Julian
The Prague safe house smells like mildew and old cigarettes, a scent of stale decay.
I notice it the moment I unlock the door and step inside, Isabelle close behind me.
The apartment is on the fourth floor of a concrete block building, far from the tourist center.
Here, in this neighborhood of crumbling facades, no one asks questions.
No one cares who comes and goes as long as you pay cash and keep your business to yourself.
It's perfect for what we need. Which is to say, it's a shithole that might keep us alive another forty-eight hours.
"Jesus," Isabelle mutters behind me, dropping her bag on the floor with a thud that echoes in the empty space. "This is worse than the last one."
"It's secure." I move through the apartment methodically, checking the locks on the single window, testing the door frame, scanning for anything that looks disturbed or out of place.
My body moves on autopilot, but my mind is somewhere else entirely, somewhere dark and exhausted. "That's all that matters."
She doesn't respond. She just stands in the middle of the small living room with her arms wrapped around herself, looking exhausted and defeated… and so fucking beautiful it makes my chest ache.
I know the feeling. The exhaustion. The defeat.
It's been less than a day since we left Croatia in the middle of the night, the taste of her still on my lips. My eyes burn with fatigue, my muscles tight, and even still, I can't help but feel the burn of desire when I look at her.
I almost made a fucking mistake. I almost gave her what she's been begging for, even though I know what kind of man that would make me. But God, how much am I supposed to endure?
I shot a woman last night, just before dawn, at a gas station while Isabelle slept in the car. She ambushed me when I was leaving the bathroom behind it, but I was ready for anything that might spring out at me, and I shot her before she even had time to fully aim.
The noise woke Isabelle up, but I told her it was a car backfiring, and we sped off into the night. I left the woman there, the shell casing in my pocket, her body the first step in a cold case that some police officer will never solve.
And I felt nothing. It was a much-needed reminder of who I am and who I can never be to Isabelle.
I can't be a man who gets wine-drunk with her on a balcony and fucks her in the middle of the night.
I can't be anything to her but the one thing standing between her and death, for as long as I can stay alive.
Now the mafia has increased the bounty again. Every killer from Berlin to Budapest knows there's a fortune waiting for whoever brings them Isabelle Montague's corpse, or mine. The price on my head has tripled in the last week, making me almost as valuable a target as she is after hers raised, too.
I'm so fucking tired I can barely think straight. My body is running on adrenaline and caffeine, my internal engine guttering on the momentum that comes from knowing that if we stop moving, we die. Every sound makes me reach for my weapon. Every shadow could be death.
And through it all, Isabelle is there. A constant temptation and a reminder of what I can't have, all at once.
"You should sleep," I say, moving to the small kitchen area and opening the refrigerator.
It's stocked with basics—bread, cheese, bottled water, beer.
My contact here is reliable, which is the only reason I'm using this place at all.
Trust is a currency I can't afford to spend carelessly right now. "I'll watch."
"I'm not tired." Her voice is flat, and I can hear the lie in it.
"You're exhausted. I can see it."
"So are you." She moves closer, and I can smell her shampoo.
She's got to be at the end of whatever expensive toiletries she brought with her, but for now, she still smells like honey and almonds, some silky, luxurious scent that doesn't belong in this shithole apartment.
It reminds me of salt-scented wind and our hot Ibiza hotel room, of the balcony we were just on together… and I need to forget all of that.
I need to forget the way she gasped my name and the way she feels around my cock, or we're both going to die.
"When is the last time you slept?" she demands. "And I don't mean half-sleeping with a gun in your lap."
I don't answer. Truthfully, I can't remember. The days have blurred together into one long stretch of running and hiding and killing, punctuated by moments of wanting her so badly I can barely breathe.
"Julian—"
"Go to bed, Isabelle." My voice comes out rough with exhaustion. "We're moving again tomorrow. You need rest."
She stares at me for a long moment, and I can see the hurt flickering across her face before she turns away. "Fine. Whatever you say."
She disappears into the bedroom, and I hear the door close with more force than necessary. The sound echoes in the small apartment, and I lean against the counter and close my eyes, trying to breathe through the exhaustion and the want and the fear.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I pull it out, expecting another update from one of my contacts. Another near miss. Another assassin is getting too close. Another piece of bad news in an endless stream of bad news.
Instead, it's a message from an unknown number. No text, just a video file.
Every instinct I have screams not to open it. Unknown numbers mean compromised security. Video files mean blackmail or something designed to fuck with my head. I should delete it immediately, pull the battery from the phone, and assume the device is compromised.
But at this point, I need every bit of information I can get. It could be evidence from one of my contacts, something to help figure out how to get to the bottom of Isabelle's contract. I'm grasping at straws, but I'm becoming desperate now, and desperate men make mistakes.
I open the file, rubbing a hand over my face as I lean back against the counter, and it starts to play.
The video is grainy, shot in what looks like a warehouse or basement. There are concrete walls and a single overhead light casting harsh shadows. And in the center of the frame, tied to a chair with her head hanging forward, is a woman I recognize immediately.
Katya.
My stomach drops like a stone, cold dread flooding through my veins and turning my exhaustion into icy panic, my body flooding with adrenaline.
I haven't seen her in three years. We had a thing once—nothing serious, just convenience and mutual attraction during a job in Moscow.
She was a fixer, someone who could get documents and weapons and information without asking too many questions.
We spent a few weeks together, fucked a handful of times, and parted ways without drama when the job was done.
She was good at what she did. Professional, and smart enough to know when to walk away.
I never thought about her again. I never had reason to.
Until now.
In the video, she's barely recognizable.
Her face is swollen and bruised, one eye completely shut, the other just a slit of white and red.
Blood crusts her split lip and drips from her nose in a slow, steady stream.
Her shirt is torn open, revealing burns and cuts across her torso—methodical, deliberate marks that I can see with a practiced eye are the result of hours of work, someone taking their time.
One shoulder is bent at the wrong angle.
A man steps into frame. I can't see his face, but I can see the knife in his hand. It has a long blade and a serrated edge, a weapon designed to cause maximum pain.
I feel bile rise in the back of my throat. I desperately want to stop watching. But I can't. I have to see this through to the end, because I know deep in my roiling gut that this is linked back to me.
And if this woman died because she had a tie to me, the least I can do is watch her misery to the end.
The video is four minutes long. She tries to be brave, not to give them what they want, which is nothing but her pain. There are no questions, no interrogation, just torture. And when she starts screaming, finally, she doesn't stop.
By the end, Katya is dead, her throat cut in one brutal slash that sends blood spraying across the concrete floor.
Her body slumps in the chair, head lolling to the side, and the camera lingers on her corpse for a long moment before the screen goes black.
Then another message comes through. This time with text.
We know about the girl. We know you're protecting her. Everyone you've ever cared about is a target now. Everyone you've ever fucked. We'll find them all. And we'll make you watch.
Below the text are photos, dozens of them.
Women I've slept with over the years, their faces circled in red like targets, with addresses listed beneath each one.
Some of the photos are recent—surveillance shots taken in the last few days, judging by the clothing and weather.
They're building a database to use against me, and they're making sure I know it.
Cared about is a strong phrase, but I can tell they're giving it a lot of room.
And everyone you've ever fucked makes the threat clear enough.
They don't really care if I've ever had an emotional attachment to any of these women.
They're just hoping that even the Grim Reaper will break if enough blood is shed on his behalf.
That deep down, I still have some shard of my soul left.
There are men I've met who don't. Who could watch every woman they've ever fucked be slaughtered in front of them and not blink. I tried hard to be that man, but I'm well aware now that I'm not.
Maybe I never was.
I set the phone down on the counter very carefully, my hands shaking from a rage so pure and absolute it takes everything I have not to put my fist through the wall, not to scream, not to grab my gun and start hunting every single person responsible for this.