Julian #2
They killed Katya to send a message. Tortured her for hours, made her suffer, all to prove a point. And if they find out about Isabelle—if they discover that she's more than just a job I refused, they won't just kill her. They'll do worse.
They'll make it last. Make it hurt. Make me watch every second of it before they kill me too, and they'll make sure I know that her suffering is my fault. That every scream, every cut, every moment of agony is because I was stupid enough to care about her.
I pick up my phone and delete the video, delete the messages, delete everything.
Then I pull the battery out, drop it in the trash, and destroy the SIM.
I move to the window and stare out at the dark courtyard below, my mind racing through possibilities.
I'm running out of options and time. Out of ways to keep her safe.
I can't let them know. I can't let them see that Isabelle is anything more than a job gone wrong, a target I'm keeping alive for some other reason than desire or emotion.
If they think she matters to me—if they think she's someone I care about, someone I'd sacrifice for, someone who could be used as leverage—she becomes the perfect weapon. And I've been careless.
Someone could have seen us on that balcony. Someone could already have what they need to make this worse than it already is.
I press my forehead against the cool glass and close my eyes, trying to think through the exhaustion and the fear and the rage that's threatening to consume me.
I need to pull back. I need to make it clear that she's nothing to me, that I'm protecting her for reasons that have nothing to do with caring, and that when this is over, I'll walk away without looking back.
It's the only way to keep her safe.
I go lie down on the couch in the living room, staring at the water-stained ceiling, listening to Isabelle breathe in the next room.
I can hear every shift of the mattress, every soft sigh, every movement she makes.
My body aches with exhaustion and want, the two sensations so tangled together I can't separate them anymore.
I remember how she felt on that balcony.
The heat of her mouth, the softness of her skin, the way she gasped when I touched her breast. I remember the weight of her in my arms, the way her legs wrapped around my waist, the desperate need in her voice when she begged me not to stop.
We were so close. So fucking close to crossing that line again, to giving in to what we both wanted.
I've been fighting the desire, the connection between us. But now I can't fight it anymore. Now I have to bury it completely, kill it before it kills her.
Katya died because she once meant something to me. Because three years ago, I spent a few weeks in her bed and she made me laugh. It wasn't love—not even close. Just a brief moment of human connection in a life that's defined by isolation and violence.
And they tortured her for hours before cutting her throat. What will they do to Isabelle? The woman I can't stop thinking about. The woman I've killed for. The woman who looks at me like I'm someone worth knowing, someone worth saving, someone who could be more than just a weapon.
They'll destroy her, and it'll be with a creative brutality that makes the video of Katya look merciful by comparison.
And they'll make me watch.
I close my eyes and try to breathe through the fear, but it's everywhere now. In my chest, in my throat, in my fucking soul. What they'll do to Isabelle if I'm not careful—I can't let that happen. It's the only way to keep her alive.
The bedroom door opens.
I sit up immediately, my hand moving to the gun on the coffee table before I register that it's just Isabelle.
She's wearing a long, soft-looking sleep T-shirt again, the fabric hanging loose on her frame.
Her hair is loose around her shoulders, and her feet are bare.
She looks so fucking beautiful, it makes my chest ache.
"Can't sleep?"
"No." She moves into the living room, her arms wrapped around herself like she's cold, despite the fact that it's very warm in this apartment. "You?"
"I don't sleep much."
"I've noticed." She sits down on the other end of the couch, tucking her legs beneath her, and I can see the exhaustion in her face. "Julian, about what happened on the balcony—"
I cut her off immediately. "Don't."
Her mouth purses. I can see her gearing up for a fight. "Don't what?"
"Don't bring it up. Don't try to continue it. Don't—" I stop myself, jaw clenching so hard my teeth ache. "It was a mistake."
She stares at me, and I can see the hurt flickering across her face. "A mistake."
"Yes."
"That's not what it felt like." She presses her lips inward, tightly against her teeth. "When you were begging me to earn your cock with your fingers in me, it didn't feel like—"
Fuck. This has to stop now. "It doesn't matter what it felt like." I stand up, needing distance, needing to not be this close to her. "It can't happen, Isabelle. I've told you that."
"You've told me a lot of things." She stands too, moving closer, and I can see the frustration building in her eyes. The hurt turned to anger. "But your body tells me something different. The way you look at me tells me something different. What we had on that balcony—that was real. That was—"
"It was nothing." The words come out as harsh and brutal as I can possibly make them. "It was a moment of weakness. It won't happen again."
"Why?" Her voice rises, frustration and hurt bleeding through the anger. "Why do you keep pushing me away? I know you want me. I know you feel this, too. So why—"
"Because you're just a spoiled, selfish girl who can't hear the word no!
" I snap, finding the one thing that I know will hurt enough to make her stop.
"You want something, and you've always gotten it.
Well you had me, Isabelle, and that was enough.
I don't do more than one night, and you got two.
Be happy with that, and stop being such a fucking brat! "
Her eyes go wide, and I see so much raw, aching hurt in them that I know in that instant that I've made myself into a monster to her anyway, even though I haven't fucked her again.
She looks as if I've ripped her heart out, tears welling up in her eyes as her face flushes red, and I remember what she said to me on the balcony.
You see me.
I do. But she can't believe that any longer. She has to believe that I'm just the man keeping her alive, and nothing more.
Or I'm going to do something that destroys us both.
"You think you know me, but you don't. You don't know anything." I clench my jaw. "Go to bed, Isabelle."
Tears spill over her lashes. "Fuck you," she whispers.
I move back, maintaining the distance, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. "You need to stop this, Isabelle. Stop trying to make this into something it's not. Stop looking at me like I'm someone worth something to you. I'm not. Whatever there was between us, it's done."
"You don't mean what you're saying." She dashes the tears away with the back of her hand. "I don't know what you're doing, but you don't mean—"
"I do." My voice is cold now, deliberately cruel, every word meant to push her away.
To create the distance, I need to keep her alive.
"I'm keeping you alive because it's the right thing to do.
Because I made a choice and I'm seeing it through.
But that's all this is. That's all it can be.
I don't want you, Isabelle. If I get hard around you, if I lose control a little when you come on to me, it's because it's been a couple weeks since I got laid and I'm fucking horny, and I don't have time to go out and fuck while I'm watching your spoiled ass and trying to keep you from getting killed. That's all."
She stares at me, and I watch the hurt shift as she turns closed off and defensive.
Her arms wrap tighter around herself, and I can see her retreating behind walls of her own.
"I see." Her voice is flat, empty of the warmth and hope that were there moments ago.
"So everything on that balcony—the things you said, the way you touched me—that was all just... what? A moment of weakness you regret?"
"Yes." The lie tastes like poison in my mouth, bitter and wrong, but I force it out anyway. I force myself to hold her gaze and not flinch from the pain I'm causing.
"Fine." She wraps her arms tighter around herself. "Message received. I'll stop throwing myself at you. I'll stop trying to make this into something you clearly don't want."
Her jaw clenches. "You've made yourself clear. I'm just an obligation. I don't know why you're helping me, but it's clearly not because you actually give a shit about me."
"That's not—"
"Save it." She turns away, heading back toward the bedroom, and I can see the tension in her shoulders. "I don't want to hear any more."
She disappears into the room and closes the door, and this time I hear the lock click.
I stand in the middle of the living room, my hands clenched into fists, and my chest aches.
I feel like I've lost something I never really had.
Something I didn't even know I wanted until it was right in front of me…
that I'm still not sure what it is I want it to be.
And there's no point in trying to figure it out. If Isabelle hates me, fine. Then they'll believe that she's nothing worth using as leverage. They won't torture her to get to me or make her suffer to break me.
I sink back down onto the couch and drop my head into my hands, exhaustion crashing over me in waves. The video plays behind my eyelids of Katya's broken body, the blood, the knife. The message they sent with her death.
I can't let Isabelle become another message.