Chapter 34
Connor
The cabin stood nestled among towering pines, its weathered exterior blending with the natural landscape. It was simple. A living area with a stone fireplace, a small kitchen, one bedroom, and a covered porch overlooking the lake. Far from civilization, accessible only by a winding dirt road, it offered the solitude we desperately needed.
“It’s beautiful,”
Mia said, stepping onto the porch as the setting sun painted the water in shades of gold and crimson. “How did you find this place?”
“It belongs to the clan,”
I explained, setting our bags inside the door. “A retreat for members who need... space. Time to think.”
She turned to me, her expression open yet guarded. “Is that what we need? Time to think?”
Loons called to each other back and forth as I moved to stand beside her, watching as the last rays of sunlight danced across the lake. “I think we need time to figure out who we are now—together, without anyone hovering around us.”
Mia leaned into me, her head resting against my shoulder. “Together,”
she echoed, the word carrying weight beyond its simplicity. “I like the sound of that.”
We stood in comfortable silence, watching darkness settle over the lake. Stars emerged, their reflections rippling across the water’s surface. Away from the chaos and violence that had defined our lives for so long, I felt the tension in my shoulders begin to ease.
“I’ve been thinking about Lily,”
Mia said finally, her voice soft but clear in the stillness. “About what to tell her, how much she deserves to know.”
I wrapped an arm around her waist, anchoring her against me. “What do you want her to know?”
“The truth,”
she replied after a moment’s consideration. “Not everything at once, but enough. She deserves to know she has sisters who want to be part of her life.”
“And about Matheson? Your past?”
Mia sighed, her breath visible in the cooling evening air. “Eventually. When she’s ready, when I’m ready to explain that part of myself.”
She turned to face me, her eyes searching mine in the gathering darkness. “What about you? Are you ready to hear about that part of me?”
The question hung between us, loaded with implications. We had faced death together, fought side by side, but we had never fully addressed the reality of who she had been—the lives she had taken, the person she had been molded into by Matheson’s organization.
“Yes,”
I said simply. “All of it. Whenever you’re ready to share.”
Relief flickered across her features. She took my hand, leading me inside the cabin. The interior was rustic but comfortable. A worn leather sofa before the fireplace, a small dining table, handwoven rugs covering the pine floors. I lit the fire while Mia prepared a simple meal from the supplies we’d brought.
We ate in companionable silence, the crackling fire and gentle lapping of the lake against the shore our only music. When we finished, Mia curled beside me on the sofa, her body fitting perfectly against mine.
“I killed my first target when I was nineteen,”
she began without preamble, her voice steady but distant. “A businessman in Calgary. Matheson told me he was selling military secrets to foreign governments, endangering Canadian troops overseas.”
I listened without interruption as she spoke of her training, her missions, the gradual realization that Matheson’s targets weren’t always the threats to national security he claimed them to be. She spoke of the guilt that grew with each assignment, the doubts she carefully concealed, the silent penance she performed for lives taken under false pretenses.
“When he assigned me to eliminate Declan, I was already looking for a way out,”
she continued, her fingers absently tracing patterns on my arm. “But Matheson had found Lily by then. He showed me surveillance photos, detailed files on her daily routine, her weaknesses. He made it clear that if I refused the assignment or failed to complete it, she would suffer.” Mia’s voice broke slightly. “I couldn’t let that happen, but I also couldn’t go through with killing Declan when I saw how much Wren loved him.”
I pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to her temple. “So, you stalled.”
“I stalled,”
she confirmed. “Sent reports of making progress while actually doing everything I could to avoid completing the mission. When Matheson grew suspicious and added you to the target list...” She looked up at me, her eyes reflecting the firelight. “I knew I couldn’t do it. Not to Wren, and not to you.”
“Why not Rory or Kat? Why weren’t they ever targets?”
She shook her head. “I thought of that too. And I honestly don’t know. The only thing I could come up with is that he has a personal vendetta against the males that have the MacGallan blood.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Or he didn’t think Kat was a threat. When did you decide?”
I asked softly. “When did you know, you were going to defy him?”
A small smile touched her lips. “The night of the wedding. You were standing by the bar, watching Declan and Wren dance. There was such love in your eyes for them both—and then you looked at me, and something shifted. I realized I wanted to be worthy of that look.”
I remembered that night—the blue dress she’d worn, the way the lights had caught in her hair, the feeling that something important was happening between us, though I couldn’t have named it then.
“After that,”
she continued, “I started planning how to protect all of you—and Lily—from Matheson. But he was always three steps ahead.”
We talked through the night, the fire burning down to embers as she shared the darkest parts of her past and I listened without judgment. When she finally fell silent, emotionally exhausted, but somehow lighter, I cupped her face in my hands.
“Thank you,”
I said, “for trusting me with this.”
“I want to be honest with you,”
she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. “About everything. No more secrets between us.”
I nodded, understanding the gift she was offering—complete transparency, a clean slate. “No more secrets,” I agreed.
In the days that followed, we established a gentle rhythm at the cabin. Mornings spent making love and hiking the surrounding trails, afternoons reading or talking on the porch, evenings cooking together and planning our future. Daily calls to the hospital brought increasingly positive news about Rory—he had regained consciousness, was responding to treatment, beginning the long road to recovery.
A week into our stay, as we sat on the dock with our feet dangling in the cool water, Mia turned to me with newfound determination.
“I want to meet Lily,”
she said. “Properly, as her sister. Not watching from the shadows or through surveillance photos.”
I squeezed her hand. “Then let’s make that happen.”
“It won’t be easy,”
she warned. “I’ll be a stranger to her—we both will. And explaining our connection without revealing everything at once...”
“We’ll figure it out,”
I assured her.