until there was nothing left.
Until she stood completely naked in the soft light filtering through Rose's windows.
And she was even more beautiful than I'd imagined in all those moments I'd tried desperately not to let myself imagine her exactly like this.
But I was frozen with something very close to panic.
Because this wasn't just want anymore.
This wasn't just physical attraction or tension that had been building.
This was something bigger. Something that would fundamentally change everything, if I let it happen. Something I couldn't take back or walk away from once we crossed this line.
When she was completely bare before me, she walked forward with calm certainty, took my hand in both of hers, and said quietly but firmly:
"This is going to happen. Now."
Not a question.
Not a request.
A statement of fact.
There was nothing left to be said.
No more reasons to wait or hesitate. No more excuses about timing or grief or danger or all the reasons this was complicated.
Just inevitability.
Just want.
Just us.
I let her pull me toward the bedroom.