Chapter 15
Jiya
Ijolt awake, heart racing as my eyes fly open. Morning light filters through curtains I don’t remember closing. My head pounds with each heartbeat, my mouth dry as sandpaper.
Images flash through my mind. The gala, Calloway at the bar, the bathroom... Oh God, the bathroom.
The overwhelming fog of arousal, my hands on Calloway, his eyes when he found me with that stranger.
I sit up. The room spins, my stomach lurching.
“Easy,” a voice says. “There’s water and ibuprofen on your nightstand.”
I squint at the voice.
Calloway. He’s still here. Disheveled and beautiful in the armchair by my window.
The memory of last night crystallizes. His saving me, bringing me home, helping me shower...
“You stayed,” I croak, voice raw.
“You asked me to.”
I got myself drugged and then asked a serial killer to stay the night. In my home. While I was unconscious. My thoughts spiral into a frantic, screaming vortex.
My hand drifts down, fingers sliding under the lip of the nightstand, searching for the familiar cold steel of the handgun I keep taped there.
My fingers meet smooth, empty wood.
Ice floods my veins. It’s gone.
Calloway watches me, a flicker of something almost like amusement in his eyes. He knows what I was just doing.
He reaches into the pocket of his wrinkled trousers and pulls out my compact Sig Sauer, holding it between his thumb and forefinger.
“Looking for this?” he asks, his voice soft. “We’re not ready for that part of our relationship just yet.”
I stare at my gun in his hand, my throat closing up. He doesn’t move.
He could have killed me. He could have done anything. Stupid. Stupid.
I swallow the ibuprofen, trying to organize my scattered thoughts. The cool water soothes my parched throat, but nothing can ease the humiliating memories crowding my mind. Me, throwing myself at him. Begging. Asking why he wouldn’t touch me.
And he refusing. Gently, firmly refusing.
“How much do you remember?” he asks, straightening in the chair. His clothes are wrinkled, yet he still looks like he belongs in a photography portfolio.
“Too much,” I mutter, pulling the blanket tighter around me. “I was drugged.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “By your own doing. With something you intended for me.”
My breath catches. He knows.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
His eyes meet mine, steady and unreadable. “I want a reason.”
I laugh, the sound brittle. “You think I tried to drug you?”
“Yes.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “You told me so.”
I told him?
“And I know you sabotaged the lighting rig at the gallery. You’ve been hunting me,” he says. “Tell me why.”
I consider my options. Denial seems pointless. “How long have you known?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Neither was yours.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Fair enough. I suspected after my building almost exploded over my head. Confirmed it when a friend showed me surveillance footage of you following me.”
I swallow hard, cataloging the weapons hidden throughout my apartment. The knife taped under my bed frame is closest. If he hasn’t taken that too.
“And yet you brought me home,” I say. “You took care of me. Why would you help someone who’s trying to kill you?”
Calloway runs a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Because you needed help, regardless of your intentions toward me.”
No one helps without expecting something in return. Especially not men. Especially not killers.
“Then let’s be clear,” I say, leaning forward, my voice regaining a sliver of its professional coldness. “I know what you are. The Gallery Killer.”
The name hangs in the air between us. I brace for the explosion. The denial, the rage.
Instead, the opposite happens. The tension that held Calloway’s frame rigid dissolves. He leans back in the chair, a subtle shift from a forward, aggressive posture to one of quiet observation. A slow, almost imperceptible breath escapes his lips.
“So,” he says, his voice even. “All of this...the attempts on my life...it’s because you think I’m the Gallery Killer?”
His reaction is so profoundly wrong, so completely alien to what I expected, that it throws me off balance. Like a fencer who lunged forward, only to find the opponent has vanished.
“Yes?” The word comes out as a question, my voice laced with a confusion I can’t hide. “Don’t bother denying it.”
“I see,” he says, and a ghost of a smile touches his lips. It’s not a smile of amusement. It’s something else, something private and unsettling.
Why isn’t he mad?
“You realized I was trying to kill you. When I was...throwing myself at you. Why didn’t you just finish it? Or take what I was offering?”
He looks at me then, and his gaze is sharp, analytical, stripping away all my pretenses.
“Because that would make me like them,” he says, his voice quiet but laced with steel. “The men you hunt. The ones who can’t control themselves. You weren’t offering anything, Jiya. The drug was. And I’m not interested in what a chemical has to say.”
The statement lands like a punch to the gut.
He gestures toward me. “That’s not what I’m looking for.”
“What are you looking for?” I ask, curiosity overriding self-preservation.
Calloway stands, stretching his tall frame.
“Coffee,” he says. “I’ll make some while you get dressed. Then we can discuss this like civilized predators.”
He walks to the door, but pauses. He turns back, crosses the room, and places my gun on the nightstand beside the glass of water. The sound of metal on wood is deafening in the quiet room. He’s giving it back?
I sit frozen, staring at the gun. He knows I’m an assassin. He knows I have tried to kill him multiple times. And he just gave me back my weapon. I don’t understand.
“For the record,” he says, “I didn’t stay the night because I pitied you or because I’m plotting something. I stayed because you asked me to, and because I know what it’s like to wake up scared and alone after someone’s violated your boundaries.”
The door closes behind him with a soft click.
What does he mean by that?
The implication hangs in the air, heavy and unexpected. Has he been... Has someone hurt him? The image doesn’t align with the man I’ve been hunting—the confident, untouchable Calloway Frost who moves through the world like he owns it.
But Calloway Frost is nothing like I expected. Nothing like the monsters I’ve hunted before.
I drag myself out of bed, wincing as my body protests.
In the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face, avoiding my reflection. The woman staring back at me looks haunted. Dark circles, bloodshot eyes, hair a tangled mess. I brush my teeth vigorously, as if I could scrub away the memories of last night along with the sour taste in my mouth.
After a quick shower that restores some semblance of humanity, I throw on clean clothes. Yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt.
The smell of coffee leads me to the kitchen. There stands Calloway Frost, The Gallery Killer, making himself at home at my stove.
He flips what appears to be an omelet, like this is something we do every Sunday.
“How did you know where I live?” I ask, my voice sharper than intended.
Calloway continues tending to the omelet, not bothering to look up.
“Fuck. You searched me up, didn’t you? You knew who I was the entire time.” I press, stepping further into the kitchen. “You knew I was trying to kill you.”
He doesn’t answer. The silence stretches between us, punctuated only by the soft tick of my kitchen clock.
“Are you going to kill me?” The question tumbles out before I can stop it.
He turns, spatula in hand, eyebrows raised. “What?”
“Let’s put the cards on the table,” I say, gripping the edge of the bar. “You’re The Gallery Killer. I’ve made multiple attempts on your life. So, what’s your next move? Are you going to kill me?”
Calloway looks at me for a long moment, then returns his attention to the omelet. “If I wanted you dead, would I have helped you home, put you in the shower, and watched over you all night?”
“I have no idea what to make of you.” I slide onto a barstool, watching him. “You certainly don’t follow the serial killer handbook. Most skip the part where they make breakfast for their kills.”
“Sugar or poison? I mean, sweetener?” he asks.
I can’t help but smile. “Poison.”
He plates the omelet and slides it across the counter to me, along with a mug of coffee.
“Why did you want to kill me?” His voice is casual, like he’s asking why I prefer oat milk in my latte.
“You’re The Gallery Killer. I hunt predators, and you are one.” I take a sip of coffee. Perfectly prepared, damn him. “That’s kind of my thing. Like some people collect stamps or join book clubs, I poison murderers who escaped justice.”
“Ah.” He nods, as if this is the most reasonable hobby he’s ever heard of.
“Don’t ‘ah’ me like we’re discussing your photography exhibition,” I snap, wrapping my hands around the warm mug. “You butcher people and arrange them like art installations. I’ve been tracking The Gallery Killer for months.”
He studies me for a moment, then tilts his head. “How did you figure it out? The police have been hunting me for years.”
I set down my mug. “You want the truth? I thought you were hot.”
His eyebrows rise.
“When you first came to Penumbra, I noticed you. So I did what any bartender does with an attractive customer—I paid attention.” I take another sip of coffee.
“You were scrolling through your phone, and I caught a glimpse of a photo. Just some man I didn’t recognize. Didn’t think much of it at the time.”
“But?”
“He showed up dead the next day. Gallery Killer’s latest masterpiece.” I watch his face carefully. “So I started paying closer attention. You’re in the art business. So are all the victims. But there’s no connection between you and them. No professional overlap, no personal relationships. Nothing.”
Calloway remains perfectly still, listening.
“The next time you came in, I put the news report about that murder on the bar TV. Just to see.” I lean back in my chair. “That’s when I knew for certain.”
“What did you see?”