Chapter 19
CONNOR
The Sanctuary car glided through Paris like a shark through deep water—silent, predatory, utterly out of place among the battered Citroens and scooters that clogged the morning streets.
Ellsworth drove with the same unflappable precision he brought to everything else, navigating the narrow roads like he'd memorized the city in a previous life. Maybe he had. Former SAS types didn't end up as butlers by accident.
Mila sat beside me in the back, her camera resting on her lap, fingers drumming a nervous rhythm against the leather case. She hadn't said much since we'd left her apartment. Just stared out the window, watching Paris slide past like she was cataloging every detail in case she never saw it again.
I wanted to tell her it would be okay.
I didn't.
Lying to her felt worse than staying silent.
When we pulled up outside the residency—a converted warehouse with whitewashed brick and tall windows that caught the morning light—I half-expected police tape. Blockades. Some visible acknowledgment that the world had tilted sideways. That Merrick had stained her twice.
Instead, it was just another day in Paris.
People walked past with coffee and croissants. A delivery truck idled at the corner. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked, sharp and insistent.
Normal.
Like violence was something that only happened in the cracks between ordinary moments, invisible unless you knew where to look.
Mila reached for the door handle, then stopped.
"I want to go in alone," she said quietly.
I turned to face her. "Mila—"
"I have work to do," she continued, her voice steady but firm. "And if you come in with me, everyone's going to know something's wrong."
She wasn't wrong.
I'd stick out in that place like a grenade in a gallery. All hard edges and controlled violence, tracking exits and threats while artists talked about light and composition.
Still, every instinct I had screamed at me to follow her inside. To stand between her and whatever danger might be waiting. To not let her out of my sight.
But she was already looking at me with that expression—the one that said I'm choosing this, don't take it from me.
I exhaled slowly. "I'll be in the area."
"Thank you."
She leaned in and kissed me—soft, lingering, the kind of kiss that felt like a promise and a goodbye all at once.
When she pulled away, I had to physically stop myself from dragging her back into the car. From telling Ellsworth to drive us straight back to The Sanctuary and lock the fucking doors.
Get a grip, Ward.
She stepped out onto the sidewalk, shouldered her camera, and walked toward the entrance without looking back.
I watched until she disappeared inside.
Then I turned to Ellsworth.
"What do you think?" I asked.
He met my eyes in the rearview mirror, his expression calm, unreadable.
"We'll find him soon, sir," he said. "Our resources are more than acceptable."
Translation: We have reach. Money. Access to systems and surveillance most people don't know exist. Stop worrying.
The English had a way of playing things down. Understated to the point of absurdity. But when they wanted to be blunt, they didn't fuck around.
"How soon?" I pressed.
"Days. Hours, if we're fortunate."
I nodded, jaw tight.
"I'll stay in the area," I said. "Keep an eye on things."
Ellsworth inclined his head slightly. "Very good, sir. I'll return to The Sanctuary and continue coordinating."
He paused, then added, "Would you like any men to remain here with you? For additional coverage?"
I almost said yes.
But then I thought about Mila's apartment. The violated space. The torn photographs. The message Merrick had left like a knife in the dark.
"Send them to her place instead," I said. "Scrub it down. Add security. Subtle. Nothing she'll notice."
Ellsworth's mouth twitched—approval, maybe. Or respect.
"Consider it done, sir."
He drove off, the car disappearing into traffic with the same quiet efficiency it had arrived with.
I stood there for a moment, alone on a Parisian street corner, and let myself feel the weight of it.
Then I started walking.
Casual patrol.
That's what I told myself.
Just a guy taking a morning stroll through the Left Bank, hands in his pockets, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Nothing to see here.
Except I wasn't walking. I was hunting.
Scanning rooftops. Cataloging faces. Tracking vehicles that lingered too long at intersections. Noting exits, choke points, places where an ambush could be staged with minimal collateral.
Old habits.
The kind you couldn't shake even if you wanted to.
My mind drifted as I moved, slipping back through years like flipping through pages in a book I'd tried to burn but couldn't quite destroy.
St. Paul's.
Fucking St. Paul's.
I'd been twelve when I got the letter. Thick cream-colored paper, embossed logo, words that made my parents cry with joy.
Congratulations. You have been selected.
They'd hugged me so hard I could barely breathe. Told me I was special. Told me this was my chance—the kind of opportunity kids like us didn't get. A scholarship to one of the most prestigious athletic academies on the East Coast. A pipeline to college. To the pros, maybe, if I worked hard enough.
I'd believed them.
God, I'd believed every fucking word.
That first month had been like a dream.
State-of-the-art facilities. Coaches who knew your name. Teammates who treated you like family. Practices that pushed you hard but felt fair. Wins that tasted like vindication.
They groomed me.
I understood that now. Understood how they'd pulled me in—made me feel seen, valued, chosen—before the hammer dropped.
It started small.
Extra drills after practice. Midnight wake-ups for "conditioning." Older boys watching from the shadows, their eyes cold and assessing.
Then it escalated.
Beatings that were called "team-building exercises.
" Mental torture disguised as discipline.
Sleepless nights justified as preparation for the real world.
Extreme physical exertion pushed past the point where your body screamed for mercy and into the place where you either broke or became something else entirely.
In the beginning, I told myself it was all part of the plan.
It was why St. Paul's won so many championships. Why they were so selective. Why kids who graduated from there went on to do great things—or at least that's what the brochures said.
But I saw the change in the other boys.
Some became cruel to cope. Turned their pain outward, inflicting it on anyone weaker. Others went despondent—hollow-eyed and silent, moving through the days like ghosts.
One boy hung himself.
It wouldn't be the last.
I remembered finding him. Or rather, I remembered the aftermath—the way the administration had scrubbed it clean within hours.
New mattress. Fresh paint. A story about a transfer that no one questioned because questioning meant drawing attention, and attention at St. Paul's was the last thing you wanted.
In the papers, there was no mention of suicide. They said it was an accident. An accident far from school grounds.
But I'd found something inside myself during those years. Something I didn't know existed until it was tested.
Resiliency beyond normal human conception.
The ability to endure. To compartmentalize. To look at pain—physical, mental, emotional—and decide it didn't get to define me.
It would serve me well later. In BUD/S. In the Teams. In ops where the margin between success and death was measured in fractions of seconds.
But as a kid?
I'd had to grow up too fucking fast.
Too fucking fast.
And somewhere in that crucible, I'd found them.
Eight other boys who refused to break. Who looked at the same hell I was living through and chose to survive it together instead of alone.
My brothers.
We didn't talk about it much. Didn't need to. You didn't explain shared trauma to people who'd lived it with you. You just looked at each other across a room and knew.
We'd made a pact, eventually. When we were old enough. Strong enough. Smart enough to see the game for what it was.
We'd take what they owed us and burn the place to the ground on our way out.
And we had.
Or at least, we'd thought we had.
I stopped walking, leaning against a stone wall near a small park where a couple of kids kicked a soccer ball back and forth.
My mind was still back there. Still trapped in that cold dormitory with fluorescent lights buzzing overhead and the smell of disinfectant covering up something darker.
I made a decision then, standing on that Paris street corner.
If things went south—if Merrick won, if I didn't make it out—Ellsworth and Micah would make sure Mila was okay. Protected. Shielded from the truth.
She'd never know what I'd been. What I'd done.
The first time I killed a man, I was sixteen.
They'd called it a birthday present.
Happy birthday, Connor. Time to earn your keep.
The memory surfaced unbidden—concrete floor, zip ties cutting into the man's wrists, his pleas muffled by duct tape. I didn't know who he was. Didn't ask. Didn't matter.
What mattered was proving I could do it.
And I had.
I'd looked into that man's eyes and pulled the trigger without hesitation. Without remorse.
Because by then, they'd beaten empathy out of me. Replaced it with something colder. More useful.
Happy fucking birthday.
What would Mila say if she found that out?
Not a chance.
Not a fucking chance.
She saw me as a protector. A good man. Someone who'd stepped in front of danger because it was the right thing to do.
If she knew the truth—that I'd been killing since I was old enough to drive—she'd run.
And I wouldn't blame her.
I pushed off the wall and started walking again, forcing my mind back to the present.
The residency was a block behind me. Mila was inside, probably talking to her friends, laughing at something someone said, her camera slung over her shoulder like it was part of her body.
Safe.
For now.
I scanned the street again—faces, vehicles, windows—and felt the weight of the pistol tucked into my waistband, hidden beneath my jacket.
Merrick was out there somewhere. Watching. Waiting. Planning his next move.
And when he made it, I'd be ready.
Because this time, I wasn't a scared kid at St. Paul's.
I was the thing they'd built me to be.
And, God, help anyone who tried to take what was mine.