Chapter 16
Ivy
I’m sitting in bed writing in my notes when it hits me. Ghost promised me a ride tonight. Killian said two weeks. Today is day fourteen. They’re both showing up on the same day.
I stare at the screen and my pulse spikes with something I can’t untangle — anticipation, nervousness, guilt, all of it crashing at once. Two separate countdowns running in my head, two separate aches, and today they collide.
Why does wanting both of them feel like a betrayal when they’re not… together? I should only want one of them. Ghost’s words or Killian’s hands. But the wanting sits in the same place in my chest, takes up the same space, and I can’t explain why.
Why do I feel like I’m waiting for the same person to show up twice?
I shake my head and go to the closet. For Ghost, I need to be practical — jeans, turtleneck, leather jacket, combat boots. For Killian… I have no idea what you’re supposed to wear when you reunite with the kidnapper who killed your father.
Red, maybe.
I laugh at my own morbid joke and decide to worry about Killian later. I braid my hair, tuck the scalpel into my boot, and give myself one last look in the mirror. The girl staring back looks alive for the first time in two weeks.
I walk through the front gates and the guards nod, unable to stop me. I’m not a prisoner here anymore, even if the glass walls don’t know that yet. The November air bites my skin and I check my phone.
The sound reaches me before the bike does — an engine growl, different from anything I’ve heard. Smoother, higher, a scream dressed as a purr. A chrome Ducati Panigale rounds the corner and my breath stops.
Ghost. In full black racing gear, head to toe, no skin visible. Full-face helmet, tinted visor, black leather jacket, black gloves. Complete anonymity. He could be anyone. He could be no one.
He kills the engine and the silence is sudden, enormous. “Ready to fly, Smoke?” His voice comes through the comm in his helmet — slightly filtered from the positioning, different from Killian’s voice modulator, less mechanical, more muffled.
He passes me a spare helmet and dismounts, helping me close the strap.
Even through gloves his hands are careful and precise.
I can’t see his eyes, but I can feel them burning through the tinted visor.
The world narrows once the helmet is on — just my breathing, his breathing, and the space between us.
He helps me onto the bike and slides in front of me. “Arms around me. Hold tight and lean with me.”
I wrap my arms around his torso and the warmth is immediate, familiar in a way that makes no sense. I’ve never held this man before. But my body settles against his back like it’s been practicing.
I shake off the thought.
“Hold on.”
The engine roars and my thighs tighten around the bike. The Iron District whips past in a haze of steel skeletons and dim streetlights. Downtown’s glimmer fades as we hit the highway and I watch the speedometer climb. 80. 100. 120.
A gasp escapes me. Ghost hears it through the comm and twists the throttle wider.
My heart slams against my ribs. The wind screams. The engine vibrations pulse through my entire body, into my bones, my teeth, my blood.
The world dissolves into light streams and the adrenaline floods my brain so fast I can taste it.
“Faster.”
“You sure?”
“Faster.”
He obeys. The speed shreds the air around us and we hit Devil’s Throat Bridge — the suspension bridge over the bay, cables slicing past like piano wire, and the water a black void below.
I press against his back, my grip tightening, our breathing synchronizing through the comms. I can feel his heart rate — elevated, matching mine.
This is what freedom feels like. Not money. Not revenge. Not a dead father or a glass cage with the door open. This. The speed. The choice. The trust of leaning into a turn at 140 mph and knowing the person in front of you won’t let you fall.
Why does he feel so familiar?
His posture, the rasp in his voice, the way he matches my wild without flinching.
Everything about this man is familiar in a way that has no explanation.
I’ve known him through a screen for months, but I’ve never been this close, never touched him, never felt the way his body moves with the bike like they’re the same machine.
The bridge ends. He pulls into a scenic overlook and kills the engine. The silence crashes over us.
I dismount, pull off the helmet, and grin. My hands are shaking and my skin is tingling. My lungs can’t remember how normal breathing works. The Veridian Shore skyline glitters below us and I stand at the railing trying to catch my breath. I feel alive — actually, genuinely, electrically alive.
I turn to him. He’s still on the bike, helmet on, visor down. Watching me.
“Can I see your face?”
His body tenses. He goes so still he looks like a statue, and the silence stretches until it’s unbearable. “No.”
My face falls. I step closer. “Why not? You know my face. My fears. Everything.”
“And I let you know mine through every word I said.” His voice is rough through the comm. “We’re even.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, Smoke.”
I raise my hand slowly, reaching for the helmet. His hand catches mine — firm through the leather glove, absolute.
“Don’t.” A warning and a plea in the same breath.
“When will you show me?”
“When it’s safe.”
“Safe for you or me?”
“Both.” He starts the engine. “We should head back.”
The ride home is slower. He’s taking the long way and I let him. I rest my head against his back, arms loose around him, listening to his breathing through the comm.
“You okay back there?”
“I don’t want this to end.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“But tonight it does.”
At the estate he kills the engine. I dismount and hand back the helmet. He takes it carefully, not touching my hand. “When can we do this again?”
“Soon.”
“Thank you. For seeing me.”
He nods. “Always, Smoke.”
I turn and walk through the gates. His engine roars behind me, fading into the night.
It’s almost 3 AM. I just spent two hours wrapped around another man, pressing my body against his back, begging him to go faster, and now I’m walking into my house to wait for the man I’m supposed to be leaving with.
What is wrong with me?
Killian
I park the Chrome Panigale inside the Ironworks and kill the engine. The shop is dark and quiet, the way it always is at 3 AM.
I pull off the helmet. The gaiter. The gloves. Each piece of Ghost stripped away until it’s just me standing in front of the mirror on the wall — black hair, black eyes, and the scar from lip to jaw to neck catching the low light. The real version. The one that’s both Killian and Ghost and neither.
I trace the scar the way she traces her pulse. The way she’d trace it, if she knew.
She asked to see my face, and the desperation in her voice was real, and I said no.
Because if I take off the helmet, she sees the scar, she sees Killian, and the man she chose freely, the one she wrapped her arms around and pressed her body against and begged to go faster — that man stops existing.
Ghost dies in a scenic overlook car park and what’s left is her kidnapper.
I lean my forehead against the mirror and close my eyes.
She held me tonight. Held Ghost. Pressed against my back with her thighs gripping the tank, her arms tight around my waist, and her voice in my ear saying faster like it was a prayer.
She trusted Ghost completely. Chose him freely.
No zip-ties, no kidnapping, no dead father between them.
Ghost is the clean version of me — the one without blood on his hands, the one who exists only in messages and moonlight.
Killian is the one she was taken by. The one who fed her with his hands and killed her father. Killian is trauma. Killian is the monster she was forced to accept because the alternative was worse.
She wants Ghost. The freedom, the speed, and the man who says the right things. In a few hours, Killian is going to knock on her door and she’s going to open it with guilt written all over her face because she thinks she betrayed me with another man. With me.
I’m jealous of myself.
The absolute insanity of that sentence should make me laugh.
I strip off the rest of the gear and step into the shower, the hot water doing nothing for the cold that’s settled inside my chest. I press my palms flat against the tile and try to think clearly.
I could tell her. Show up at the estate with the Panigale instead of the Monster. Take off the helmet. Let her see the scar and watch her world rearrange itself. Simple. Honest. But it would destroy everything.
What if she peels back the mask and finds Killian underneath and it’s not enough? What if the fantasy was the only part she wanted?
In two hours, I’m going to knock on her door as Killian.
She’s going to look at me with those grey eyes and feel guilty for being with Ghost tonight.
And I’m going to have to pretend I don’t know.
Pretend I wasn’t the one feeling the weight of her body against my back.
Pretend I’m not jealous of a man who doesn’t exist.
I’ll tell her. Eventually. When I know Killian can give her the same freedom Ghost does. When I’m sure she won’t run. When the lie stops being necessary and starts being cowardice — I haven’t reached that line yet.
I check the time. 3:47 AM.
Get some sleep, Little Moth. In two hours, I’m coming to get what’s mine.
◆◆◆
Dawn breaks pink and purple as I pull up to the Vane Estate on the black Monster. I haven’t slept. The adrenaline from the ride and the dread of what comes next are running in parallel, keeping me vertical.
The glass building glows in the morning light. I park outside the gates and walk to the intercom.
“Hello?” Her voice is confused and raspy. I woke her up. She’s been asleep for maybe an hour.
“I’m here, Little Moth.”
Silence. Thick and loaded, the kind where you can feel someone’s thoughts rearranging on the other side.
“I’ll meet you at the door.”