Chapter 42 Lucian
LUCIAN
She opens the door slow - like she already knows it’s me, but part of her is conflicted.
Through the peephole, I see her shadow pause. I imagine that her breath catches, her hand frozen on the chain lock.
I stay perfectly still, both palms braced against the doorframe, my head bowed like I’m praying for permission. The corridor hums with the low buzz of a flickering light, and for a moment, it’s just us - two hearts pulsing on either side of a door that’s done pretending it can keep us apart.
Then she opens it.
And all the air between us changes.
Nadia’s eyes lift to mine - wide, cautious, curious. She’s barefoot, in a loose gray T-shirt that hangs off one shoulder. Her lip is split, swollen, the bruise just beginning to bloom. There’s something about her - fragile and furious all at once - that hits me like a blade between the ribs.
Her gaze drops over me. She notices things. The fresh shirt. The damp hair. The faint trace of soap clinging to me instead of blood. I don’t know why that matters to her, but it does. I see it in the way her throat works when she swallows.
Her voice is quiet when she finally speaks. “Jude.”
I lift my head slowly, deliberately. Let her see all of me in the dim light. The exhaustion. The edge. The thing she should fear but doesn’t.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. The silence stretches until it starts to feel like a heartbeat of its own.
Then I just say it. “He won’t ever bother you again.”
The words land between us, heavy and final.
A shiver runs through her, but it’s not the kind born of fear. There’s something else in her eyes - something that glints like thrill, like forbidden relief. “What did you do to him?” she asks, her voice trembling.
I hold her gaze. “I convinced him he doesn’t have a place in your life.”
She breathes in, shallow and shaky, and then does something that unravels me completely.
She tips her head. Steps back. An invitation.
I shouldn’t move. I should walk away, disappear into the night, let her believe the lie I just told.
But she’s standing there, open door and open eyes, and I’m too far gone to pretend I’m anything other than hers.
I step inside.
The door clicks shut behind me, sealing us in. I stand there for a beat, unsure what to do with my hands, my breath, the pounding in my chest that shouldn’t exist the way it does.
She moves first. Walks to the sofa and sits, tucking one leg beneath her. I follow, taking the far end of the two-seater. The space feels too small for the both of us. My knees angle out, the leather creaking under my weight.
She sits across from me, her eyes searching, restless. “Where is he?” she asks softly.
“Away.”
Just one word. It’s all I give her, all she needs.
She studies me for a long moment, like she’s trying to measure the truth in the stillness of my body. My hands rest on my knees, fingers steady, posture straight. But my heart - what’s left of it - is anything but.
That one word tells her everything she doesn’t want to know.
That Michael is gone.
That I made sure of it.
Her lips part like she wants to say something, but nothing comes out. The air in the room feels heavy, thick enough to choke on. She glances at my hands, at the faint pink line across my knuckles, the single trace of the night that soap couldn’t erase.
She knows.
She just doesn’t want to admit it out loud.
Her shoulders tremble with the weight of what she’s feeling - relief, confusion, guilt, something else tangled between them.
I can see it all play across her face. The part of her that wants to thank me.
The part that’s terrified of what I’ve done.
And the part that can’t decide which of those scares her more.
I don’t move. I just sit there, watching her watch me.
“I don’t understand you,” she says finally, voice breaking on the last word.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “You don’t have to.”
“But I should. You keep showing up right when I need you. You knew about Michael. You knew he’d be here.” She shakes her head, her breath quickening. “You said you saw him following me - but that doesn’t make sense. You couldn’t have known. How did you - ”
“Nadia.”
Her name tastes like a prayer on my tongue. It still hurts to say.
She stops. Her eyes meet mine, wide and bright.
“I told you,” I say quietly. “I see things most people miss.”
Her throat works as she swallows, slow and uncertain. Then she whispers, “And what do you see now?”
I let the question hang. Let her feel the weight of the silence pressing in from all sides.
“I see someone who’s finally free,” I answer.
Her breath hitches.
For a moment, neither of us looks away. There’s something magnetic, dangerous, inevitable in the space between us - like we’re standing at the edge of something neither of us can walk back from.
She should be afraid. She should throw me out. Call the cops. Scream. Anything.
Instead, she leans back into her chair, eyes locked on me. And I know I’ve lost the battle to stay away from her.
People think they know what happens when a man like me walks out of a cage.
They’ve seen the movies, read the headlines. They think the first thing I do is go looking for a woman - any woman - just to remind myself what it feels like to be inside something warm and alive after years of cold steel and silence.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
I’m the king of self-control. The reluctant priest of celibacy. Eleven years without a woman, and the only one I’ve ever wanted is sitting a few feet away, wearing a T-shirt soft enough to tempt the devil himself.
Nadia.
My first. My last. My always.
She doesn’t know that yet, though.
She doesn’t know that I’ve been to hell and clawed my way back with her name etched in my brain.
The fact that she let me into her apartment - me, a stranger - does things to me I can’t begin to articulate. It makes me want to scold her, drag her across my lap, and remind her that this world isn’t kind to women who open doors to wolves.
She should be terrified.
But she isn’t.
There’s wariness in her posture, sure - the slight stiffness of her shoulders, the way her hands twitch in her lap - but it’s paired with fascination. She’s drawn to me. Like a moth too close to a match.
If only she knew I’ve already burned for her a thousand times over.
Her eyes are on me, wide and uncertain. It takes everything I have not to reach out and brush the hair from her cheek, to keep my hands from memorizing what my mind already knows by heart.
“Why did you come back?” she asks suddenly.
For a split second, it feels like she’s looking through me. Like she knows exactly who I am - what I’ve done - and the question is literal. Why did you come back from the grave, Lucian?
But she doesn’t know that side of who Jude Mercer is.
The thought steadies me.
Maybe one day she will. Maybe she’ll hate me for it. Or maybe she’ll see what I became, what I did to survive, and she’ll understand that every twisted part of me exists because of her.
I stay silent. The weight of it makes her fidget. Her fingers flex once before she tucks her hands under her thighs, grounding herself. She doesn’t even realize how that simple act makes me ache.
“I wanted to make sure you’re okay,” I say finally, my voice rougher than intended.
Her gaze flickers to mine, then to the cut on her temple. The bruise on her lip. Her skin looks soft and furious all at once. I shouldn’t notice how pretty she looks when she’s been through hell, but I do.
Her mouth draws my attention like a magnet. The way it’s swollen, parted slightly as she exhales. I imagine those lips on me - hot, trembling, obedient - and the thought hits so fast it’s almost violent.
I exhale sharply, forcing my body to calm, to remember restraint. The kind of restraint that kept me alive all those years in the dark.
“I survived,” she says quietly.
“Yes.” My eyes find hers again. “I can see that.”
What I don’t say: barely.
My jaw tightens as I think of Michael’s hands on her, of the blood that might’ve been hers if I hadn’t been there. The image sits like acid in my chest.
Then she looks at me, unflinching. “Can I say the same for Michael?”
A humorless laugh rumbles in my throat before I can stop it.
She’s sharper than she looks. Brave, too.
I tilt my head, watching her closely, and click my tongue against my teeth. “You should know better by now,” I murmur, low and even. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”
Her breath stutters. She knows what that means.
The silence stretches again, humming between us like static. I lean back on the couch, studying her - the defiance in her stare, the pulse fluttering at her throat, the way she’s fighting curiosity and dread in equal measure.
She thinks I’m dangerous. She’s right.
But what she doesn’t realize is that every ounce of that danger belongs to her now.
And God help the next man who forgets it.