Chapter 28
Killian
Black SUV. Tinted windows. Coming from the north access road I didn’t check because I was watching her mouth while she carved a moth into a dead man’s wrist. Two doors open before the vehicle fully stops.
Harlow had real security. Private contractors, not corporate bodyguards. And I missed them because my head was somewhere else entirely.
Attachment is weakness. You let someone matter, you give them a blade aimed at your throat.
Silas’s voice appears right on time.
I pull Ivy behind me and draw the Glock. “Get down. Now.”
The first bullet grazes my shoulder. I return fire — two rounds, center mass. The first contractor drops. The second is faster, using the SUV as cover, moving with the discipline of someone who’s been in this type of fights before.
I push forward to close the distance. This is basic. I’ve done this a hundred times. Except I haven’t slept properly in days, and the woman behind me is the reason for every one of those lost hours, and my timing is off by a fraction of a second.
A fraction is all it takes.
I see the knife too late.
The blade enters under my ribs on the left. Not deep enough to hit organs, but deep enough to matter. The pain is sharp, then hot, then cold, spreading through my torso like ice water. I put two bullets in his chest before he can twist the blade.
My ears are ringing and my knees buckle.
Stupid. Sloppy. Stupid fucking boy.
I missed the secondary access road. I didn’t check for backup protection. I got stabbed because I was thinking about a girl instead of doing my job.
When did I last let someone get this close...? I should have seen it coming, and I didn’t, because ten minutes ago I was standing in a doorway watching her dissect a man’s hand with the focus of a concert pianist.
And that’s why you got stabbed. Because you were thinking about her instead of the war.
“Killian.”
Her voice cuts through the internal shredding. By the time I turn around she’s already moving toward me.
She kneels in front of me and pulls my hand away from the wound. Her fingers are still speckled with Harlow’s blood and now they’ll have mine.
“How deep?”
“Two inches, maybe.”
“Show me.”
I lift my shirt. I watch her face, waiting for the flinch, but it doesn’t come. She looks at the wound the same way she looked at Harlow’s anatomy — curious, clinical, a problem to solve. The woman who just killed a man is now assessing my stab wound with the composure of a trauma surgeon.
She’s spectacular. And I’m bleeding for her.
“Can you walk?”
“I can do more than walk.”
“Give me the keys.”
“I can drive.”
“You’re bleeding through your hand. Give me the fucking keys, Killian.”
I’ve never heard that tone from her. She’s commanding, not requesting. There’s no room for negotiation. The only person who’s ever spoken to me like that was Silas.
I slide into the passenger seat with my shirt pressed to my side and watch her drive.
She’s checking the mirrors every twenty seconds, doing tactical evasion without being taught tactical evasion.
She killed a man and now she’s running a counter-surveillance route through Zurich with my blood on her hands.
Silas was right. Attachment is a blade. She’s the blade and the wound and the only thing that makes me want to keep bleeding.
“Killian.” She glances at me. “Stay with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Your breathing is shallow.”
Of course she notices.
The safe house is a small apartment above a closed bakery. I stocked it with medical supplies two days ago. I barely make it up the stairs.
Ivy finds the med kit before I can tell her where it is. She’s learning my systems. She lays sutures, iodine, gauze, surgical tape, and her scalpel on the kitchen table with the precision of a surgical prep.
“Sit.”
“I can do this myself.”
“You’ve been doing everything yourself for twenty years. Sit, Killian.”
She pulls up a chair and helps me pull my shirt off. The wound is ugly — a jagged entry, two inches deep, dark blood seeping. She cleans it with iodine and I hiss.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It means you’re doing it right.”
Her fingers probe the wound, checking the depth, mapping the damage. “Missed the intercostal muscles. Nicked the external oblique. Bleeder’s in the subcutaneous tissue.”
She’s narrating like I’m a cadaver in a lab. And the memory of her voice in the Zurich surgical suite — calm, instructional, almost amused while she severed tendons — surfaces without permission.
“This is going to hurt.”
“I know.”
She threads the needle. Her hands are steady. Mine weren’t, the first time I sewed myself up. She’s steadier than I’ve ever been.
The first stitch feels like fire being sewn into my flesh. I grip the edge of the table until my knuckles go white.
Don’t flinch. Flinching is weakness.
The second stitch is worse. Her fingers are inside me, pulling the tissue together, and closing the wound with precise, measured tension.
No one has touched me like this. My injuries have always been mine — treated in private, in the dark, so no one could see the weakness.
But she’s here, and she’s not looking away.
“You’re not breathing.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“Breathe, Killian.”
I inhale, but the sixth stitch swallows the exhale. She pauses and looks up at me.
“You’re allowed to scream, you know.”
The gentleness in her voice cracks something inside me that the blade didn’t reach. She’s giving me permission to be human while her fingers are inside my wound.
“I don’t scream.”
A brief, knowing, smile spreads on her lips like she heard a joke only she understands. “Maybe you should.”
This wound took fourteen stitches. They are clean, tight, and professional, better than anything I’ve done to myself, better than the surgeon in Zagreb, better than any hospital.
Killer and healer. Same hands. Same woman.
“You’ll live.”
“Professional opinion?”
“Observation. You’re too stubborn to let something this small kill you.” She offers me a soft smile, but something flickers beneath it. She was scared.
She was scared for me.
I’ve been her shield since day one. Now she’s the one with my blood under her nails. This is partnership.
The guilt flares in my chest. I want to tell her. Right now, while she has my blood on her hands. She deserves it. Every second I stay silent is another second I’m choosing the lie over her. But she’s on the high of her first kill and her first surgery and I’m too selfish to lose her.
“Thank you.” The words come out choked.
She tilts her head, studying me. “Don’t make it a habit.”
“Can’t promise that.”
She gestures toward the small bed. I lie down and spread my hand across the other pillow, making room. She shakes her head, sits beside me, with her back against the wall, and my gun in her lap. Her hand rests on my chest, monitoring my heartbeat.
She killed for herself today. She healed for me. She’s now sitting watch with a gun in her lap so I can sleep.
“How do you feel?” she asks.
Like a coward who’s going to lose you the moment I tell you the truth.
“Better. Because of you.”
Her cheeks flush slightly. I keep looking at her until exhaustion wins and I fall asleep. Deep, uninterrupted, with her hand on my chest and a gun in her lap and the knowledge that the woman guarding me is the same woman I’ve been guarding since day one.
◆◆◆
I wake up and she’s beside me. The stitches pull when I move. Each one is a reminder that her fingers were inside me. She saved my life with the same hands that took one.
What do you give a woman who can unmake and remake you?
My bag is on the floor. Inside it is the butterfly knife I’ve carried for twelve years. Silas gave it to me after my first real job. It was a reward for obedience, and I kept it because I’m good with it, even though the sentiment makes my skin crawl.
She stirs awake beside me. Her eyes are opening slowly, finding mine.
“Harlow’s security is neutralized, but someone will come looking. We need to get to the apartment, grab our things, and leave. We can’t stay.”
By the time I finish talking, she’s already up, gathering our things. “Lisbon?”
“Lisbon.”
She moves differently now. She moves like someone who knows she can kill if she has to. Or wants to. I helped create this. And I’ve never been more attracted to anyone in my life.
The private plane is small and quiet. I’m across from her, close enough to touch if I raised my hand. The knife feels heavy in my pocket.
I pull it out and hold it in my open palm.
“This is for you.”
She looks at the knife then at me. Her gray eyes glimmer. She knows this isn’t casual.
“A butterfly knife.”
“You know what it is?”
“I know what everything is.” A soft smile spreads on her lips.
“Silas gave it to me. After my first real job.” Her expression shifts — she understands what it costs me to hand her something from that world. “Your scalpel is surgical. Hidden. This is different. It’s for when they see you coming.” My voice comes out rougher than I want. “You’ve earned it, Ivy.”
She takes it from my palm, her fingers brushing mine deliberately. She turns the knife over, testing weight and balance. A surgeon assessing a new instrument.
“Show me how to use it.”
“When we get home.”
Home. When did Lisbon become home?
We arrive at the apartment in the evening. The river glimmers through the open windows. She’s standing in the center of the room with the butterfly knife in her hand and I’m about to make the biggest mistake of the day.
I position myself behind her.
The stitches pull when I raise my arms, like a reminder of what sloppiness costs, but the pain fades to background noise the moment I’m close enough to smell her — the lily shower gel and something underneath that’s just her skin, warm and addictive.
“Butterfly knives are about rhythm and fluidity. The blade dances.” My voice is low and instructional. I can do professional. “A steel dance, but a dance nonetheless.”
My hand finds hers on the knife. I pull her back against me in the process and her body settles against mine — her shoulder blades against my chest, her hips against my thighs.
Focus.
“It needs to be looser than your scalpel. You’re not cutting, you’re flowing.” My fingers wrap around hers and I can feel her pulse getting faster. “Let gravity do the work.”
The knife flips awkwardly and she huffs.
“Slower. Feel the weight.”
She tries again. The blade rotates, catches, and settles, but I’m not watching the knife anymore. I’m watching the way her throat moves when she swallows. The way her lips part in concentration. The way she presses back against me with every flip, her body seeking mine like gravity.
My hand moves to her hip possessively. I grip the bone and pull her into me and the sound she makes — a sharp inhale, almost a whimper — goes straight through me.
I’m hard. The stitches are pulling and I’m hard and she can feel it against her lower back, and she doesn’t move away. She leans in.
“Now faster.” My voice has dropped an octave. There’s nothing instructional about it.
She speeds up. The blade becomes fluid, catching the dim light, dancing in her hand like it was made for her. The same way she’s a natural with a scalpel and a gun. She’s a natural with violence and she’s pressed against me and I’m losing the thread of what this is supposed to be.
My other hand slides from her hip to her stomach, pressing her into me. I feel her abs contract under my touch.
“You’re a natural.” My lips are on the skin behind her ear. It’s not a kiss, but a confession spoken into her pulse point.
Her hand stops mid-rotation, her breathing is ragged, and I can feel her heartbeat through her back, hammering against my chest.
She turns her head slowly, her mouth moving toward mine, and the stitches are screaming and I don’t care about the stitches —
My phone buzzes.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I look at the phone. The message is from a relay I set up months ago. It’s encrypted and routed through three proxies. This message is the kind of message that only arrives when someone with significant resources is looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found.
“We have a problem.”
My jaw tightens. I grip the phone so hard the screen flexes. The man who was teaching her, who was about to lose control on her mouth, disappears. What’s left is the soldier.
“What is it?”
I look at her. Her eyes search mine and I see her find it — the thing I can’t hide. Fear. Not for myself. For her.