Chapter 8 - Keira
The guest room was beautiful. Expensive linens, soft lighting, a view of the city that probably cost more than my entire apartment. It felt like a cage.
I sat on the edge of the bed, still wearing the clothes I'd put on that morning—a lifetime ago, when my biggest problem was whether I could maintain professional boundaries with a patient I was developing feelings for.
Now that patient had killed four men in front of me and proposed marriage like it was the most reasonable thing in the world.
Keira O'Shea.
The name echoed in my head, a ghost I'd thought I'd buried forever. Twelve years of building a new identity, a new life, a new self—all of it shattered in seconds by men with guns and Irish accents who'd found me anyway.
I should have known. Should have realized you can't outrun blood.
My father's shadow had stretched across my entire life, and even death hadn't diminished it.
Now his brother wanted to use me as a bargaining chip, trade me to the Petrovics like a commodity, marry me off to some man named Branko who probably saw women as possessions to be used and discarded.
I thought about the women I'd treated. The survivors of trafficking who'd sat in my office and described horrors I could barely comprehend. The Petrovics had done that to them. And now my own family wanted to hand me over to those monsters like a gift.
I stood and walked to the window. The city glittered below, indifferent to my crisis. Somewhere out there, Cormac's men were regrouping. Planning their next move. And the Petrovics were waiting, patient as spiders, for their promised bride.
I tested the window. Locked, of course. Not that it mattered—we were forty floors up, and I wasn't suicidal. Just desperate.
I moved through the room, checking doors, examining locks.
The bathroom had no windows. The closet was empty except for a robe and slippers that looked brand new, never worn.
The main door opened onto a hallway, but I could hear movement out there—security, probably, making sure I didn't do anything stupid.
Like run.
Where would you even go?
The question stopped me cold. I'd spent twelve years running, and they'd found me anyway.
I had no money—my accounts were under the name Keira Walsh, and accessing them would leave a trail.
I had no allies—everyone I knew was part of the life I'd built as someone else.
I had no weapons, no resources, no plan.
All I had was a man who'd killed for me and proposed marriage in a parking garage.
I sat back down on the bed and tried to think.
The FBI was out. Rodion was right about that—my family had connections everywhere, and the Petrovics had more.
I'd be dead before I finished giving my statement, or worse, I'd be "released" into their custody and disappear forever.
Witness protection was a joke when the people you were hiding from had agents inside the program.
Running was out, too. I'd been careful—so careful—for twelve years, and they'd still found me. My face was known now. My patterns. My habits. I could change my name again, move to another city, build another identity from scratch. But they'd be looking. And eventually, they'd find me.
Which left door number three: Rodion Rysev.
I turned his name over in my mind, trying to reconcile the man I'd known with the man I'd seen today.
In my office, he'd been charming and guarded and unexpectedly vulnerable.
He'd talked about his mother's death, his family's expectations, the performance he couldn't stop.
He'd looked at me like I was the first person who'd really seen him in years.
And then he'd pulled a gun and killed four men in less than ten seconds, his face utterly cold, his movements precise and practiced.
He'd done it before. Many times, probably.
This was who he really was—not a businessman with insomnia, but a killer.
A criminal. A man who lived in the same violent world I'd spent my whole life fleeing.
But he'd done it to protect me.
That was the part I couldn't stop thinking about. He hadn't hesitated. Hadn't calculated the risk or weighed his options. The moment those men came through the door, he'd put himself between them and me. He'd killed to keep me safe.
What kind of man did that for a woman he barely knew?
A man who's been stalking you for a week, I reminded myself. A man who admitted he's been following you, learning your routines, watching you without your knowledge or consent.
That should have horrified me. It did horrify me. But some treacherous part of my brain kept circling back to the way he'd looked at me in the car. The honesty in his voice when he'd admitted what he'd done. The way he'd said he wanted to earn my trust.
This was insane. He was insane. And I was insane for even considering his proposal.
But what choice did I have?
I couldn't sleep. The bed was too soft, the room too quiet, my mind too loud. I lay in the darkness and stared at the ceiling and thought about all the ways my life had gone wrong.
At some point—I didn't know what time, I'd lost track of the hours—I gave up. I wrapped myself in the robe that had been left for me and slipped out of the room.
The penthouse was dark except for the city lights filtering through the massive windows. I moved quietly, not wanting to attract attention from whatever security was stationed outside. I just needed to walk. To move. To do something other than lie in bed and spiral.
I found my way to the main living area—an open space with modern furniture and art that looked expensive and impersonal. Beyond it, a wall of windows looked out at Manhattan, the skyline glittering like scattered diamonds.
He was standing there. Silhouetted against the glass, a tumbler of something amber in his hand, his posture rigid with tension.
I should have gone back to my room. Should have retreated before he noticed me, preserved whatever distance remained between us.
Instead, I heard myself say: "Can't sleep either?"
He turned. In the dim light, his face was all shadows and sharp angles. He looked tired. Human. Nothing like the killer I'd seen that afternoon.
"Occupational hazard," he said. "Drink?"
I should have said no. "Yes."
He moved to a bar cart in the corner and poured me something—vodka, I realized when he handed it to me. Our fingers brushed during the exchange, and I felt it like an electric shock. Brief. Accidental. Enough to make my pulse stutter.
Stop it.
I took a long swallow, letting the alcohol burn its way down my throat. He watched me, not speaking, giving me space to decide what this conversation would be.
"I have questions," I said finally.
"I assumed you would."
"If I agree to this—and I'm not saying I will—what would it actually look like? This marriage."
He was quiet for a moment, considering. "Legally, you'd be my wife. You'd live here, under my protection. You'd have access to resources—money, security, whatever you need."
"And in exchange?"
"Nothing."
I laughed, the sound harsh in the quiet room. "Nothing? You're proposing to marry a woman you've known for three weeks, and you want nothing in return?"
"I didn't say I wanted nothing. I said I'd ask for nothing." He turned back to the window, his reflection ghosting in the glass. "Whatever happens between us—if anything happens—would be your choice. Not an obligation."
"And you expect me to believe that?"
"I expect you to believe that I'm not your uncle. I'm not the Petrovics. And I'm not your father." He looked at me over his shoulder, and something in his eyes made my chest tight. "I don't take what isn't given."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to point out that he'd taken plenty—my peace of mind, my carefully constructed life, my sense of safety. But the words wouldn't come, because some part of me recognized the truth in what he was saying.
He wasn't like them. I'd spent enough hours in that office, watching him struggle with honesty, to know that much.
"What happens when the threat is gone?" I asked. "If the Petrovics give up, if my uncle loses interest—what then?"
"Then you decide what you want. Stay or go. Your choice."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
I drained the rest of my vodka and set the glass down harder than I intended. "You make it sound so simple."
"It's not simple. Nothing about this is simple.
" He turned to face me fully, and the distance between us felt suddenly inadequate.
"You're asking me to explain something I don't fully understand myself.
Why I was at your office today. Why I proposed what I proposed. Why I—" He stopped, jaw tightening.
"Why you what?"
"Why I can't stop thinking about you."
The words landed like a blow. I should have deflected. Should have reminded him—reminded both of us—that whatever connection we'd felt in those sessions was an illusion, a product of the artificial intimacy of therapy.
Instead, I stood there, six feet away from him in the darkness, and felt the pull of something I couldn't name.
"This is insane," I said softly.
"You keep saying that."
"Because it keeps being true."
"Doesn't make it less real."
He took a step toward me. Just one. Enough to close some of the distance, not enough to crowd me. I could have stepped back. Could have retreated, put space between us, made it clear that whatever this was, I wanted no part of it.
I didn't move.
"I've been watching you," he said quietly.
"For a week. I told myself it was surveillance.
Due diligence. Making sure you weren't a threat.
" He shook his head. "But that wasn't it.
I watched you because I couldn't stay away.
Because every time I tried to stop thinking about you, I ended up on your street, looking up at your window, wondering if you were as sleepless as I was. "
"That's not romantic. That's disturbing."
"I know." A ghost of a smile. "And yet here we are."
"Here we are," I repeated. "In your penthouse. With you proposing marriage and me actually considering it because every other option ends with me dead or worse."
"Is that the only reason you're considering it?"
I should have said yes. Should have made it clear that this was purely transactional, a survival strategy and nothing more.
But I was tired of lying. To him. To myself.
"No," I admitted. "That's not the only reason."
Something shifted in his expression. Not triumph—something more complicated. Hope, maybe. Or recognition.
"You feel it too," he said. "Whatever this is."
"I feel something. I don't know what it is. And I don't trust it."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm a psychologist. I know how this works—the intensity of shared trauma, the false intimacy of crisis bonding. What we're feeling isn't real. It's adrenaline and proximity and the human need to connect when everything else is falling apart."
"Is that what you really believe?"
I wanted to say yes. Wanted to retreat into clinical language and professional distance and all the defenses I'd spent years building.
But he was looking at me with those dark eyes, and I could see his own walls crumbling, and the truth was, I didn't believe it. Not entirely.
"I don't know what I believe," I said. "I don't know anything anymore."
He closed another step of distance. We were only a few feet apart now, close enough that I could smell him—something masculine and expensive that I remembered from the sessions, back when he was just a patient and I was just his therapist, and neither of us knew how thoroughly our lives were about to collide.
"Then believe this," he said. "I will protect you. Whatever happens between us—whatever you decide about the marriage, about me, about any of it—I will keep you safe. That's not a bargain. It's not a transaction. It's a promise."
I wanted to believe him. That was the terrifying part. Despite everything—the violence, the stalking, the impossible situation—I wanted to trust this man I barely knew.
"Why?" I asked. "Why do you care what happens to me?"
"I don't know." He was close enough now that I could see the flecks of gold in his eyes, the faint scar on his jaw I'd never noticed before. "I've been asking myself that question for three weeks. Ever since you looked at me in that office and saw something no one else bothers to look for."
"What did I see?"
"The truth. The mess underneath the performance." He paused. "Me."
My heart was beating too fast. I could feel the heat of him, the magnetic pull that had been building since the first session. Every professional instinct I had was screaming at me to step back, to create distance, to protect myself.
I didn't step back.
"This is a terrible idea," I whispered.
"Probably."
"If I say yes—to the marriage—it doesn't mean..."
"It doesn't mean anything you don't want it to mean."
We stood there, inches apart, the city glittering behind us and the wreckage of our lives spread out before us.
I thought about all the reasons this was wrong—the violence, the deception, the impossible circumstances.
I thought about the women I'd treated, the survivors who'd taught me that powerful men were never to be trusted.
And then I thought about the way he'd looked at me across that therapy office. The way he'd stepped between me and the guns without hesitation. The way he was looking at me now, like I was something precious he was terrified of breaking.
"I need time," I said. "To think. To process."
"Take whatever time you need."
"And you won't... pressure me?"
"No."
I believed him. Against all logic, against all experience, I believed him.
"Okay," I said. "I'll think about it."
I turned and walked back toward my room, feeling his eyes on me the whole way. At the doorway, I stopped.
"Rodion?"
"Yes?"
I looked back at him, silhouetted against the window, beautiful and dangerous and utterly unlike anyone I'd ever known.
"Thank you. For saving my life."
Something flickered in his expression. "You don't have to thank me for that."
"I know. But I wanted to."
I went back to my room and closed the door behind me. I didn't sleep—my mind was too full, my body too wired with adrenaline and something else I refused to name. But I lay in the darkness and thought about his offer, his promise, his eyes.
I was going to say yes. I knew it with a certainty that terrified me.
Not because I had no other choice—though that was true. Not because it was the smart play—though it probably was.
But because some part of me, some reckless, broken part that had survived my father's house and twelve years of running and the loneliness of a life built on lies, wanted to see what would happen if I stopped running.
If I let someone in.
Even someone like him.
Especially someone like him.