From Pheobe Thorne's POV
He was in the gym.
Of course he was.
Where else does a man go when he needs to beat silence into something that bleeds? The mansion's private gym was carved into the eastern wing like an afterthought — mirrors lining the walls, blackout glass facing the cliffside. The kind of place where power was built in solitude.
And Killian Cross was power on legs.
He wore black. Always black. Today it was a sleeveless compression shirt, dark sweatpants, and combat boots — not because he was working out in them, but because he never took them off. As if war could break out at breakfast and he'd already be dressed for the kill.
He didn't see me enter.
Or maybe he did, and just didn't care.
I watched the veins in his forearms flex as he punched the bag — left jab, right cross, a combination so fast the chain shrieked. His back glistened with sweat. His arms coiled and released like the memory of violence had never left his bones.
I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms.
"You always fight shadows, or is that just your warm-up?"
The bag swung once more, and he stilled it with one gloved hand.
He didn't look at me. "You're not supposed to be in here."
"Neither are you," I said. "At least not without a leash."
Finally, he turned.
And there it was again — that glacial stare. Eyes that weren't made to look at girls in silk. Eyes that belonged in crosshairs, not living rooms.
"You think this is a game," he said.
"Everything's a game," I replied. "You just don't like when you're losing."
He pulled off one glove. Then the other. Tossed them aside.
"Is that what you think this is?" he asked. "Some kind of power play?"
"No," I said, stepping forward. "I think this is a war. And I think I'm winning."
His jaw ticked. His arms folded across his chest — not defensive, just controlled. Containing.
Always containing.
"What do you want, Pheobe?"
Oh, he said it like a command. But I heard the crack underneath.
And maybe it was reckless. Maybe it was manipulative. But maybe I didn't care.
I took another step.
"I want to know," I said softly, "if you even feel it."
"Feel what?"
"The tension. The pull. The way the air snaps when you look at me for too long. Or when I wear red. Or when you hear me breathing on the other side of the door."
He didn't move.
But his silence answered for him.
I smiled — slow, wicked. Dangerous.
"I bet you tell yourself you're immune. That I'm just a mission. A spoiled brat in a silk cage."
I stopped two feet from him.
"But you don't sleep anymore, do you?"
Still nothing.
So I whispered: "You're scared. Because you know what happens if you touch me."
His voice came low. Hard. "And what happens?"
I stepped into him — my chest brushing his, my breath finding the edge of his jaw.
"You lose."
I don't know what I expected. A shove. A growl. A grab.
What I got was worse.
He turned his face — not away from me, but just enough that I couldn't read his eyes.
He didn't back up.
He didn't push me off.
He just stood there. Motionless. Silent. Tortured.
So I raised my fingers and ran them lightly down the middle of his chest.
"Tell me to stop," I whispered.
He didn't.
So I lifted my chin until our mouths were one exhale apart.
And then, like a live grenade...
"I dare you," I breathed. "Kiss me… or kill me."
It was a line.
A choice.
And he didn't take it.
He didn't say a word.
He just stepped around me — not fast, not slow — like walking past a bomb he wasn't sure wouldn't detonate.
And I let him go.
But not before I saw it.
The tremble in his hand. The one he fisted behind his back.
He wasn't walking away from me.
He was running from himself.
That night, I wrote another message.
This one was just for him.
To: Unknown Contact.
You had your chance. Next time, you don't get to walk away.
I left it unsent. Saved it as a draft. But I made sure to keep the screen facing the camera.
Because I wasn't just trying to be seen.
I was daring him to react.
The next morning, I found the mirror moved.
Just slightly — a quarter-inch shift on the left side. Enough for a trained eye to know something had been done. Enough for a paranoid girl with too much time and too little freedom to notice.
He was in my room last night.
I checked the drawer where I kept the note he left last time.
It was gone.
In its place?
A new one.
You think this is a fire you can control. But you've never met the flame.
My breath caught.
My fingers trembled.
Because for the first time in a long time... I didn't feel like the one holding the match.
At dinner, we sat across from each other in the private dining room.
Neither of us touched the food.
He read the silence like a blueprint. I painted it like a threat.
I spoke first.
"Do you always run from women who offer you a choice?"
Killian cut a piece of steak. Didn't eat it. Just let it sit on the blade.
"I don't run," he said.
"Could've fooled me."
He looked up.
Finally.
And that was the moment everything changed.
Because this time, he didn't look away.
He held my stare like a dare.
"I didn't kiss you," he said, "because if I had, I wouldn't have stopped."
The room didn't breathe.
Neither did I.
He leaned forward — slow, dangerous, calculated.
"You think this is a game. A flirtation. A power trip. But if I kiss you, Pheobe, it won't be a tease."
His voice dropped.
"It'll be a declaration. And I don't make promises I can't kill for."
I couldn't move.
My fingers curled under the table.
My heart — my poor, traitorous heart — skipped like it was trying to leap out of my throat and into his hands.
"Then why haven't you?" I whispered.
"Because once I do," he said, "you'll never be able to walk away."
He stood.
I stood too.
The table screeched as I pushed back my chair.
He walked toward the door.
I followed.
My voice chased him.
"So that's it?"
He paused at the doorway.
Said nothing.
I crossed the room, grabbed his arm, forced him to turn.
And there, in the tension of silence, the war between us finally snapped.
I kissed him.
Hard.
Without warning. Without apology.
His mouth was fire and steel. His hands stayed at his sides for exactly one second — and then they snapped up to my waist, yanked me in, crushed me against him like he was claiming ground he'd sworn never to touch.
He kissed me like it was the last thing he'd ever do.
And maybe it was.
Because the door flew open.
And standing there — pale, trembling, face drained of blood — was the one person who shouldn't have seen us.
My father's Chief of Staff.
And in his shaking hand?
A phone.
Still recording.