I was in that place where sleep begins to reach out for you when an arm curled around my waist, pulling me back into a hard, muscled chest.
Even in the near-dreamlike state I was in, I couldn’t fool my mind into believing it was someone it wasn’t.
The muscles weren’t broad and comforting, they were lean and built for stealth.
A hum of electricity wasn’t rolling along my arms and burning where he was touching me, but the air felt thick with his presence, and I would know that presence as if it were my own shadow.
My eyes slowly opened to the old room, the moonlight shining brightly through the floor-to-ceiling windows. A rush of nostalgia hit me like a wave waking to this room in his arms.
“I remember the first time I came home from a job and found you in my bed,” he whispered against my shoulder.
Despite the heaviness of the day, a soft laugh sounded in my chest.
“I stood at the foot of the bed trying to memorize how perfect you looked. I knew I wanted to come home to you waiting for me every night. I’d known it my whole life.” He dipped his head, running his nose along my shoulder and down my back before pausing. “And then I woke you.”
“And I punched you.”
“You fucking punched me.” His chest moved with his silent laugh, his lips grazing along the skin bared by my tank. “I was so shocked I just watched you climb off my bed and walk out of this room.”
“I told you not to do that job for Mickey,” I whispered. “I told you, and you went anyway. I wanted you to know that I was mad.”
“I had an idea.” The slightest hint of amusement coated his words before we fell into silence. After a few moments, he pled, “Tell me this isn’t happening, Lily.”
I gripped the hand that was clutching my waist, emotion tightening my throat. “I’m so sorry.”
“What do I have to do? How do we go back?”
“I don’t think we can,” I whispered, pain etched into every word.
“Give me a chance to fix this. You can’t just stop loving me after a lifetime of—”
“I didn’t. I don’t know how to stop loving you,” I admitted. “But there is irreparable damage made to the love that we have, and there isn’t a way to fix that.”
I started to twist in his arms but stopped before he could instinctively attempt to halt the movement. I knew he would try to let me face him, and I knew it wouldn’t last. And even though I wanted desperately to look into his eyes while we had this conversation, it was easier this way . . .
It felt right.
This was how Kieran and I had always done things, and it should end the same.
“You’re the most loyal man I know, Kieran,” I said, settling back into his arms and gripping his hand. “I think that’s why it was so earth-shattering when it seemed like you were a completely different person after Aric’s death. But while you were doing things for the right reasons, I was left in the dark. Wondering when you were going to come back and stop breaking my heart. And four years of brokenness and that kind of isolation is . . . it’s too long. It’s damaging. I knew I’d lost you long ago, but I refused to accept it because there was a part of me holding out hope you hadn’t really turned into him. And then I found out about Texas, and that was the breaking point for me . . .”
His arm constricted around me, as if his hold on me now could prevent what had happened all those weeks ago.
“But I promise you, I never meant to break your heart too. It just . . . it just happened. I fought it, but . . .”
How do you continue fighting that kind of pull?
How do you continue fighting the kind of love you only find once in a lifetime?
“Beck told me,” he said gruffly. “He told me everything you told him. So I know you ended it with Dare.”
My heart contracted, the pain so sudden that I gasped.
Kieran rolled me so I was mostly on top of him, my face an inch from his. “Give us another chance. We’ll leave. We’ll disappear.”
“We can’t. You’ve told me countless times we can’t.”
“There’s no reason to stay here. Beck can finish the job. I’ll find a way to keep you safe. Let me remind you how we can be.”
I tilted my head, my face pinching in pain. “Kieran—”
“He wants to kill you,” he ground out. “Why would you want to stay . . .” His brow furrowed for a few seconds before his face slowly slipped into an emotionless mask. “You think you can change his mind.”
I swallowed past the dryness in my throat and looked away from the horror filling his eyes.
“Lily, he won’t give you the chance.”
“You don’t know—”
“Lily,” he bit out, grabbing my face to make me look at him. “He won’t give you the chance. What were you planning? To wait for him to come for you and try to explain before he could shoot you?”
When I only stared at him with a helpless expression, he cursed. “Jesus.” He leaned up to press his mouth to my forehead, leaving his lips there when he whispered, “I’ll end his life before he can try to take yours.”
“Kieran, please don—” I tensed when his phone rang, and slowly looked at his frustrated expression.
For a few seconds he didn’t move, but with a sneer he pushed away from me and grabbed his phone out of his pocket.
Other than his answering growl, he spoke too low for me to follow the conversation. From the way his head suddenly snapped around to face me, I knew whatever was happening wasn’t good.
“That was Mickey,” he explained when he slipped the phone into his pocket. When I only continued to stare at him, he roughed a hand into his long hair and let loose a heavy breath. “Lily, I have to—”
“Right.” A frustrated laugh bubbled past my lips.
“Lily, I swear to you we’ll leave. Say the word, and we’re gone. But everything we’ve been working for since before Aric died is happening now. Finn knows Teagan’s gone and is losing his mind. Mickey knows Teagan is gone and is about to go hunting because he thinks Finn is hiding her. This is where they all start slipping up and taking each other out, and I need to make sure Mickey’s plans go down with them.”
“Then go,” I whispered.
I couldn’t understand why I sounded disappointed. There was nothing keeping Kieran here with me other than Kieran. As much as I’d tried over the years—maybe that was it.
Maybe I’d waited and hoped for so long that a part of me would always hope for Kieran to prove me wrong even though I’d finally accepted reality.
I wasn’t sure it was fair to him . . . then again, nothing about these last years was fair to either of us.
“Say the word and we’re gone,” he repeated, catching my stare to let me know he meant it.
“You need to go,” I said, curling my arms around my waist. “This is what you’ve been waiting for. I shouldn’t be the reason you miss it.”
If he hadn’t been so close, I might’ve missed the hurt that flashed through his eyes.
Without a word, he turned and moved quickly throughout the room, changing and arming himself with knives and blades. He headed for the bedroom door after slipping the last one into his boot, but stopped before he could get there.
After standing there for a few seconds, he abruptly turned and stalked back to the bed to pull me into his arms.
One of his hands curled around my neck and his eyes searched mine, the struggle to stay or leave evident.
But the time for staying had long past.
“Go,” I said gently, trying to let him know it was okay.
His brow pinched and his mouth formed a hard line, and for just a second, he gripped me tighter. “You could break my heart for the rest of our lives and I would still love you.”
He tugged me forward to press his lips to my forehead, and when he pulled away, the familiar war with the beast raged in his eyes. His hand trembled against me as he forced himself away, his expression hardening with each step back.
His gaze darted over my body, lingering on my bare legs and arms one last time before he was gone.
The familiar ache from Kieran leaving bloomed in my chest, but for the first time it was muted, as if I was experiencing it from far away. For the first time, I didn’t resent him for going.
Incredible, the strength you didn’t know you had when you learn to let something go.
I wandered to the large windows to look across the grounds a few minutes later, my gaze finding its way over to the mostly darkened guesthouse.
A jail in its own right. A refuge when compared to the prison I was standing in. And the home I wished I could be slipping out of to say goodbye one last time . . . only to find a reason to say goodbye again tomorrow and the next day.
My attention snapped from daydreams, and my body stilled when the electricity suddenly cut off, silencing all the white noise surrounding me.
I looked over my shoulder as the fan slowed to a stop, then glanced back out the windows to see that the guesthouse’s porch light was still on and Soldier’s Row was lit up.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
I turned fully to face the empty room, my heart thundering in my chest as I waited for something to happen.
The power to kick back on.
Someone to come rushing in here.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Fear was pounding through my veins, but I somehow knew the man my heart longed for was somewhere on the property, and it was all I could do to stand there and not go looking for him. But Kieran’s words kept me silent and still.
“Lily, he won’t give you the chance.”
I told myself repeatedly that Dare would . . . he had to. But the truth was, I couldn’t be sure.
It had taken Einstein physically stopping me when I’d tried to leave out of fear when I’d found out who Dare was. And Dare was acting on hatred tonight.
Both consuming. Both nearly impossible to ease.
Nearly.
The bedroom door suddenly flung open, Conor charging in before I had the chance to move. He halted when he saw me, his expression fierce.
“Where’s Kieran?”
“He left five . . . eight minutes ago. Mickey called—”
“Fuck,” he hissed, pulling his phone from his pocket and tapping on it before putting it to his ear. He let out a growl of frustration as he started tapping on it again.
“Come on, Lil,” he whispered as he hurried forward to snatch my hand, tugging me across the room, away from the windows.
“What are you doing?”
“I already called Beck and told him what’s happening,” Conor said when we stopped at Kieran’s old set of dressers, which had been empty until this afternoon when we moved back into the house. “Kieran’s phone is off. If this is what I think it is . . .” He let the possibility hang between us, dark and heavy and threatening.
Yet I still couldn’t help but look toward the door in hopes that tonight could go a different way.
I jerked, my attention pulling from the door back to Conor when a piece of clothing hit me.
“Kieran said if they come for you, they’re not going to surround the place. They’re going to come right in and try to take you.” He opened another drawer and started to shut it, but grabbed a dark shirt out of it and threw it at me as well. With a hard jerk of his head in the direction of the windows, he explained, “So we’re going off the balcony.”
The blood immediately drained from my head.
“We’re on the second floor.”
Frustrated that I wasn’t moving, he took the clothes from my hands and forced the shirt over my head. “It’s taken care of.”
I finished pulling my arms through the lightweight, long-sleeved shirt, the irony not lost on me when I fixed the hood so it rested on my head.
I looked like my own nightmare.
Hooded figures that use the dark to their advantage.
Lines and circles . . .
“Hurry,” he murmured, flinging the pants at me before heading toward the closet. “I’ll get your shoes.”
A menacing weight settled over me less than a second before a muffled sound came from behind me.
Ice-cold fingers gripped at my spine, forcing a shallow breath from me as I slowly turned to look over my shoulder.
The air fled from my lungs in a cry when I saw what was happening behind me, highlighted by the haunting light of the moon, my chest seizing and my mind conjuring up unforgiving images from so many years ago.
Conor thrashed, punching and elbowing at the man on his back and trying to knock him off. But the man held strong, tightening his chokehold on Conor so that even in the muted light flooding the room, I could see the horrible shade Conor’s face was turning.
And I knew without a doubt exactly which man could withstand what Conor was trying to do, just as I knew he could take being stabbed and continue to fight.
“Run,” Conor choked out.
I dropped the pants and ran for the nightstand where Kieran used to keep extra knives, but there was nothing there.
My head snapped up at the sound of Conor slamming the man against the wall, but when my eyes caught Conor’s, he flung his hands in front of him and mouthed, “Run.”
I looked at the drawer one last time, then glanced at Conor helplessly.
His eyes were wide and panicked, and his mouth was wide and gaping, but he was still managing to mouth, “Run.”
I started backward, an apology on my lips, when Conor’s eyes rolled back and his jaw went slack.
No. No, not Conor. Not Conor too.
The sight made me falter, but I forced myself to keep going—forced myself to turn and hurry toward the windows. I wrenched them open and ran onto the balcony, my attention catching on the knotted rope that lay coiled and already attached to the railing.
I didn’t know how to rappel, but it didn’t matter in that moment. I would’ve rather flung myself off the second floor than let the man in the room catch up to me.
I bent for the thick rope but was hauled back against a hard chest, a scream tearing from my lungs before he could clamp his hand over my mouth.
“Hello, Princess,” Johnny sneered.