Chapter 13
The nightmares started a few days ago, but lately they had been getting worse—more vivid, more real.
This one was different. More detailed than usual.
In the dream, I was back in our old apartment, but something was wrong.
The walls closed in, the rooms rearranged themselves, and every door I tried led back to the living room, where Dex waited.
He held the gun, but in the dream it was bigger, heavier, more menacing.
When he spoke, his voice echoed, as if we were standing in a cathedral.
“You can’t run from me, Willa. You belong to me. You’ll always belong to me.”
I tried to scream, to run, but my legs were like lead, and no sound came from my throat. Panic pressed down on my chest, thick and suffocating. Then I saw Kieran standing in the doorway. Relief surged through me—until I reached for him and watched him fade, his shape dissolving into nothing.
“He can’t save you,” Dex said, raising the gun. “No one can save you from what you are.”
The shot was impossibly loud, echoing and reechoing, and I felt the bullet tear through me—not just my shoulder this time, but everywhere, as if I were coming apart—
I woke up gasping, my nightgown soaked with sweat, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might burst. The phantom pain in my shoulder was excruciating, sharp enough to steal my breath. For a terrifying moment, I wasn’t sure if I was still dreaming or if the danger had followed me into the dark.
A soft knock sounded on my door almost immediately, followed by Kieran’s voice, rough with sleep and concern.
“Willa? Are you okay?”
I tried to answer, but my voice came out as a croak. The door opened, and he appeared, wearing only pajama pants, his hair mussed, his eyes alert despite the late hour.
“Bad dream?” he asked gently, approaching the bed as though he was afraid I might bolt.
I nodded, not trusting my voice yet. He sat on the edge of the bed, careful to leave space between us but close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his skin. The quiet stretched, broken only by the sound of my uneven breathing.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“It was him again,” I managed to whisper. “But this time he said… he said I belonged to him. That no one could save me from what I am.”
Something flickered across Kieran’s face—anger, protectiveness, something fierce and dangerous that startled me even as it made me feel safer.
“He’s wrong,” he said, his voice low and certain. “You don’t belong to him. You never did.”
“But what if he finds me? What if—”
“He won’t.” Kieran moved closer, his hand reaching out to brush a strand of sweat-dampened hair from my face. “I promise you, he will never find you. He will never hurt you again.”
Looking up at him in the dim light filtering through my curtains, seeing the sincerity in his dark eyes and the fierce protectiveness in every line of his body, I felt something shift inside me.
A wall I had carefully maintained cracked.
Before I could think about what I was doing—or stop myself—I leaned up and kissed him.
It was soft at first, tentative, a question more than a statement.
When he kissed me back without hesitation, when his hand cupped my face and his thumb brushed my cheekbone, the kiss deepened.
I tasted surprise and want and something that felt dangerously close to relief, as if he had been waiting for this moment as long as I had.
His other hand found my waist, pulling me closer, and I melted into him—into the safety, the warmth, the quiet rightness of being in his arms. For one perfect moment, everything else fell away: the nightmares, the fear, the constant uncertainty about where I fit in his polished, sophisticated world.
Then reality crashed back over me like ice water.
I saw them all again—the parade of beautiful, accomplished women who visited his office. Elena, with her designer suits and confident laugh. Anna, with her corporate law expertise and effortless elegance. Friends who belonged in his world in ways I never would.
I pulled back abruptly, my hand flying to my mouth.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” I said, my cheeks burning. “I shouldn’t have… I don’t know why I—”
“Don’t,” Kieran said quickly, his voice rough. “Don’t apologize. I’m the one who should be sorry.”
“Why?” The question slipped out before I could stop it.
He was quiet for a long moment, his expression conflicted in the dim light. When he finally spoke, his voice was so soft I almost missed it.
“You know why this can’t happen, right?”
“No,” I said, even though part of me did know—part of me had always known. “Why?”
“We’re both ruined, Willa.” His thumb still brushed my cheekbone, his touch gentle despite his words. “You can’t find what you’re looking for in two broken things.”
The words hit me not because they were cruel, but because they were true.
We were both carrying too much damage, too much history.
I was still healing from two years of abuse, still jumping at shadows, still waking up screaming from nightmares.
And he—whatever made him build those walls around himself, whatever drove him to create a perfect, untouchable life—wasn’t something love could simply fix.
“Right,” I whispered, pulling back further. “Of course.”
Even as he said it, even as I agreed, he didn’t move away. His hand still cupped my face, his eyes dark with want, regret, and something that looked like pain.
“I should go,” he said, but he didn’t move.
“Yeah,” I agreed, even though I didn’t want him to leave.
Finally, he forced himself to stand, running a hand through his dark hair. “Try to get some sleep. The nightmares will get easier with time.”
“Will they?”
“Trust me,” he said, and something in his voice suggested he was speaking from experience.
After he left, I lay awake for hours, touching my lips where he had kissed me, trying to make sense of what had happened. We’re both ruined. The words echoed in my head, heavy with truth and resignation.
But the next morning, something was different.
When I came into the kitchen for breakfast, Kieran was already there, and instead of the careful distance I expected, he was warmer. He smiled when he saw me, asked how I slept with genuine concern, and lingered over his coffee instead of rushing off to the office.
The kiss wasn’t mentioned, but it hung in the air between us like a secret we were both carrying. Throughout the day, I caught him watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read—something soft, careful, almost tender.
As if, despite everything he said about being too broken to fix each other, he couldn’t quite bring himself to regret what had happened between us. As if maybe, just maybe, we could help each other put the pieces back together.