14. Kellan
KELLAN
The hotel smells like disinfectant and old sins. It’s one of our safe houses—a front that looks like a forgotten roadside inn, but with steel-reinforced walls and bulletproof windows. Sometimes, unsuspecting travelers wander in here, and they share the night with mafia members and prisoners.
Declan insisted we use it to camp out. Said it was time to stop pretending this girl wasn’t a threat.
He means Caroline. But he says “this girl” like she’s a stray dog that bit him.
She angered him, elbowing his nose. He thinks if she could catch him off guard like that, she’s a danger.
He won’t yet acknowledge the ways she’s caught us all off guard.
She doesn’t look like a threat now. She looks like she hasn’t slept in days, like the silence in the car was a leash pulled too tight.
I watch her walk into the room slowly, her bare feet soundless on the laminate floor.
Rian avoids looking at her. Declan doesn’t bother hiding the way he scowls at her like he’s already picturing her dead.
She’s not crying. Not begging. That scares me more than anything. She’s holding something in, and that kind of quiet is dangerous. She swallows when the door opens, and that’s it. It’s the smallest of reactions, but I see it.
Declan presses the key into my hand and taps the gun on my hip underneath my shirt, reminding me of the power I wield. “You’re on watch tonight. If she tries anything, don’t wait.”
Then he’s gone, but his presence echoes in the silence between us.
I catch Caroline’s glance toward the door he exited through, and her breath catches like she thinks he might come back.
Rian hesitates at the threshold. His eyes linger on Caroline a little too long, but she doesn’t look back.
He glances at me and nods—all the things unsaid stuck between us.
We both know a truth that Declan doesn’t.
And neither of us is sure why we won’t share it yet.
It’s leverage—but why do we need it? We could kill her and take her children. But it’s something else. She’s not just a witness—she’s a mother to our children. Killing her is asking us to be real monsters, not just the pretend ones we play when we kill bad guys.
Now it’s just me. And her.
The room isn’t big. A couch and a bed. Too clean. Too sharp. The kind of room that was never meant for rest. No direction as to who’s supposed to be comfortable, and who’s not.
Caroline stands in the doorway and waits for me to tell her where to go. “Get comfortable. We’ll be here all night,” I tell her, sitting on the couch, taking the choice from her. She should have the bed for a night. It’s the least I can do.
She stays standing for a moment too long, waiting to see if it’s a trick.
Finally, she walks toward the bathroom and turns to look at me, questioning.
I nod at her, and she starts to close the door behind her.
“Leave it,” I say. She flinches, like I struck her, and she leaves it open as she disappears deeper into the bathroom.
The shower turns on. Sobs float through the crack in the door, just audible over the running water, and for a second, I feel a tug at my heart.
A knot forms in my throat. None of us chose this, but her least of all.
She’s built a life for herself. She’s birthed children.
She’s raised them alone, running scared from us, and now we’re proving her right.
I look down at the gun in my hand, knowing that this can only end one way. Listening to her cries, I cross over to the suitcase we brought. She hasn’t been curious about it, hasn’t looked in it once. I don’t blame her—she isn’t touching things she doesn’t know are expressly hers. Not around us.
I pick out the toiletries and knock lightly before pushing open the bathroom door. The steam hits me first. She peeks her head out from behind the shower curtain, eyes wide, jaw clenched.
“I wasn’t doing anything,” she blurts.
I hold up the toiletries, open-palmed. A peace offering.
Her eyes dart from my hand to my gun, then back. Slowly, she reaches out and takes the bottles. “Thank you,” she whispers, her voice ragged. Her bottom lip wobbles. I turn away, not waiting for whatever look might come next.
I close the door for her.
Minutes pass. Maybe hours. The bathroom door opens, and she steps out in a towel, her hair wrapped in a separate towel.
I force my eyes not to linger. Her skin is steam-flushed, and her eyes are less puffy.
She’s all cried out and clean. A shower can fix a lot.
Not this. She looks less like a prisoner now. Just tired. Worn.
“Do you draw straws for this?” she asks, one knee on the mattress, considering getting in. Unsure if she’s allowed. Unsure how to relax in a place like this.
I glance away from the door and at her. “For what?”
“Who gets stuck with the prisoner.”
I almost smile. “There aren’t usually prisoners. It’s not usually this complicated.”
She laughs under her breath. It’s not a real laugh, but it still does something to my chest. “What’s complicated about it this time?” she asks.
I don’t answer.
She pries, “Because I might have told someone? So what? Why don’t you just kill everyone I’ve ever talked to?” Her lips twist into an ironic smile. Her voice has sharp corners, but her hands shake in her lap.
She wants an answer that makes this make sense. Doesn’t know we already know. Doesn’t understand why she’s still breathing. Maybe I don’t either. I don’t understand why I feel so grateful for her life.
“You don’t seem like them,” she says. “Did you grow up like this?” Like this. It’s a simplistic way of asking about the family business of murder.
I nod.
Softer now, she whispers, “When you grow up in it, it doesn’t even feel like ‘growing up’ in something.
It just is.” She’s picking at the blanket, her fingers working quickly around a wayward string and tugging.
“My dad was abusive. But I didn’t know there was a word for it.
” She meets my eyes. “I thought it was just how dads were.”
For a second, I see her. Not the hostage. Just a woman trying not to fall apart in front of a stranger. But I shake it off. “You look tired,” I say.
“I am.”
“You should sleep.”
“Will you shoot me in my sleep?”
“No.”
She watches me a beat longer. Then she shifts, lays her head down on the mattress without uncoiling completely. Like she doesn’t trust me. Good. She shouldn’t.
I don’t move. I sit there in the dark, pretending not to notice when her breathing softens.
She looks younger when she’s asleep. And softer. Like the mother of my children instead of the loose end I’m supposed to cut.
Her hands twitch like she’s dreaming. I wonder if it’s about her kids.
Our kids. I don’t know whose kids they are, but they’re mine in my mind.
In my mind, they have all the gentleness I was born with, but they get to live it out.
They don’t learn to kill before they learn to shave.
They don’t grow up thinking loyalty and violence are the same thing.
Declan would kill her in a heartbeat, would have killed her the moment she started asking questions. And Rian’s already crossed lines I’m not sure he can walk back from. That leaves me here, on the line, gun in my lap.
I should be listening for danger. For the sound of a door opening. For footsteps. But instead, I listen to the enemy’s breathing.
God help me, it’s an expensive lullaby.