The next morning bleeds into the room like guilt — pale, slow, unwanted.
I don't know how long I've been lying here, eyes open, staring at the ceiling like it might crack open and tell me who I've become.
The bed hasn't moved.
Neither has he.
Killian's still on his side, facing me, arms folded like a fortress around himself. He didn't touch me. Not once. But I think I felt him all night anyway.
His breathing is steady.
Too steady.
Like he's been pretending to sleep just to match mine.
The silence is loud.
I break it.
"Were you ever married before?"
His eyes open. No delay.
"No."
"Engaged?"
"No."
"Serious?"
He pauses.
His voice is slower this time. "Serious enough to leave."
I nod.
He doesn't ask if I've ever been serious with anyone. He already knows. The tabloids made sure of that.
"Why'd you leave her?" I ask.
He shifts slightly on the mattress.
"She wanted a man who made promises," he says. "I gave her blood and silence."
"What did she give you?"
He doesn't hesitate.
"A reason to stop."
I study him.
There's something about the way he says it. Not fondly. Not bitterly. Just… truthfully.
"Stop what?"
"Feeling like I was born to ruin people."
The silence stretches between us like a live wire.
I sit up in bed, robe still knotted around my waist, hair a mess of gold tangles. He watches me.
I press my back against the headboard.
"Why did you join the military?"
His expression doesn't change. But something behind his eyes freezes.
"I've seen the file," I add. "They said you enlisted early. Younger than you should've. Barely legal."
"They weren't wrong."
"So why?"
He stares at the ceiling like it owes him an answer.
"Everyone wants to be good at something," he says finally.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I had."
I wait.
He doesn't blink.
He won't elaborate unless I make him.
So I push. "Was it guilt?"
"No."
"Grief?"
"No."
"Poverty? Pain? Punishment?"
He shifts again, sits up beside me, spine perfectly straight like he's back in a barracks somewhere, waiting for the sound of gunfire.
"No," he says quietly. "It was rage."
I look at him. "At what?"
"At the fact that no one ever came for me."
The words land like glass breaking in my ribs.
"I figured," he continues, voice tight, "if the world didn't care about saving me, maybe I could get good at saving other people."
I don't speak.
I can't.
The man beside me is not the calculated, polished security risk the world believes he is.
He's a fracture.
A weapon forged in abandonment.
And I'm suddenly terrified I understand him too well.
I glance at his wrist.
The watch is military-issue. Still spotless. Still tight.
Without thinking, I reach toward it.
My fingertips graze his skin.
A light touch.
A meaningless touch.
Except it's not.
His hand catches mine.
Gently.
Dangerously.
Not hard. Not possessive.
Just… sure.
His thumb brushes the inside of my wrist.
Slow.
Lingering.
Like he's memorizing the rhythm of my pulse just to remember what being alive feels like.
My breath stutters.
I don't pull away.
"Phoebe," he says — barely a whisper.
His voice is full of something I can't name.
Something too sharp to be soft and too soft to be safe.
I look at him.
Right at him.
And I swear I see it — the unspoken thing coiled in his chest. The part of him that wants to want me, but knows he shouldn't. The part of him that's already failed to follow his own rule.
No falling in love.
My voice is quieter than I mean it to be.
"You're breaking it."
His thumb stops moving.
He knows what I mean.
But he still says, "What?"
"The rule."
His hand doesn't let go.
And neither do I.
"I know," he says.
My throat tightens.
"You knew it wouldn't work," I whisper.
"I hoped it would."
"So what now?"
His jaw flexes.
Then, slowly — deliberately — he lets go of my wrist.
The warmth of his hand lingers like a wound.
He stands.
Walks to the window.
The morning sun streaks across his back like gold bruises.
He doesn't turn.
"The truth is," he says, "I can survive not loving you. But I don't think I can survive loving you and losing you."
I sit in stunned silence.
Then, without meaning to, I ask the most dangerous question I've ever asked.
"What makes you think you'd lose me?"
He turns.
The look in his eyes breaks something I didn't know was breakable.
"Because people like me," he says softly, "don't get to keep people like you."
The words hang in the air.
Like a vow made too late.
I want to say something. Anything.
But then—
A knock on the door.
Two sharp raps.
Killian's eyes narrow. Instinct flips on like a switchblade.
He walks over.
Checks the peephole.
Doesn't open it.
He speaks through the door. "Who is it?"
A pause.
Then a voice I know too well.
"Delivery," it says.
Killian looks at me.
I shake my head.
We didn't order anything.
He opens the door slowly.
A small white box sits on the ground. No delivery person. No name. No label.
Just a box.
He picks it up with gloved hands.
Brings it inside.
He opens it.
Inside is a phone.
Nothing else.
No note.
No card.
It buzzes to life in his hand.
One notification.
One new video.
He taps play.
We both lean in.
The screen flickers.
Grainy security footage.
Of me.
Me.
At the Thorne Estate.
A hallway.
I'm arguing with someone offscreen.
The angle shifts.
It's Jackson.
He's grabbing my arm.
I'm yanking away.
Then—
The camera pans.
And standing in the shadows behind me—
Alyssa.
Filming.
My blood goes cold.
"Kill it," I say.
Killian taps the screen off.
But the silence is deafening.
I turn to him.
"How did they get this?"
He doesn't answer.
Because he already knows.
This wasn't hacked.
This was delivered.
Deliberately.
A warning.
A threat.
A power move.
"We're being watched," I whisper.
Killian doesn't blink.
He nods once.
And then says the one thing I've never heard him say before.
"We need to disappear."