Chapter 41
Killian
She’s finally asleep. The kind of sleep that only comes after being fucked into pieces and held until the shaking stops. My hand is still on her stomach.
The silence has weight — pressing against the walls, filling the rooms, swallowing sound before it can travel. I stare at the ceiling and let my mind do what it’s been trained to do.
Silas’s compound. Three hundred acres. Twenty operatives on rotation. Fortified perimeter. I’ve mapped it in my head hundreds of times since we spread the intel across the kitchen table. I’ve run every scenario.
If we go together there’s a sixty percent chance one of us dies. Probably me. But she’s always a possibility and always is a number I can’t live with. If I go alone there’s a ninety percent chance I die. But she doesn’t.
The math isn’t complicated. The decision was made before we landed. Before her period and before I promised her a baby. My thumb traces circles on her belly. I’ve been doing it for an hour.
Next time, this won’t be empty.
I meant every word. I still do. But there won’t be a next time if Silas puts a bullet in her skull because I was too selfish to go alone.
I slide down the bed carefully. She doesn’t stir.
I’m eye-level with her lower abdomen and I press my lips to her skin.
It’s the gentlest I’ve ever been with her.
My mouth against the skin I’ve bitten, gripped, claimed, bruised — and now I’m kissing it like a prayer.
I stay there, lips on her skin, breathing her in.
The scent of her — underneath the sex and the blood and the soap — the underneath that’s just Ivy.
The scent I’ll carry in my lungs until they stop working.
My throat closes. The first time I left her, she mourned a stranger who was sitting next to her the entire time. This time she’ll mourn me. The one she chose to keep. The one who promised her that we’d do this together.
I’ll never see her gray eyes narrow when she’s about to eviscerate me with words. I’ll never feel her fingers trace my scar in the dark. I’ll never hear her laugh fill a kitchen or feel her teeth in my skin or watch her flip a butterfly knife like she was born holding one.
I’ll never forgive myself for making her grieve. Again.
I lift my head to look at her face. She’s peaceful. The sharpness she wears when she’s awake is gone. This is what she looks like when she feels safe.
And I’m about to undo it.
I slide out of bed. The soldier takes over. I pull on clothes in the dark, still wearing her blood under my nails and in the creases of my knuckles. If I shower her off me, I won’t be able to leave.
She’s my war paint. My curse. My last prayer.
The butterfly knife is on the nightstand.
I pick it up and feel the weight of it. She’ll need this for whatever comes when I’m gone.
I sit on the edge of the bed and take her warm hand.
I open her fingers and place the knife in her palm and her fingers curl around it instinctively.
Even unconscious, she grips it like she was born holding it.
That’s my girl. My Little Moth.
I stare at her hand for a long moment before I let go.
I move through the house like a ghost. The irony isn’t lost on me. I take my bag from behind the water heater, and I let the front door close behind me quietly.
The night air is cold and dry. I pull the car door open, then stop. I look at the safehouse, my eyes drifting to the bedroom window.
She’s in there, sleeping covered in my cum, her blood, and the ruins of every promise I ever made.
The last good thing I’ll ever do is leave her breathing.
Ivy
The bed is wrong. The air is wrong. There’s no weight beside me and the sheets have been cold for hours. I know before I open my eyes.
He’s gone.
My fingers are curled around something metallic. I open my eyes and stare at the butterfly knife in my hand. He placed it there while I slept, like a goodbye he couldn’t say out loud.
You romantic, stupid, dead man.
I don’t call his name. I don’t get up to check the house. I sit perfectly still for ten seconds and let the truth sink into my bones. He’s driving to Montana to die for me.
My jaw clenches so hard it aches. The worst part isn’t that he left.
It’s that I knew he would. I knew on the plane when he promised we’d do this together.
I knew when he fucked me like it was the last time, because for him, it was.
I told myself that threatening and carving vows into our skin would make him stay.
My hand goes flat on my stomach and the rage detonates. I throw the covers off, moving before I’m thinking.
I look behind the water heater. There’s a dust-free rectangle where his bag was and beside it, another bag. It’s full of guns, cash, and documents. There’s also a first aid kit, water, and protein bars.
He packed me protein bars and left me. The contradiction makes me want to scream and laugh and kill him simultaneously. He thought about my fucking nutrition while planning his own funeral.
I chamber the gun and tuck it into my waistband. I pocket some cash and the documents.
The car is gone — the empty spot through the window confirms it. But he wouldn’t leave me stranded. He’s a self-sacrificing idiot, not a careless one. I search the kitchen drawers before running my fingers under the sink. I find a taped metal box and stare at the key in disbelief.
You wanted me to find them. You wanted me to come after you, you self-destructive piece of shit. You just wanted a head start.
I stare at the compound map on the table. We traced the route together. It’s fourteen hours by car, but he’ll push it to twelve. He left around 2 AM, I’m sure, so that means he has a four-hour head start.
Not enough, stupid.
The shed is three minutes on foot behind the house. I almost miss it. I pull the door open and stop breathing when I see the chrome Ducati Panigale. Same color. Same dark, furious energy.
Ghost’s bike.
My throat closes. His bike should have been back home, but he stashed it here, in the middle of the desert. Either from sick sentimentality or because his taste is that specific.
I have to ride the bike of Killian’s dead version to bring Killian back from the dead. The longer I stare at it, the more certain I become that he wants me to kill him.
Who am I to deny him?
I secure the helmet over my head, and I throw my leg over the bike, finding the ignition and turning the key. The engine growls to life, but I release the clutch too fast.
“Fuck.” I try again and get the same result. “Fuck you, Killian! Fuck you for leaving me and fuck you for leaving me a bike I can’t ride!” I’m screaming at an empty desert.
I take a deep breath and switch to the clinical side of my brain. Ease the clutch into the friction zone and keep the throttle steady. I close my eyes, letting myself melt into the machine, and redo the steps. The bike rolls forward shaky and unsteady, but it’s enough.
By the time I hit the road I’m at 40mph and by the time the highway opens into straight, endless desert I’m at 90mph. My hands are shaking and the wind is trying to tear me apart. I’ve never felt more alive and furious at the same time.
I hope Silas gets to you before I do.
The road is hypnotic, making the hours dissolve. My thighs ache and my hands are raw from gripping too hard. The engine’s vibration has settled into my bones.
I’ve been talking to him in my head the entire ride.
Together. He said that with his hands on my face, making it sound like a vow. And I believed him. Because I’m a fucking fool who keeps trusting the man who kidnapped her.
Next time, this won’t be empty. My hand leaves the handlebar to press flat on my stomach.
Stupid and dangerous at this speed but I don’t care.
He promised me a future. Was any of it real?
Was the baby he talked about just another version of goodbye?
He doesn’t get to plant a seed in my brain and leave.
He can’t fill me with promises and then walk into the dark like a coward.
He’s decided I’m better off without him than beside him.
And I knew. I saw it on the plane. I saw it in his eyes when he looked at the compound maps. I saw it every time he fucked me like he was trying to memorize every inch. And I let him. Because it felt good. Because I wanted to believe.
I’m just as stupid as every other woman who ever loved a man who runs, but that’s the last straw.
When I catch you, I’m going to make you understand. You don’t leave me. You don’t protect me from yourself. You don’t get to love me from a distance while I bury you. You come home or I drag you home. Dead or alive.
A dark shape appears on the highway, maybe a mile ahead, going fast, but not fast enough. This bike can outrun a car even when ridden by a woman who learned to ride three hours ago.
I pull the gun and fire once. The bullet hits the asphalt near the rear tire, but he doesn’t stop.
Of course you don’t.
I accelerate until the bike screams and pull alongside the car — dangerously close, the wind between us violent enough to tear skin.
Then I cut in front of him. Brakes shriek as we both swerve.
For one terrible second the laws of physics aren’t on our side — the bike wobbles, the car fishtails, and we’re both going to die on this empty road.
Poetic.
The car skids to a stop. The bike slides sideways and I catch it, planting a foot down, killing the engine with shaking hands.
His door flies open.
“YOU COULD HAVE KILLED US BOTH —”
I get off the bike and take my helmet off. My eyes are burning with anger. I put both hands on my stomach, and I look him dead in the eye.
“Guess it’s a good thing I’m not carrying your baby yet. Right, Kill?”
I start walking toward him and he backs up. The massive, lethal man is retreating as a woman half his size corners him with a gun in her hand and murder written all over her face.
“You packed me protein bars, Killian. You packed me a bag with protein bars and a first aid kit like you were sending me to fucking summer camp while you drove to Montana to die.”
“Ivy —”
“You hid the keys under the sink. Under the fucking sink. You wanted me to come.”
“I wanted you to be safe —”
“You wanted me to be a widow, you asshole.”
He flinches. Good.
I shove him with both hands, right over the moth. He barely moves. I shove again, harder.
“You promised me. Together. You said it on the plane. At the table. With your hand on my stomach and your mouth on my skin and —” My voice cracks. I swallow the tears. “And then you kissed me goodbye in your head and walked out the door like every other man who’s decided what’s best for me.”
Comparing him to Malachi is the cruelest thing I’ve ever said to him. But it’s true.
“That’s not —” His voice is low, almost broken. “That is not the same —”
“Isn’t it? Malachi decided I was too valuable to risk. You decided I was too loved. Same cage, different words.”
He breaks. Not controlled or measured. Not the soldier’s voice or the man who kissed my belly. Raw, loud, and swallowed by the emptiness around us.
“BECAUSE I CAN’T BURY YOU, IVY! I can bury myself. I’ve been ready to die for a long time. BUT I WON’T SURVIVE PUTTING YOU IN THE —”
I’m in his space before he finishes with the gun pressed under his chin.
His raised voice did something to me. Something primal that bypasses every rational thought and goes straight to my amygdala. Nobody yells at me.
My face is inches from his and my voice is quiet. “Raise your voice at me again and I’ll cut your tongue out, even if it means I’ll never get off on it again.” I can feel his pulse hammering against the barrel. “Nod.”
He nods.
“Ride or die, Kill. You said it first. From behind a screen when you were still pretending to be someone else.” My voice shakes. “So here I am. On your ghost bike. In the middle of fucking nowhere. With your gun under your chin.”
His hand comes up slowly and covers mine on the gun. He doesn’t push it away. He presses it harder against his own throat.
If you’re going to kill me, kill me.
I stare at him. His eyes are saying everything his mouth can’t.
And then I do the thing that changes the equation. I pull the gun from his chin and I press it against my own forehead.
His face goes white. Not pale. White. “Ivy — no —”
“You want to die for me?” My voice is calm. The barrel is cold against my skin, and I can see his hands shaking, reaching for me, stopping, not knowing if a sudden movement will make it worse. “Then I’ll die with you. Right here. Right now. On this road. In the middle of nowhere.”
“Ivy, put it down —”
“Is this what you want?” I press harder. “Is this the ending you’re writing for us? You die in Montana. I die here. Two bodies. Neither one surviving the other.”
“Please —” His voice shatters. “Please, Ivy, please —”
“Because that’s what happens, Kill. If you go, I go. Not to Montana. Not after you. Here. Now. Make your choice.” My finger rests on the trigger. “You can drive to Montana and die on Silas’s doorstep. Or you can get in the fucking car and follow me home and we do this together.”
His face is the most destroyed thing I’ve ever seen. More destroyed than when I found the phone. More destroyed than when I carved the moth. He’s looking at me like I’ve taken everything he was trying to protect and aimed it at its own head.
Which is exactly what I’ve done.
“Choose.”
“Put the gun down.” His voice is barely audible. “Ivy. I’ll do anything. Whatever you want. Just put it down.”
“Together?”
“Together.” He’s crying. Killian Craw is crying.
The man who took cigar burns and bullets without screaming has tears running down his face because the woman he loves is holding a gun to her own head on an empty road.
“Together. I swear. I swear on everything — on every promise I’ve broken. Together. Please put it down.”
I stare at him for what feels like forever before I lower the gun.
His body collapses forward and his arms wrap around me so tight I can’t breathe.
He’s shaking against me. He buries his face in my neck, and his tears burn my skin.
I hold the gun at my side, and I hold him with my other arm, letting him break.
When he lifts his head, his eyes are red and raw. I’ve never seen him like this.
When his breathing returns to normal, we move in sync. He gets in the car and I get on the bike. There’s no discussion about who leads.
I lead. He follows.
I’m steadier on the bike now, thanks to the hours of practice fueled by rage. My body aches everywhere, but I can’t focus on that right now.
The anger isn’t gone. It won’t be for a long time. Maybe ever. The image of waking up with the knife in my hand and the empty space where his body should have been is carved into me now.
But underneath the anger and the promises I made with the gun under his chin and against my own forehead, he’s behind me, following me home.
You chose right.