I woke a couple nights later to a touch so familiar, it was as if it was my own.
It was comfort and home.
It was everything that was supposed to mean my future.
And it was full of pain.
I bit down on my lip to keep the tears at bay when they blurred my view of the large window before me, and forced each breath in through my nose and out through my mouth.
Breathe in, Lily.
Breathe out.
He pressed his forehead against the back of my head, inhaling sharply when he felt the tremor I wasn’t able to suppress.
“Lily,” he said softly, his voice as rough as it’d always been.
I’d always loved his voice. The gravel behind every word, whether it was seductive or filled with malice.
“Lily, don’t cry.”
“I’m not,” I whispered, but he knew.
“Everything I do is for—”
“Me?” I asked, choking on a laugh. “Sending Conor away was for me?”
Kieran didn’t tense. He didn’t give any indication that he was surprised I knew. Probably because he wasn’t.
“I thought you were gone,” he said after a moment.
No excuses. No explanations.
That wasn’t his way.
“I thought you were gone, and it would’ve been my fault. I would’ve walked through hell to bring you back to me.”
Sadly . . . I wouldn’t put it past Kieran to try to accomplish that task.
“Don’t you understand I don’t want that?” I asked, then tried to turn in his arms to face him. When he stopped my movements with his firm hold, I begged, “Let me face you.”
“Lil—”
I huffed, the sound bordering on a frustrated growl, and ripped myself out of his arms to get off the bed. Once my feet touched the floor, I turned, meeting his lethal stare from where he now stood directly behind me.
That look would terrify anyone else.
But I knew the emotion hiding behind it. I knew the shock and hurt.
“I never wanted the man who would pick a fight with the devil to bring me back to life. I never wanted the man who would lock me up and treat me like a prisoner instead of loving me as his girlfriend. I never wanted Nightshade, Kieran. I wanted you.”
He stood there, still as a statue while he waited to see if I would continue.
“If you want to beat yourself up over what happened last week, fine. I can’t talk Conor out of doing it either. And according to Beck, you’re still beating yourself up for what happened to Aric.”
The slightest twitch in Kieran’s jaw and his fingers was the only indication I’d hit home, but I didn’t stop.
“But if you haven’t noticed, I’m here. I’m still here, Kieran. I don’t need you to tighten security on me. What I need is for you to have been there the last four years. I needed you to take me away like we planned. I needed you to talk to me after I came back last week, not give me an order then disappear for nearly a week. I’ve needed you to love me and to let me love you in a way that is real—”
“You think I don’t love you?” he asked suddenly, shock and rage fighting for dominance in his voice.
I stared at him with my mouth opened for a few seconds, then finally admitted, “I know you do, but I think you’ve forgotten how.”
His expression fell, panic filled his eyes. “Lily, I—don’t you see—?” He stopped talking as abruptly as he shut down every emotion that had managed to leak through.
A sad laugh tumbled from my lips at the sight.
“I see what you show me,” I said, the words no more than a breath. “Don’t forget that I know you, Kieran. I’ve known you my entire life. I grew up learning what emotions you hid from the world, and what your silence meant to everyone, including me. But you were always there. There wasn’t a day that went by that wasn’t filled with you. In the last four years, there hasn’t been a day with you . . . and I’ve needed you the most in that time.”
“Lily . . .” He blinked, flickering away the emotionless mask for a few precious moments. “I love you.” He ran his hands through his shoulder-length blond hair as he took a few steps away from me, but came to a sudden halt. “Do you still love me?”
I wanted to disappear in that moment. I wanted to lie to him. I wanted the truth to be something different than it was. Because the truth was . . . “I don’t know.”
A look of horror crossed his face, one he didn’t try to hide. Or couldn’t.
“You’ve been gone,” I tried to explain when an eternity of minutes passed in weighted silence.
He flung his arms out to the sides, his voice reverberating off the walls when he yelled, “I’m doing all of this for you.”
“How can anything be for me when I don’t want this, Kieran? You and I never wanted this. But you changed your mind and left me to slowly suffocate in this prison alone.” My head dropped and a muted sob fell from my lips when I realized he still didn’t understand. “You’ve asked me to see what you’re doing, but why can’t you see that I’m drowning?”
Kieran was suddenly beside me and pulling me back against his chest. The motion was as familiar as it was unwanted. “You think I can’t see you? You think I’m not here to make sure you don’t? But I saw how my mistakes destroyed you all those years ago. I fucking watched someone try to tear you away from me. If I hadn’t done everything I have been doing the last four years, I would have watched them succeed. There is nowhere we could run that they wouldn’t find us. The price of staying in this life is heavy, heavier than I ever imagined. But I would choose this path again and again over watching you die.”
Another sob wrenched from my chest when he suddenly released me. Turning, I eyed Kieran where he now stood six feet away, his chest heaving with ragged breaths.
“And if this destroys us?”
The corners of his eyes creased before that emotionless, lethal mask of my assassin fell over his face. The only betraying movement was the ticking muscle in his jaw. With a dip of his head, he said, “I would still choose this path over watching you die.”
He took a step away, but I called out to him before he could slip away into the night.
“Why won’t you hold me? I, God . . .” I sighed and rubbed at my aching eyes. “I don’t know how many times I’ve asked you this, but if you only knew how much it slowly killed me every time you refu—” I sucked in a sharp inhale when a warm, muscled body suddenly formed against mine. Long, lethal fingers curved gently around my face.
I looked up into piercing green eyes, unable to breathe, having Kieran hold me this way.
“Kieran, I . . .” My body began vibrating almost violently, and it wasn’t until Kieran’s chest heaved that I realized the vibrating was coming from him. “What’s—?” Words failed me when I glanced into his eyes again and saw sheer panic. But that slowly faded.
And the beast rose in its place.
He pushed away from me so forcefully I stumbled back until I hit the nightstand.
Kieran didn’t stop backing away, as though he was trying to force himself to leave before he could do something he knew he’d regret. But as soon as he was standing in the doorway, he gripped the frame, his wild eyes on me.
I’d never seen him so animalistic. Not even when—
A shudder tore through me at the thought.
Kieran was calm. Always. Even as Nightshade. I couldn’t understand what was happening now, but I could feel the danger rolling from him as if it was a living, breathing entity in the room with us.
“Cowards,” he said through clenched teeth.
“What?”
“Cowards stab people in the back. That’s what my dad always said. That’s how he trained me.”
When he didn’t elaborate, I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
A look of anguish filled his face that was so unlike anything I’d ever seen from him that it stole my next breath. “Understand.” When I only stood there watching him, he said, “I refused to be a coward. You know how I do it, I know you do.”
Of course I did. Everyone knew how he worked. “Pray Nightshade doesn’t find you. He’ll slit your throat . . .” I studied Kieran’s expression as it started to make sense.
He nodded when he saw understanding light my face. “And I look all of them in the eyes while I do it. I can’t put you in front of me, Lily. I know it’s you when you’re there. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t that part of me. And all it sees is the death it needs.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, the confession hushed as if he was admitting his greatest shame.
Considering he’d kept it from me our entire lives, I wondered if it was.
“I can’t put you in front of me,” he repeated as all the emotion slid from his face, leaving hardened eyes.
I nodded numbly for a few seconds, watching him with new understanding that led to new pain.
Intimacy had always stood like a barrier between Kieran and me.
One he’d never tried to push past. One he’d never even tested until tonight.
And now I knew why.
He’d acknowledged his greatest strength in his job was his greatest weakness with me. He’d accepted it when I’d needed more . . .
“I know you. I know that beast inside you. You could’ve told me. And if you’d asked, I would’ve spent the rest of my life trying to help you overcome what Georgie engrained in you.”
“Do it,” he begged, the roughness of his voice betraying the lack of warmth in his eyes. “I can’t do what you’re asking. I can’t put you in that kind of danger. But say you’ll spend the rest of your life with me.”
My mouth parted on an exhale as pain and confusion threatened to destroy what was left of my heart.
“Kieran . . .” I whispered, unable to continue.
“Kieran!”
I jumped when Mickey’s voice rang through the house, my questioning gaze moving from Kieran to the hall behind him. All the while his intense stare never left me.
“Marry me, Lily,” he said, his voice suddenly soft.
Mickey’s loud steps sounded in the hall, followed by his voice. “Jesus, you have a phone for a reason, boy.”
A horrifying realization hit me then. “Mickey put you up to this . . . didn’t he?”
Kieran was so thrown off by my question that Mickey easily shoved his way past him and into the room.
Before Kieran could respond, a sharp laugh burst from my chest. “I’ve been with you for over ten years, and you only ask me to marry you once my dad tells you to? When he demands that we secure the future of Holloway?” I asked, disgust dripping from each word. “Or did the two of you come up with this together? Have Mickey prepare me for your proposal while reminding me of my place here, like I’m nothing more than a pawn or one of the Soldier’s Row whores.”
Mickey whistled and raised his hands, as if he was surrendering. “You shoulda answered your phone. Could’ve avoided this situation that, if you haven’t noticed, is a bit on the awkward side.”
But what had started out as awkward was now tense, and Mickey was too stupid to feel the change in the room.
Or he didn’t care.
Kieran’s expression was as impassive as ever, but his wrath clung to him like a second skin as he stared down Mickey with the intense hatred I’d always known he held for him—before he’d started working as Underboss.
Mickey twisted one of his hands that was still in the air to look at his watch, then clicked his tongue. “Time is a-ticking, Kieran. Got places to go, people to see, plans to settle, and traitors to silence. So let’s head out,” he said as he took a step toward the door. “You’ve got three minutes to be in the car.”
Mickey didn’t make it another two steps before Kieran was suddenly in front of him, yanking Mickey’s head back with a fist full of hair and a knife to his throat.
“That girl . . . your daughter? She’s not alive or here for you to secure a future,” Kieran bit out in a terrifying tone. “She’s here because she’s mine. She’s alive because she fights—”
The room swayed seeing the beast Kieran tried so hard to keep away finally unleashed, but my blood ran cold. I took a step toward the two men when I saw why Kieran had suddenly stopped talking.
“Mickey, no!”
“Well, hello to you too, Nightshade,” Mickey said with a dark snicker as he pressed his gun harder into Kieran’s stomach. His finger already tight on the trigger. “Now, I think you might be mistaken. I don’t need you for Holloway. If you kill me now, I guaran-damn-tee you my finger’s gonna slip. Then who is Holloway left with? Lily. Only Lily. And I guess you’d just be passing her off to the next Underboss. Which, if you think about it, is your buddy Beck.”
The calm on Kieran’s face slipped for a fraction of a second, but it was enough to make Mickey laugh again.
“But if you don’t back the fuck off me, my finger still might slip.”
Kieran continued to stare Mickey down as seconds passed at an achingly slow pace. The look so terrifying and at peace it was fascinating to see. Mesmerizing even.
In movements too quick to track, Kieran released Mickey and backed away, his knives already hidden before Mickey ever lowered his gun or his head.
Mickey’s actions were so sluggish compared to Kieran’s I almost wondered if Kieran had slit Mickey’s throat before freeing him.
But then Mickey sighed. “Nothing like thinking you might lose your life to get your adrenaline pumping. Keeps you young, I guess.” He winked at Kieran, then glanced at his watch as he headed for the hall. “One minute.”
By the time I was facing Kieran again, it was as if nothing had happened tonight.
No fighting, no showing me his greatest secret, no threatening Mickey . . .
He just stood there, watching me carefully with that ever-present expression that hinted at nothing, yet was somehow so incredibly intense. After nearly a minute, he turned to the dresser to change his shirt then began digging around in his sock drawer.
“You weren’t supposed to be in the house the night Aric died. We weren’t,” he said with his back still to me. “I’d made plans to take you somewhere since your parents were out of town. Your dad knew. Aric and Beck too.” Twisting around to face me again, he shut the drawers behind him but kept his head low.
The sight made my heart pound so forcefully I knew the assassin standing before me could hear every beat.
“Your dad called that morning while we were still in bed . . . remember? Told me to go on a job with Aric for him since he was gone. Once that was done, there was another call just for me. And then another. Every time I set foot on the property, he somehow knew and would send me back out. I knew he was trying to stop me from taking you.”
“Take me where?” I asked when he didn’t continue.
After planning to run away for so long, I knew it wouldn’t have been something he would’ve told Mickey. Knew he wouldn’t have continued to do Mickey’s work if he’d been planning to get us out of Holloway.
“The last time I’d gotten back, there was another call. Before I could answer it, I heard your screams and that gunshot.” Kieran finally met my confused stare, his eyes haunted as he closed the distance between us. “You would’ve never been in your room with them if Mickey wouldn’t have been trying so goddamn hard to stop this,” he whispered as he slipped a jewelry box into my hand.
My eyes burned with unshed tears. My heart that had been pounding so hard just moments ago now felt like it was in an iron-tight vise, slowly being crushed.
“Everything I do is for you, Lily,” he whispered against the top of my head before pressing his mouth there.
When I opened my eyes, he was gone.
I turned, making my way to the bed. Placing the box on the nightstand, I said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you.”
The words were just a breath to the empty room, but the freedom that came with them felt so overwhelming it was as if I’d shouted them.
“I don’t belong to you anymore, Kieran. I haven’t for a long time. You left me to die in this place, and that’s something I will never be able to forgive.”