TWO
OLIVIA
I scan the darkness, searching for anything to cut these ties.
Nothing. Just cold, damp concrete against my cheek, a single bare bulb burning overhead, and a wooden crate on the other side of the room.
Somewhere above, the dull rumble of traffic vibrates through the foundation.
It sounds distant. That means I’m below street level, close to the waterfront.
The heavy, stagnant air confirms it. The space is empty.
There isn’t a single sharp object in sight.
Julian knows I’m missing. The thought brings a hard wave of relief. Julian will figure it out. I refuse to let my mind drift a single second past that certainty.
The left side of my face throbs, swollen from the backhand I took when I tried to twist away near the van.
My ribs ache with a deep, grinding pain on the right side.
That came from the kick when they first dragged me down here, right after I made the mistake of screaming.
They threw me onto the floor and the boots just kept coming.
I have not made a sound since. Every small bit of air I draw in sends a sharp blade straight through my side, making it impossible to take a full breath.
To drown out the pain, I think about Julian’s letter.
I picture the little robot-cat drawing folded inside the paper.
I replay the words in my head: I told you that you didn’t belong there because I was terrified, I was the one who didn’t belong.
I’m still furious with him for the months of lies.
I also cannot bear the thought of dying without seeing his face again.
Both truths hit me at the exact same time.
I hold onto them, using the anger and the longing to calm my racing mind.
Footsteps echo against the concrete. I twist my neck around to see who it is. My brain freezes, refusing to process the face looking back at me.
Kieran steps into the light. He drags the wooden crate over and sits on it across from me. He looks down at me the way a person looks at a mild inconvenience. There is no rage in his eyes. No twisted satisfaction. Just a blank, dead stare.
“Kieran,” I rasp out before he can start.
“Do you know why you’re here, Olivia?” His voice is casual, as if he’s talking to a colleague at the office.
“No,” I say. My voice cracks against the floor.
He wants to talk, so I let him. I lie still on the cold concrete, listening to every word, burning the details into my memory.
“I was at St. Clair Academy, you know,” Kieran says, leaning forward on the crate. He looks out over my head, his eyes staring at nothing. “Right there with him. But I was a ghost outside Julian’s circle. My family had money, sure, but it was the wrong kind.”
He drops his gaze back to me, a faint, bitter smile touching his lips.
Something flickers behind his eyes when he says family. A muscle ticks in his jaw, there and gone so fast I must have imagined it.
“The wrong kind of money,” he repeats, quieter now, talking to himself instead of me.
“My father made sure everyone knew exactly what kind. He had a way of making sure I never forgot it, either.” His hand drifts to his ribs in an absent, unconscious motion, tracing an old injury that healed wrong.
“My mother used to just stand in the doorway and watch. She never said a word. Not once.”
He catches himself. His hand drops fast, like he’s been burned, and that blank, dead stare slams back into place.
“Anyway.” His voice flattens out, empty of whatever just crossed his face. “None of that matters anymore.”
“For two full years before we graduated, Julian Thorne never once looked at me,” Kieran says. “Not a single word. Not a glance in the hallway. Nothing. It was like I didn’t even exist.”
He rests his elbows on his knees. His voice drops into something quiet, almost confessional.
“I had feelings for him back then.”
He fixes his eyes on me, catching the exact second my breath hits a wall in my throat.
“I knew he wasn’t into men,” he continues, his voice dropping lower.
“I knew, rationally, that nothing would ever happen between us. But I didn’t care about that.
I just needed him to see me. To really see me.
That would have been enough. Instead, I just watched, staying in the background. ”
Kieran straightens up. His expression snaps back to that flat, clinical calm.
“So after graduation, I rebuilt myself. I chose network security because being the best was the only ticket I had to force my way inside. I spent years working my way toward NexaCore. When the time was right, I approached him. I told him I’d heard incredible things about the firm and wanted to bring my skills in-house.
And you know what? He hired me purely on merit.
Because he didn’t even remember my face from school. ”
He shakes his head. His voice drops to a harsh whisper, heavy with a ten-year grudge.
“It’s always been the same,” Kieran says.
“Two years of being a nobody to him in high school. Then five years clawing my way up in the tech world just to get on his radar. And for the last two years, I’ve been working right down the hall from him at NexaCore.
” A cold hardness settles over his face.
“Nine years of my life I’ve given to Julian, Olivia, and he still doesn’t even see me beyond friendship. ”
“He does see you, but not the way you want him to,” I say, finally fighting through the pain to sit up. “You said it yourself, you knew he’s not into men. He sees you as his best friend. Isn’t that enough?”
The words strike a nerve. Kieran instantly bolts to his feet and marches toward me. The veins in his neck bulge, his chest heaving as he glares down at me.
“You know nothing about me!” he screams.
“I love him with all my heart! I gave him my everything to help build NexaCore into what it is today!” Spittle flies from his lips, hitting my face as he roars the words. I press my lips together and keep quiet, refusing to rattle him further.
“I did everything right,” he says, slamming his fist against his chest with the beat of each word. “Played the devoted best friend. Always available when he needed me.”
He pivots away, pacing over to the window to stare out into the dark.
“You know, I was the one who always had to listen to him vent about his guilt over high school,” he says, spinning back around to face me.
“About everything he and Trent did to you, and how bad he felt about it, and how much he wanted to make things right. Did you know I was the one who told Julian to wear the mask to the gala? To reach out to you? To bring your startup into the incubator program?”
I only shake my head. My chest goes cold at the revelation. He’s unhinged, his mind consumed by a twisted obsession with Julian.
“I had to play the part perfectly,” he continues. “Because if I advised Julian to stay away from you, he would have suspected something. So I played the loyal friend and colleague, hating every single second of even talking about you as if you actually mattered to me.”
“And then,” Kieran whispers, his nostrils flaring, “Julian became obsessed with you. And I ceased to exist entirely.”
I keep my expression blank, masking the terror clawing at my throat. I need to keep him talking. If he stops talking, he might finally realize he has no use for me alive.
“What do you plan to do with me?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer. He walks back over to me, his tall shadow swallowing the light from the overhead bulb.
His jaw sets hard. I read the violent shift in his posture a half-second before it lands.
With my hands bound tight behind my back, I have no way to shield myself.
I instinctively twist away on the concrete, tucking my chin and wrenching my shoulder inward to protect my face. It doesn’t do much.
He just strikes. His fist smashes into the side of my face. Blinding white light explodes behind my eyelids as the devastating blow snaps my head back. The sheer force flips my entire body over. My shoulder slams hard into the concrete floor.
The skin on my cheek splits. I feel the immediate, warm rush of blood tracking down my neck.
But the deep, radiating ache beneath the surface terrifies me.
It feels like he shattered my cheekbone.
The pain is excruciating. I stay flat, forcing air back into my lungs.
I focus on the ragged rise and fall of my chest, which burns from the injury to my ribs.
The worst part is his face. He’s calm, as if hitting and kicking a woman is just a normal task. He’s a monster.
“This is Julian’s fault. If he just loved me the way he loves you, none of this would be happening,” he says.
He turns and walks back up the stairs without a single look back. The click of the switch leaves me in pitch darkness.
I lie on the floor, running a cold assessment of my body.
My ribs cause the most agony. Every ragged breath feels like a knife turning in my lung.
My jaw and cheekbone throb like hell, but the vision in my left eye stays clear.
I drag myself upright against the damp brick wall and don’t move a muscle.
Any movement in my upper body triggers a wave of vomiting.
Minutes or hours pass in the dark. Then, a loud sound breaks the silence. Heavy boots move fast across the floorboards directly above my head. A strange voice barks short, clipped commands.
“Olivia Harper,” a woman’s voice calls out, firm and urgent. “I’m Officer Chen. You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
A flashlight beam blinds me. She stands next to me, crouching down to slice the zip-ties from my wrists.
“Can you stand?” she asks.
I nod. Two officers flank me, helping me up slowly. They try their best not to jar my weight, but I still flinch as a blinding spike shoots through my ribs. My legs shake so hard they barely hold me. They guide me up the stairs, moving slowly and carefully.
The cool, early morning air strikes my face as we step outside.
Through the flashing red and blue haze, I spot Julian.
He stands still, his eyes locked onto the warehouse doors.
The exact millisecond our eyes meet, he breaks.
He doesn’t run, but he moves with a terrifying, predator speed straight toward me.
I push away from the officers to meet him. I do not cry.
Before I can even reach him, Julian’s eyes scan my body. His gaze tracks the split skin on my cheek and the heavy swelling along my jaw.
“He touched you,” he whispers. His voice drops to a low, dangerous growl. His chest heaves. “That son of a bitch actually laid his hands on you.”
He steps into my space. His hands frame my face, shockingly warm against my freezing skin. His thumb hovers just a millimeter away from my ruined cheekbone, trembling because he’s terrified of causing me more pain. His expression is a fractured mix of fury and the raw terror he has been running on.
I cannot take the distance between us. I press myself slowly into his chest, my fingers bunching the heavy wool of his coat lapels, holding on with everything I have left. Julian wraps his arms around me, crushing me against him so hard it feels like he’s trying to anchor my soul to the earth.
A pained gasp leaves my mouth as the pressure hits my bruised ribs.
He freezes, instantly pulling back. The last of his restraint vanishes. A raw, feral fury replaces it, making the air around us feel heavy and suffocating. He looks like a man ready to burn the world to the ground.
“I’m going to kill him,” he says, his dark eyes burning into mine with an intense, terrifying possessiveness. “I’m going to hunt him down and tear him apart with my bare hands for what he did to you. He’s going to beg me to end it.”
He barks a sharp order over his shoulder. Two paramedics practically sprint over with a stretcher.
Julian doesn’t let go of my hand until they gently force him to step back. “They’re going to look at your injuries, then take you to the hospital,” he says, his voice thick and rough. “I’m coming with you. I’m not leaving your side again.”
Unable to hold it in any longer, a single tear slips down my cold cheek. I’m not crying over what happened, even if it shook me to my core. I’m crying because of how fiercely possessive and protective Julian is over me. In this broken, agonizing moment, I have never felt his love more.