Raina's POV
The panic room door closed behind us with a soft hiss, and even though Ethan's arms were around me, the world still felt like it was folding inward...too much air, too little space, a heartbeat that didn't belong in my chest.
He held me like he was afraid I would vanish.
And maybe he should be.
Because the truth was beginning to unravel inside me like a thread pulled too hard.
"Raina," he whispered against my hair, voice shaking just enough for me to hear the fear he would never show anyone else,
"it's over. For tonight."
Tonight.
Not forever.
Not even close.
"I heard him," I whispered, my throat dry. "The Russian outside. I know that voice."
Ethan didn't respond.
His silence scared me more than any gunshot.
I pulled back just enough to see his face.
The cut on his lip.
The bruise forming along his jaw.
The blood drying on his collar.
His ribs rising unevenly....pain stitching every breath.
"You're hurt," I said, touching his face with trembling fingers.
He caught my wrist...not hard, just enough to still me.
"You're alive," he said softly. "That's the only fact I care about tonight."
His thumb brushed along my cheekbone.
A gesture too gentle for a man who could summon fear from the other side of the world with a single phone call.
"Ethan… who was on the phone?"
A shadow tightened across his eyes.
"A man who should never have known your name," he said quietly.
"Why, what did he say, who was he?"
My voice shook.
"He didn't sound surprised. He didn't ask who you were. He just..he just knew. From the breath. From the first second."
Ethan looked away...for the first time since we met.
That alone terrified me.
"I've told you before," he murmured, "my world isn't clean."
He didn't elaborate.
He didn't have to.
Because suddenly, painfully, pieces of my past began falling into place.
The necklace is still in my pocket, the coldness is much worse..
My ex-husband.
Russia.
The trip I thought was a honeymoon but was actually a transaction.
The man who treated my husband like a prince.
The way Ethan's eyes darkened every time the word "December" entered the room.
"Ethan…"
The truth trembled on my tongue.
"My husband was not a middle-class man."
His jaw clenched.
Hard.
"No," he said. "He wasn't."
"You knew him," I whispered.
He closed his eyes....just once.
Not denial.
Not confirmation.
A confession.
"You were his friend."
My breath hitched.
"You were friends in college."
The admission cut the air between us like a blade.
"Yes," he said finally, voice raw. "We were… close."
Close.
I felt something sink inside me.
"And you..." my voice wavered, "you had a crush on me."
He opened his eyes.
And it was all there..
the truth I had never seen,
the truth he never intended for me to see,
the truth he had buried under loyalty and blood.
"Yes," he whispered.
"Yes, Raina. I did."
A tear slipped down my cheek.
He brushed it away slowly, painfully, like the act hurt him.
"Then why didn't you say anything?" I whispered.
His expression hardened, not at me, but at the past.
"Because he was planning something," Ethan said softly.
"Something dark.
Something involving you.
And I couldn't… I couldn't betray you by being part of it.
And I couldn't betray him by loving you."
My own breath stilled.
Finally the truth, the love I saw in his eyes back than, I am sure that is also one of the reasons he helped me in my college as well...
"And the necklace?" I whispered. My fingers drifted to the pocket where the velvet pouch lay heavy again.
"There's something hidden in it."
He inhaled...sharp, quiet.
"You know something," I said.
"And so do you," he replied.
Two truths.
Two lies.
Two people both bleeding and trying to protect each other.
I didn't know who reached for whom first.
Maybe it was me.
Maybe it was him.
Or maybe we were both drowning and reached for the only familiar shore.
His hand came to my waist.
Mine slipped into his hair instinctively, holding on because my body remembered him before my mind did.
He leaned forward slowly...
not demanding,
not taking,
just trembling inches from my mouth.
He was asking.
Without words.
Because the truth was too big to speak.
My heart hammered so loud I felt it in my fingertips.
When our lips met, it wasn't fire.
It was collapse.
Soft, aching collapse.
His breath hitched...just once...as if that one kiss pulled a truth from him he'd kept buried for years.
My fingers slid deeper into his hair.
His hand tightened at my waist, pulling me closer, as though he was terrified the world would steal me again.
It was gentle.
It was desperate.
It was something neither of us could afford.
For a moment...for a breath....I let myself sink into it.
Into him.
Then...
A spark of reality tore through me like a slap.
I pulled back fast, breath broken.
Ethan froze.
"What's wrong?" he whispered, searching my eyes.
"Everything," I breathed.
Silence.
Then I said the one thing he didn't expect.
"You're lying to protect me."
His jaw tightened.
"And you," he replied, voice low, "are lying to protect me."
My lips parted.
Because it was true.
Both of us were lying.
Not for manipulation...
but for love, trauma, fear, loyalty, and the ghosts of the past.
The kiss was still warm between us, but the truth was colder. I can taste him on my lips, my guilt is heavier than...
He reached for me again...slowly, gently.
I stepped back.
Not out of rejection.
Out of terror.
Because for the first time, I realized..
Ethan Hale was not just the man saving me.
He was part of the world trying to destroy me.
And he was trying just as hard to save me from himself.
The air tightened between us as he whispered:
"Raina… we don't have time. They're coming back."
My heart stopped.
"The Russians?" I whispered.
"No," he said quietly.
His eyes lifted toward the window.
"The Italians."