Chapter Eleven
ZACHARIE HAD EXPECTED resistance.
He had prepared for it, in fact. The speech was already forming in his mind as he drove them back to his estate—the careful, logical argument for why she needed to stay with him, why bodyguards would shadow her every move, why her university had already been notified that she would be taking a leave of absence for personal safety reasons connected to her cousin’s murder.
He had anticipated tears. Protests. Perhaps even that stubborn tilt of her chin that made him want to kiss her senseless and lock her away from the world in equal measure.
What he had not anticipated was this.
“Okay.”
Zacharie’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Okay?”
“Yes.” Mira shifted in the passenger seat, her body angled toward him, her expression open and trusting in a way that made something twist behind his ribs. “If you think that’s what’s safest, then okay.”
He waited for the catch. The condition. The soft-spoken objection wrapped in a question.
None came, and it was this that had his composure slipping.
The way she never did what he expected. And the way she was looking at him now, like he was her haven while the whole world saw him as their end.
“Am I disturbing you again?”
Zacharie grunted in response to her teasing, but this only had her smiling.
“I am, aren’t—”
He stopped her words with a kiss, but it was not to shut her up.
He kissed her because it was the only way he could tell her what he hadn’t the ability to say any other way.
He kissed her because he was relieved that she wasn’t fighting him.
Kissed her because he was also frustrated with how easily she trusted him.
But lastly, he kissed her because he simply wanted to kiss her, his hunger for her building since the moment he first saw her face.
She made a soft sound against his lips as he deepened the kiss, surprise melting into surrender, and when he finally forced himself to pull back, she was flushed and breathless, her eyes slightly dazed.
Zacharie’s own body was tight with need, every nerve ending demanding that he close the distance again.
Instead, he turned back to the road.
“We’ll stop by your dorm first,” he said, his voice rougher than he intended. “Pack whatever you need.”
“That won’t take long.”
He glanced at her. “Take your time. We’re not in a rush.”
“No, I mean—” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a gesture he was beginning to recognize as embarrassment. “It really won’t take long.”
Seven minutes later, and he finally understood what she meant, with Mira coming back to him with a single suitcase, a backpack, and a worn cardigan draped over her arm.
“This is it.”
No, Zacharie thought. It was not.
And that was because as soon as they arrived at his estate, he guided her straight to the study and gestured to his laptop.
“Shop.”
Mira blinked at him. “I’m sorry?”
“Online. Whatever you need. Clothes, books, art supplies—”
She laughed again, but this time the sound was softer. Wondering.
“I don’t need anything else.”
“That’s not true—”
“Is so,” she insisted. “But...there is one other thing you can help me.”
“Name it.”
Two hours later, and Zacharie deeply regretted his lack of caution.
They were seated across from each other in the living room, Mira curled up on the sofa with a notebook in her lap, her pen moving in quick, eager strokes as she documented his answers.
The interview—because that’s what this was, he realized too late—had started innocently enough.
“For the next Infernalis book,” she had explained, her eyes bright with creative excitement.
“Luc has a backstory I’ve never fully explored.
I thought maybe you could help me understand what it would really be like.
The undercover work. The isolation. The.
..” She had hesitated. “The personal costs.”
He should have said no.
He should have recognized the trap for what it was.
Instead, he had nodded and settled into the armchair across from her, telling himself that this was simply research. Impersonal. Professional.
That delusion lasted approximately fifteen minutes.
“So during long-term assignments,” Mira said, her pen hovering over the page, “how did you...I mean, how do agents typically handle...” Her tone turned awkward. “Personal needs?”
Zacharie’s jaw tightened.
He could lie. Deflect. Change the subject.
But she had asked for honesty, and he had never been able to deny her anything.
“One-night stands,” he said flatly. “During foreign missions. To relieve pressure. They meant nothing.”
She nodded, scribbling notes, but he caught the way her shoulders tensed slightly.
“And relationships?” She kept her eyes on the notebook. “Did you ever...?”
“Once.”
Her pen stilled.
“Almost,” he amended. “There was a colleague. We worked together for three years.”
Mira looked up then, and he saw the question in her eyes even before she asked it.
“What does ‘almost’ mean?”
This...was the trap he should have seen coming.
Zacharie exhaled slowly. “I considered marrying her.”
“Oh.”
It was just one word, but it was enough to make him wince.
“That’s...” She cleared her throat. “That’s good research. Thank you. I think I have enough—”
She was already moving to stand, to retreat, but Zacharie was faster.
He crossed the distance between them before she could finish rising, his hands catching her shoulders, and when she tried to pull away—embarrassed, he realized, mortified that he had seen that flash of hurt—he simply gathered her into his arms and settled back into the armchair with her on his lap.
“Let me go,” she mumbled into his chest, her voice muffled.
“No.”
She tried to squirm away, but this only had him tightening his grip.
“Let me finish, Mira”
The words came out taut. Almost raw. And something in his tone must have reached her, because she went still.
“I was tired,” he said quietly. “Tired of the endless missions. The constant vigilance. I thought marriage might give my life some semblance of normalcy.” His hand moved to her hair, stroking absently. “So yes. I considered it.”
Mira didn’t respond.
“But then she came back from her last assignment,” he continued, “and told me she’d had a one-night stand while undercover. Standard practice. Meaningless, just as mine had been.”
He felt her breath catch.
“I didn’t feel anything,” Zacharie said. “No jealousy. No betrayal. Nothing. And that’s when I knew.”
Slowly, Mira lifted her head. Her eyes were still guarded, but curiosity had crept in alongside the hurt.
“Knew what?”
“That it would be pointless to marry someone who didn’t disturb me.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then, slowly, the tension in her shoulders began to ease. She leaned back just enough to look into his eyes, her expression shifting into something he couldn’t quite read.
“In that case,” she said solemnly, “I accept your indirect proposal. I’ll marry you.”
She was smiling as she spoke, and even though they both knew she was merely joking—the words still sounded too disturbingly right to his ears.
And that was how the days that followed went as well.
Every moment with her was disturbingly right, mostly because Zacharie recognized something between them. Something he had witnessed between Calixte and Eden but never thought possible for himself.
Until now.
Until her.
In the past, his objective with every woman had been to learn everything about her—not out of affection, but out of necessity. To ensure she wasn’t positioned to stab him in the back or shoot him in the middle of the night.
But with Mira, it was the opposite.
She made him learn new things about himself.
Her clumsiness in the kitchen—spectacular, truly, involving at least one small fire and the creative destruction of three separate pans—made him realize he enjoyed cooking.
It was remarkably close to how he felt when building explosives from scratch, only this time, the things he made in his hand didn’t take but gave life instead.
Her delight in his rooftop garden, on the other hand, revealed the opposite truth.
She would disappear up there for hours, returning with dirt under her fingernails and leaves in her hair, babbling happily about tomato varieties and herb propagation.
Zacharie listened to every word. He also quietly resolved to hire a gardener, because as much as he loved watching her joy, he would rather not deal with clumps of soil if given the choice.
And in all the years he had possessed a massive fortune, it was only with her that he found himself enjoying it.
He bought things specifically designed to make her react—whether in pleasure or shock or that particular combination of both that made her sputter adorably.
The 24-karat gold mini shovel was a particular triumph.
He presented it to her on day four, wrapped in a velvet box like jewelry, and watched her face cycle through confusion, recognition, disbelief, and finally a kind of helpless horror that made him want to kiss her senseless.
“Zacharie.” Her voice was strangled. “This is...this is solid gold.”
“You mentioned needing better tools for the garden.”
“I meant a trowel! From the hardware store! That costs twelve dollars!”
He said nothing. Simply waited.
She stared at the shovel. Stared at him. Stared at the shovel again.
“Can you...” She bit her lip, visibly gathering courage. “Can you return it? Get a refund? Please?”
Her discomfort was adorable, and he finally relented. “There is nothing to feel guilty about. I bought this from a charity auction. The money was well spent.”
Her shoulders sagged with relief. “Oh thank good—” She stopped speaking when she noticed Zacharie eyeing the row of potted plants she had just finished watering.
“They’re, um, lovely, right?” she asked nervously.
“Seeing them reminded me of something...” Zacharie’s tone was musing. “I think I saw a couple of solid-gold pots also being auctioned for charity. Let me call my assistant—”
“Please don’t!”
Zacharie only laughed as she tried jumping and grabbing his phone, with Mira following his lead as he walked backwards until—
Perfect.
As soon as they were near enough the sofa facing the garden, he grabbed her by the waist and she fell on top of him with a gasp.
“Zach—”
He pulled her close for a kiss, and for that day at least, all thoughts of solid gold gardening were temporarily forgotten.
****
MORE DAYS PASSED, AND Mira continued to turn his world upside down just by being herself.
Planning for the long-term was simply not something people in his line of work were inclined to do. It was a depressing and pointless exercise, considering how they risked their lives almost daily. But even if he had indulged in such fantasies, never would he have envisioned the life he now lived.
The more time he spent with her, the more he hungered for her, and it was the kind of hunger that disturbed because it went beyond the physical.
They had been together for about a week now, and the fact that he had yet to claim her fully was something even he could not explain.
It was not that he didn’t want her.
He did.
Extremely.
To the point that he took cold showers several times a day, emerging with his jaw clenched and his body still thrumming with unsatisfied need.
But for some reason, the more he needed her, the more he didn’t want to take her. There was something his body, heart, and soul were all waiting for.
Something he wasn’t yet ready to put into words.
Because she was disturbing him more and more.
The way it was so effortlessly easy for her to make him laugh was disturbing—actual laughter, the kind he hadn’t produced in years, startled out of him by her ridiculous observations and terrible puns and the sheer absurdity of her attempts at cooking.
The way she made him say and do things out of character was disturbing—the incessant craving for her company, when he used to find peace in solitude. The impulse to reach for her hand whenever she was near. The hollow feeling in his chest when she left a room, even temporarily.
But most disturbing of all was how she made him forget that he was weak.
And that was a dangerous thing to happen now of all times, especially with the email landing in his inbox. He had asked his contacts to look into Moates, with Zacharie’s instincts warning him that it was only a matter of time before the other man made another attempt, this time against Mira.
SUBJECT: MOATES, brAXTON - Priority Threat Assessment
BACKGROUND:
Subject was not merely a client of the Las Vegas trafficking ring—he was an active recruiter. Financial records indicate commission payments dating back eighteen months, corresponding with at least seven confirmed disappearances in the Southern California area.
TRINA DE LOS REYES:
Subject’s relationship with victim began as operational. She was an unwitting asset, used to identify and approach targets. Evidence suggests she became aware of the operation’s true nature approximately three weeks before her death.
CAUSE OF DEATH:
Subject eliminated victim when she began asking questions about the source of the $50,000 payment. Insurance policy ($200,000, subject as sole beneficiary) provided additional financial motivation.
DANE MORRISON:
Victim was conducting independent investigation into subject’s finances following funeral. Digital forensics indicate he accessed records linking subject to the trafficking ring hours before the shooting.
MIRA DE LOS REYES:
Subject has expressed specific intent to eliminate this target. Intercepted communications reference her as “the last witness” and “unfinished business.” Subject appears to hold personal animosity beyond operational necessity.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT:
Subject is experiencing rapid decompensation. Behavioral patterns indicate abandonment of prior methodical approach. Three known aliases burned within 72 hours. Financial movements suggest no exit strategy.
Subject is no longer operating with self-preservation as primary motivation.
Maximum protective posture recommended immediately.
A voice inside his head—one he had spent decades trying to silence—started speaking as he read the email for the second time.
You’re too weak.
You’ll fail to protect her.
She’ll see you for who you are.
And once that happened, Mira would discard him just like how his parents had discard him.