8. Julian #2
I close the laptop and stand, moving to the balcony. The street below is busy with tourists—couples holding hands, families with children, groups of friends laughing and taking photos. Everyone looks happy. Carefree.
I wonder what it's like to feel that way. To move through the world without constantly calculating threats, without always being aware of exits and sightlines, and who might be watching.
I haven't felt that way in fifteen years. Not since I left the military. Not since I became the Grim Reaper.
And I never will again.
—
I find her at a café in the late afternoon, the sun starting its descent toward the horizon.
The café is small, tucked into a narrow street lined with white buildings and blue-domed churches.
Tourists crowd the tables, taking photos of the view, ordering overpriced cocktails and appetizers.
Isabelle sits alone at a corner table, a glass of white wine in front of her, her phone in her hand.
She's wearing a simple white sundress with thin straps that leave her shoulders bare. Her skin is tanned from the Ibiza sun, her dark hair falling in loose waves around her face. She looks beautiful. Effortlessly so. And I hate myself for noticing.
I'm standing in the shadows across the street, partially hidden by a stone wall, watching her through the crowd.
She hasn't seen me. She doesn't know I'm here.
She takes a sip of her wine, her eyes on her phone, and I see the relaxed curve of her shoulders, the small smile at the corner of her mouth.
Is she thinking about me?
The thought is dangerous and unwelcome, but I can't stop it.
I wonder if she's replaying that night in her head the way I am.
If she's trying to make sense of what happened.
If she's remembering what my tongue and fingers and cock felt like, if she's still aching for more the way I am.
If she has any idea how many times I've thought about how I could fuck her again before…
If she's wondering why I ran.
She sets her phone down and picks up her wine glass again, staring out at the sea. The wind catches her hair, blowing it across her face, and she reaches up to tuck it behind her ear. The gesture is so innocent and simple that it makes my chest ache.
A man at the next table looks at her and lingers a moment too long, his eyes raking over her body, his expression appreciative.
My hands clench into fists. I have to physically restrain myself from moving, from crossing the street, and putting myself between her and that man. From making it clear that she's—
What? Mine?
The thought stops me cold. She's not mine. She's my target. The woman I'm supposed to kill. The job I accepted, the contract I'm obligated to complete. She's not mine.
But the possessive feeling that surges through me doesn't care about logic or obligation. It's primal and visceral… and completely fucking terrifying. Because it means I've lost control.
And losing control is how people like me die.
—
I follow her for the rest of the afternoon.
She leaves the café and wanders through the narrow streets, stopping to look at jewelry in shop windows, pausing to take photos of the white buildings and blue domes.
She moves slowly, like she has nowhere to be, like she's trying to lose herself in the beauty of the island.
I stay back, keeping distance, blending into the crowd of tourists.
I'm good at this. I've spent years learning how to be invisible, how to watch without being seen. But it feels different this time.
Usually, surveillance is detached. I'm always just gathering information, identifying patterns, looking for vulnerabilities.
The target is just a target—a problem to be solved, a job to be completed.
But watching Isabelle feels like something else entirely.
I feel that burn of obsession, that aching need deep in the pit of my belly.
I stay in a constant state of partial to full arousal throughout the day, my cock half-hard or stiff from watching her, a steady throbbing ache that almost forces me into a restroom to relieve it at least once. But I need to not lose sight of her.
And fuck, it feels like the easiest thing in the world to stare at her endlessly. The way the sunlight catches in her hair. The curve of her neck when she tilts her head to look at something. The way her dress moves when she walks, the fabric clinging to her hips, her thighs.
I notice the way men look at her, the way they turn their heads as she passes, their eyes following her, their expressions hungry. And I hate every single one of them.
The rational part of my brain knows this is insane. I need to complete the contract and move on before the Capetti family sends someone else. I could have killed her a dozen different times in a dozen different ways since I found her at the café—she's oblivious, an easy target.
But the rational part of my brain is losing the fight.
By the time the sun sets, I've come back around to the same decision I made yesterday.
I'm sitting on a low stone wall near her hotel, watching the entrance, my hands wrapped around a cup of bitter coffee I bought from a street vendor.
The sky is on fire—orange and pink and purple bleeding together, a sunset people travel across the world to see.
Isabelle is back in her hotel. I watched her go inside twenty minutes ago. I take a sip of the coffee and stare at the hotel entrance.
I've been lying to myself. Telling myself I can buy time, find leverage, figure out a way to negotiate with the Capetti family. But there is no leverage. There is no negotiation. There is no way out of this that doesn't end with someone dead.
Either Isabelle dies, or I do. And I've been avoiding the choice because I'm weak. Because I fucked her and felt something I haven't felt in years, and now I can't separate the job from the woman.
But I have to finish this.
I don't have time to keep stalling. Don't have time to keep following her around Santorini like some lovesick fool, watching her from the shadows and hating myself for noticing how beautiful she is, hard as fuck just from looking at her.
Christ, I haven't gotten hard just staring at a woman in years.
At this point, I need to kill her for my own sanity, as well as my self-preservation.
I have to do the job. Tonight.
I'll follow her when she leaves the hotel to go out tonight.
I'll wait for the right moment—somewhere quiet, somewhere isolated.
I'll make it quick. Painless. She won't even know I'm there until it's over.
And then I'll be done with this. Done with her.
Done with the feeling that's been eating me alive since the moment she said her name…
hell, since the moment I fucking saw her.
I drain the last of the coffee and stand, tossing the empty cup into a nearby trash bin. Tonight, I'll be the Grim Reaper again. The killer with no conscience, no hesitation, no weakness.
Tonight, I'll finish the job. And maybe—just maybe—I'll be able to forget the way she looked at me when she came. The way she gasped my name. The way her body felt beneath mine, warm and alive and perfect. Maybe I'll be able to forget all of it.
But even as I think it, I know it's a lie. Some things you can't forget. Some things stay with you forever.
And Isabelle Montague—the woman I'm about to kill—is one of them.