33. Chapter Thirty-Three Kieran #2
I met her eyes. Steady. Unforgiving.
“Then I take her.”
Her face went pale. “You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t test me,” I said. “You know exactly what I’m capable of. That’s my daughter.”
I took a step forward.
Ruby didn’t move.
Another step.
She still didn’t move.
She crossed her arms, lifting her chin. “I think you should leave before you make a mistake.”
I laughed. Short. Humorless. “You stole my kid, and you think I’m about to make a mistake?”
“I didn’t steal anything,” she shot back. “You left.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“Stay away from us,” she said. “Stay away from Rosie.”
Ruby didn’t flinch, but her eyes flashed—bright with fear, with fury, with the fight she never learned how to lose. I reached out—just to touch her, just to remind her who she was speaking to—but she turned on her heel and ran.
She ran from me.
What the fuck else was I supposed to do?
I followed her up the stairs, two at a time. Her name was on my tongue, but I didn’t speak it. Didn’t need to. She knew I was coming. She reached the bedroom, tried to slam the door in my face.
I shoved it open like it was nothing.
“We have to talk about this,” I growled.
She was across the room, hunched over her bedside drawer. Shaking. Cornered. But still fucking defiant. “No. Get the fuck out of my house. You’re good at walking out—so do it again.”
“That’s not fair,” I snapped, stepping inside. “You’re being such an asshole.”
And then I saw her hand move.
I followed the line of her wrist, the tension in her fingers. Saw the drawer yanked open. The glint of metal.
A gun.
Not just any gun—a compact Glock, sleek, matte, too familiar. She’d kept it loaded. Of course she had. She wasn’t stupid.
But she was pointing it at me.
I froze, my hands instinctively lifting a few inches. Not in surrender. Just acknowledgment.
My voice dropped, low and dark. “Really?”
She didn’t answer.
I took a step closer.
“I said really, Ruby? You think I’m here to hurt you? You think I would lay a fucking finger on you unless it was to make you come so hard you forgot how to speak?”
Her jaw clenched, the gun trembling in her hands now.
“One step closer,” she warned.
I took it.
“You think this ends with you pulling that trigger?” I said, my voice like gravel. “You think you can shut the door and lock me out, just like that? After what we’ve done? After who we are?”
She was breathing too fast. Still clutching the gun, but her grip was shaky. And I could see it—the way her body betrayed her. The way her legs braced like she didn’t know whether to run or collapse.
“You’re scared,” I murmured, taking another step. “Not of me. Of how much you still want me. Of how easy it would be to forget everything and let me take care of you.”
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“You don’t even know what you’re saying. You’re tired…exhausted. You’ve had me inside you and now you’ve got me inside your fucking house, and you think a gun is gonna make me walk away?”
She swallowed hard.
“I could take you,” I said, voice low, rough. “Take both of you. Spirit you away, vanish from this city, and make you mine. You’d never work another day. You’d never be scared again. And Rosie would grow up safe and happy with the father you kept from her.”
“Shut up,” she said.
“Pull the trigger,” I said. “Do it. Or put the gun down and let me fucking fix this.”
The safety clicked off.
Something inside me burned—fury, admiration…something else I wasn’t ready to even think out loud.
I gave her a sharp smile. “If you wanted me dead, you wouldn’t have waited this long.”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t want you dead.”
“No?” I took a step forward, letting the muzzle press against my chest. “Then what do you want, Ruby?”
“I want you to leave us the fuck alone,” she said. “I want you to leave my daughter the fuck alone. And if I have to shoot you to make that happen, I will.”
My grin was slow. Dark. Delighted.
“Fuck, you’re hot when you lie.”
Her nostrils flared. She hated me. But hate was a close cousin to want, and I could see it in her eyes—that glint of something darker. A hunger. A question.
She hated that she wanted to believe me. Hated that some part of her didn’t want to pull the trigger. Hated that she knew if she let me touch her, she’d melt.
The gun pressed harder into my chest. She was trying to scare me. She didn’t know she was tempting me instead.
“Do it,” I murmured. “Come on, baby. Show me you’ve got the guts. Blow a hole through me. Or let me ruin you all over again.”
“God, I hate you,” she whispered.
“But you remember what I feel like,” I said, softer now. “You remember what it was like to let me take care of you. You remember how safe it felt.”
Her finger hovered on the trigger.
I leaned in, slow and shameless, until the barrel pushed against bone. Until I could smell her skin. Until I was sure she was breathing me in, too.
“If you’re gonna kill me,” I said, voice low and wicked, “look me in the eyes while you do it.”
Her gaze snapped to mine. Locked. Lit.
And I knew—whether she killed me or kissed me—it would be a glorious way to die.
“I’m not going to kill you,” she said. “You’re going to do it yourself.”
But before I could figure out what she meant, the doorbell rang.