Chapter 11 Tristan
ELEVEN
TRISTAN
We're at the hunting lodge in Switzerland.
Two days after a job went sideways.
Three hours after we finally stopped running.
The place is barely standing. Patchy power. Rattling pipes. Wallpaper peeling like old scabs. But the fireplace works, and there's a half-full bottle of whiskey someone left behind.
I'm sitting on the rug, back against the couch, legs stretched toward the flames. My shirt is off, a bandage still taped over the shoulder she stitched up a couple weeks earlier.
"How's your shoulder?" she asks, settling under a blanket nearby. "Want me to take a look?"
I arch a brow. "Any excuse to touch me again, huh?"
She rolls her eyes. "In your dreams."
I pluck the bottle from her hand, the corner of my mouth tugging up. "You missed your calling."
"As what?"
"Field medic or surgeon. Something that lets you wear a white coat and be a hero."
She laughs. "They'd never let people like me through the door."
"And why's that?"
"Because I prefer taking lives over saving them."
"Of course. How could I forget?" I roll the bottle in my hand, watching the whiskey climb the sides and fall back again.
"Tell me something about yourself," I say suddenly.
She blinks. "Like what?"
"I don't know. Anything."
"No personal questions," she reminds me.
"You made up that stupid rule."
I tip my head back against the couch cushion and really look at her. The fire carves her face into sharp planes and soft shadows, turning her into something mythic. Something I shouldn't want so badly.
But I can't stop looking at her.
"Just one," I murmur. "I'll trade you."
She picks at a loose thread on the blanket. "Fine. One."
She makes me wait.
"I hate my middle name."
A laugh slips out of me. "Fuck right off, Red. That's not good enough."
"Sure it is. You would agree if you knew what it was."
I sigh, playing along. "Fine, I'll bite. What is it?"
"Nope. That's two questions. It's your turn."
I don't know why I say it. "Sometimes I think about quitting."
Her lips part. She's shocked.
I turn and stare into the fire. "Just…walking away. No more contracts. No more names. No more bodies. Find somewhere no one knows me. Change my face. My name. Grow old and complain about my knees."
"Where?" Her voice gentles, like she knows that kind of need too well.
I shrug. "Don't know. Somewhere with shitty reception and good coffee."
"You'd get bored."
I huff a low laugh. "Maybe. Probably."
The fire crackles as we sit there, letting the fantasy hang between us like a tease.
"You should keep your name," she says after a beat.
I glance over at her. "What?"
"It's you. Even if you walk away from everything, Tristan is the part that doesn't change. Besides, it's a great name."
I glance at her, unable to hide my smile. "You think so?"
"Yes."
I reach out, offering her the bottle. Our fingers brush, and heat slams through me so hard I nearly pull back. But she feels it too, grabbing the bottle like she needs something to hold onto, tipping it back and swallowing hard.
"Your turn again. Middle name. I want to hear it this time."
"You're very persistent," Keira groans.
"Occupational hazard."
"I'll give you a hint." She lets out a slow breath. "My mother was obsessed with saints. She gave me a name I couldn't grow into, then abandoned me and kept the god."
I frown. "That's not…an answer."
She takes another swig, hiding her smile. "You're smart. I'm sure you'll figure it out."
Leaning back, I study her carefully, loving the slowness of this. The way time feels suspended just for us. The circumstances that led us here weren't great—blood, bullets, a job gone to shit.
But right now?
I'm in no rush to look away. No rush to leave. No rush to be anywhere but here, watching the firelight catch in her hair and turn it molten.
My mind cycles through options. Catherine? No, too common. Theresa? Doesn't fit her.
Obsessed with saints…a name she couldn't grow into…
I've got it. "Grace."
Her eyes snap to mine, surprise flickering there. She didn't expect me to actually get it right.
"Keira Grace," I continue, testing it on my tongue. "Your mother wanted you to be graceful. Holy and pure."
"Everything I'm not." She chuckles.
"Everything you don't want to be," I correct.
"I'm impressed, though. Most people would have taken too long to guess or given up."
"I'm not most people."
"No, you're not." Her eyes hold mine, and I feel it tingle down my back.
Fuck me.
"What about you? What's your middle name?" Keira looks away, playing with the label on the bottle.
"Hale."
"Tristan Hale," she murmurs, and the way she says it makes my pulse beat faster. "Like healthy?"
"More like breath. The bit in the middle. Inhale, exhale…the part that hurts if you do it wrong."
"That's kind of beautiful."
I smirk. "Have you met me?"
She laughs, big and loud, and I realize I'm grinning like an idiot.
"Shut up. You're so full of yourself."
I shrug, looking away so my stupid heart can stop beating so fast.
It's just the alcohol and the lack of sex in a while that's getting to me.
"I like it, your middle name—I mean," she says, thankfully oblivious to my inner turmoil.
"Oh yeah?" I glance up to find her watching me. "Don't get attached to my middle name, Red."
"What if I already am?"
Everything goes quiet.
All the noise in my head dims. The years of running, of killing, of pretending I don't feel anything—it all narrows down to this room, this woman, this silly conversation about names.
Maybe I'm tired of pretending. Maybe just for tonight, I can stop being the man with blood on his hands and start being someone who gets to have whatever this is.
I exhale and tip my head back against the couch, closing my eyes. "Tell me something you'd never tell anyone else."
She's quiet for a long moment.
"If I ever have a son, I'm naming him Hale."
My eyes snap open.
She's staring at me with a raw, unguarded expression.
"I decided just now. It's mine. You're not getting it back."
I don't know what my face does, but whatever it is makes her smile.
And I realize, with the kind of clarity that only comes when you're completely fucked, that this woman just wrote herself into my future without asking permission.
I'm so fucked.