17. Chapter Seventeen Kieran #2
Certainly not like this.
I didn’t think—I moved. The splash hadn’t even fully settled before I hit the water. Cold slammed into me like a truck, knocking the air from my lungs, but none of it mattered. All that mattered was getting to Ruby.
I swam hard, fast, the harbor clawing at me with every stroke. I could hear her splashing somewhere up ahead—desperate, erratic. I pushed harder, the dock already a blur behind me. Every nerve was screaming.
“Stop moving!” I yelled, voice hoarse. “I’ve got you.”
“I’m fine,” she chattered, her voice tight and breathless. “I—I can—I can swim—”
“Ruby, please.” My voice cracked on the word. “You can be mad at me later. Just don’t drown.”
That did it. She stopped flailing, just for a second. I locked an arm around her waist and kicked hard, steering us toward the longshoreman’s dinghy tied to the next pier.
“Keep kicking,” I said. “Helps with the whole staying-alive thing.”
Her hand clenched in my shirt, soaked fabric twisting in her fingers. She was shivering so hard I could feel it echo in my chest. The water dragged at us like it had teeth, but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Not when she was this close. Not when she felt like mine.
“I swear to God,” I muttered between gasps, “you’re heavier than you look.”
“Excuse me?” she snapped, teeth chattering.
“Dead weight,” I clarified, breathless. “The dramatic kind.”
“I hate you.”
“Still heavier.”
We slammed into the side of the dinghy. I half-lifted, half-threw her over the edge, then clambered up after her, both of us collapsing onto the deck like discarded sea creatures.
Ruby coughed hard—violent, water and fury leaving her lungs in one explosive breath. Her bandaged hand was a wreck, mud and salt clinging to it like the harbor had tried to eat her whole. She clutched at the slick wood like she didn’t quite believe she was alive.
I didn’t say anything. Just stared. My pulse was a hammer behind my ribs.
Then, without warning, she shoved me.
“Get the hell off me!” she gasped, breath ragged, eyes flashing.
“You’re welcome,” I bit out, not moving an inch.
“I didn’t ask you to jump in the water!”
“You fell.”
“I tripped!”
“You slapped me, tried to storm off, and tripped into the Atlantic.”
Her jaw dropped, dripping with seawater and pure indignation. “This is not my fault.”
“Oh no,” I said, flatly. “Of course not. It’s the dock’s fault. The ocean conspired against you. Poseidon’s vendetta.”
She swatted at my shoulder—weakly, because she was still shivering—and I caught her wrist before she could connect again.
“Fuck!” she said, yanking her hand away. “You can’t just fucking do this kind of shit, Kieran. You can’t follow me around. You can’t control me. You can’t—”
She took a deep breath before abruptly stopping her sentence.
She should’ve been thanking me. I had just saved her. But that was the problem, wasn’t it?
Because she thought I only saved people by controlling them. She had told me as much before. She had even called me creepy.
I saw the exact moment she realized, the exact moment she put it together. And what had I done? Threatened a man’s wife and kids like it was nothing. Like my name meant more than their lives.
Just like my father. Just like my brother.
But…I had still saved her. She had been in trouble, and I had still saved her. Sure, my methods had been unconventional, but she was alive because of me, wasn’t she?
“This is why I don’t listen to you. Because when I do, I end up in situations like this,” she spat, her breath coming in ragged bursts.
“I don’t see how your clumsiness has a damn thing to do with me showing up,” I shot back. “And…again, you’re welcome .”
“No…no. You don’t get to do this,” she said, her voice hoarse, her breath ragged. “You don’t get to play the hero. Not after everything.”
I swallowed hard, my pulse hammering in my throat. “This is exactly why you should listen to me. When you do, you stay alive.”
The dinghy rocked beneath us as Ruby struggled to her knees. I reached for the ladder, gripping the rusted metal rung.
“Come on,” I said, voice rough. “Up.”
She shot me a look that could've curdled blood, but she climbed.
It must have been hard as hell with an injured hand and the rest of her freezing, but she was carried by adrenaline, and she climbed the ladder as if she was a pro.
We finally stepped foot on the docks when she turned to me, her brow furrowed. “What did you say down there?”
“I said when you listen to me, you stay alive.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Clearly, that was the last fucking straw.
She took a step back, jaw tight, fists clenched. And then she said it, each word a clean cut to the throat.
“I never want to see you again.”
My jaw clenched. My pulse thundered.
She meant it.
There was a pause—just long enough for her to take it back. One breath, one second. She didn’t.
“I’m taking the Callahans down,” she said.
“Ruby—”
“No. We’re done. This is done. Never again. Stop following me. Goodbye, Kieran.”
She turned on her heel, walking away like I was nothing.
Like I hadn’t saved her life. Like I hadn’t had her soaked and trembling in my arms a heartbeat ago. Like I wasn’t the one who knew every inch of her skin, every sound she made when she came.
She didn’t look back.
And that… that was what undid me.
I stood there, soaked, shaking, rage and desire surging beneath my skin like wildfire. Not heartbreak. Not despair.
Possession.
I didn’t feel like throwing up—I felt like throwing her over my shoulder, hauling her into the nearest dark alley, and reminding her who the fuck she belonged to. Who she always belonged to.
She thought this was over?
No.
She was mine.
She could say whatever she wanted. Scream, spit, claw at me like she hated me—but I knew the way her body had curled against mine. I knew the way she gasped when I touched her. The way she kissed me like it was the first breath she’d taken in years.
And yeah, maybe she hated herself for it.
That just meant I was doing something right.
She didn’t want to see me again?
Fine.
She could close her eyes when I made her come.
She was serious about taking down the Callahans—so what? I was serious about never letting her go. And if it came to a fight, I’d burn down this whole city before I let her walk away from me for good.
Let her dig up dirt. Let her play spy. Let her think she’s the one with the upper hand.
Because if she kept pushing me, testing me, pretending she wasn’t mine?
One day soon, she’d wake up chained to my bed with nothing to say except please.
She wasn’t gone.
She was marked.
And whether she wanted to admit it or not?
Ruby Marquez was already mine.