Chapter 15
I was organizing client files in the Cross Security reception area, trying to look busy while actually thinking about the way Kieran kissed me three nights ago, when my phone rang.
The number was blocked, which should have been my first warning.
But I was distracted, my mind still replaying the feel of his hands in my hair and the way he said we were both too broken to fix each other.
I answered without thinking.
“Willa.”
My blood turned to ice at the sound of that voice—smooth, familiar, with the same tone he used to tell me he loved me right before he hit me.
“Dex.” The name came out as barely a whisper.
“Hello, baby. Miss me?”
The office around me suddenly felt too bright, too exposed. The glass walls seemed thinner, the open space more vulnerable. I glanced around frantically, but David was in a meeting and Rebecca was on another call. I was alone with the voice that still haunted my nightmares.
“How did you get this number?”
“I have my ways. Amazing what people will tell you if you ask the right questions—and when your parents have a lot of connections and money.”
My hands started shaking so badly that I almost dropped the phone. “What do you want?”
“To talk to my wife. Is that so wrong?”
“I’m not your wife anymore.”
Dex laughed, the sound cold and bitter. “Oh, sweetheart. You’ll always be my wife. Until death do us part, remember? We made vows.”
I stood up from my desk, needing to move, needing to do something with the adrenaline flooding my system. “Those vows ended when you shot me.”
“That was an accident. You know I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
The casual way he said it, like putting a bullet through my shoulder had been some minor misunderstanding, made something snap inside me. “You hunted me through the streets like an animal. You left me to die in an alley.”
“But you didn’t die, did you? You found yourself a knight in shining armor. Kieran Cross, CEO of Cross Security. Very impressive, Willa. I always knew you were resourceful.”
The way he said Kieran’s name, with that particular emphasis that meant he’d been watching, studying, planning, made my stomach lurch. “Stay away from him.”
“Why would I want to hurt your boyfriend? He’s been so helpful.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Haven’t you been watching the news? Poor Kieran’s having some business troubles. Security breaches, lost clients, canceled mergers. Terrible shame. He worked so hard to build that company.”
The pieces started clicking together with horrible clarity. The emergency calls that pulled Kieran away. The stress I saw in his face when he thought I wasn’t looking. The way he was distracted, tense, like he was fighting a war I couldn’t see.
“You did this,” I said, the words coming out flat and certain.
“I had help. Amazing how easy it is to find people with grudges. People who feel undervalued and overlooked. People who want to watch the golden boy fall.”
“Why? What does Kieran have to do with us?”
“He has everything to do with us, baby. He’s the reason you think you can leave me. He’s the reason you think you’re too good for what we had together. But I’m going to show you the truth.”
I started walking toward Kieran’s office, needing to warn him, needing to tell him what was happening. My pulse hammered in my ears, each step heavier than the last.
But Dex’s next words stopped me cold.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“Do what?”
“Run to him for help. You see, I’ve been very busy these past few weeks—making friends, reconciling with my parents, who will do anything just to keep their little boy happy. Now I have plenty of means to gather information, learning all about Cross Security’s clients and their… vulnerabilities.”
The threat was clear, even unspoken. “You’re sick.”
“I’m practical. Kieran Cross made his choice when he decided to play hero. When he decided to take what belonged to me. Now he gets to live with the consequences.”
“I don’t belong to you.”
“Don’t you? Then why are you talking to me instead of hanging up? Why are you listening to what I have to say instead of running to your protector?”
The question hit me like a slap because it was true. I should have hung up the moment I heard his voice. I should have run straight to Kieran’s office and told him everything. But something kept me on the line—some horrible fascination with the trap that was closing around us.
“What do you want?” I asked again.
“I want you to come home.”
“Never.”
“Even if it means saving Cross Security? Even if it means protecting all those innocent clients whose security information might accidentally fall into the wrong hands?”
My throat closed up. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I? How well do you think federal judges sleep when their safe house locations are posted on extremist websites? How safe do Fortune 500 CEOs feel when their home security codes are shared with everyone who has a grudge against corporate America?”
“You’re talking about people’s lives.”
“I’m talking about consequences. Kieran made a choice. Now he gets to live with what that choice costs. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you make a different choice. Come home, Willa. Come back to where you belong, and I’ll make all of this go away. Cross Security’s reputation will be restored. The merger will go through. Kieran will get everything he’s worked for.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I keep pulling threads until his whole world unravels. And when he has nothing left—when he’s lost everything that made him feel superior to men like me—maybe then you’ll understand that love isn’t about knights and castles. It’s about who’s willing to fight the hardest to keep you.”
I closed my eyes, leaning against the wall for support. The cool surface grounded me, even as my legs threatened to give out. “You call that love?”
“I call it commitment. I call it knowing that some things are worth destroying the world for.”
The line went quiet for a moment, and I heard sounds in the background—traffic, voices, the kind of urban noise that suggested he was close. Closer than I wanted to imagine.
“I’m not the same person I was when I left,” I finally said.
“Neither am I. I’ve learned things, Willa. About patience. About planning. About how to get what I want without making the mistakes I made before.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning next time, I won’t miss.”
The threat was quiet, matter-of-fact, and somehow more terrifying than all his previous rage. This wasn’t the drunk, impulsive man who had hunted me through the streets. This was someone calculating—someone who had spent weeks preparing for this moment.
“I need time to think,” I said.
“You have twenty-four hours. No—actually, I’ll be generous.
Let’s make it forty-eight. After that, I’ll start sharing information with people who will be very interested in Cross Security’s client files.
People who don’t like federal judges. People who have strong feelings about corporate executives. People who know how to hold grudges.”
“And if I come back?”
“Then we start over. Clean slate. I’ve been to therapy, Willa. I’ve learned about my anger, about communication. We can be happy together. We can be what we were always meant to be.”
The sincerity in his voice was almost worse than the threats. Because I had heard that tone before—after every incident, every apology, every promise that things would be different. And for a terrifying moment, I almost believed him again.
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“You can. And you will. Because deep down, you know the truth—you’re not meant for his world.
You’re not sophisticated enough, educated enough, strong enough to be with someone like Kieran Cross.
You’re meant for someone who knows your value.
Someone who fought for you when you had nothing left to fight with. ”
Each word was carefully chosen, designed to strike the insecurities I carried since the day I walked into Kieran’s penthouse.
The quiet knowledge that I didn’t belong among his designer furniture and corporate connections.
The certainty that eventually he would realize he could do better than his best friend’s damaged little sister.
“Forty-eight hours,” Dex repeated. “Don’t disappoint me, baby. You know how I get when I’m disappointed.”
The line went dead, and I stood there in Cross Security’s polished corridor, staring at my phone and feeling like I was going to be sick. The hum of the building pressed in around me, too clean, too controlled, as if it were mocking the chaos unraveling inside my chest.
Because as much as I wanted to dismiss everything he said as the ramblings of an abusive ex-husband, I knew he wasn’t bluffing. The business troubles consuming Kieran, the strain I saw settling into his shoulders, the emergency calls that kept pulling him away—it was all Dex.
And now he was offering me a choice that wasn’t really a choice at all.
Let Kieran’s world burn, or walk back into the fire myself.
I thought about the kiss we shared three nights ago, about the way he said we were both too broken to be fixed. Maybe he was right. Maybe love wasn’t about two damaged people healing each other.
Maybe sometimes it was about one damaged person choosing to sacrifice themselves to keep the other from being destroyed.
I looked toward Kieran’s office, where I could see him through the glass walls, head in his hands as he spoke on the phone—probably another client demanding explanations he couldn’t give.
Forty-eight hours to decide whether to save him or save myself.
But as I watched him run his fingers through his dark hair in frustration, as I saw the weight of failure settling more heavily on his shoulders, I realized the choice was already made.
Some people were worth saving, even if it meant destroying yourself to do it.
The question was whether I was brave enough to follow through.