He was already dead when I remembered him.
I hadn't thought about Leo Mallory in years — not since I'd ghosted his tuxedoed grin and Ivy League promises the night before his father's re-election gala.
He was clean-cut. Almost too clean. The kind of man my father liked. The kind who wore good cologne and worse secrets. And once, stupidly, when I was still stupid, I almost convinced myself I liked him too.
Then he died.
Boating accident, they said.
High winds, wrong turn, drowned at twenty-eight.
Closed casket. Quiet funeral. Press blacklisted.
But now, years later, his name is on the file I found under Killian's mattress.
A folder I wasn't supposed to touch.
Which means, obviously, I opened it.
Because the man I married under fake chandeliers and White House cameras had hidden a manila envelope beneath his bed.
And that envelope said:
MALLORY, L.
DATE OF DEATH: 11.02.2021
INVESTIGATOR OF RECORD: AGENT KILLIAN M. CROSS
STATUS: TERMINATED – CLASSIFIED CAUSE
Terminated.
Not deceased.
Not drowned.
Terminated.
I don't even realize I'm on the floor until I feel the cold marble against my spine.
I sit there for twenty minutes. Maybe more. Just staring at those five letters. As if maybe — if I looked long enough — they'd rearrange into something softer.
They don't.
When I finally move, it's only to lock the door and pull the blackout curtain. Then I reopen the folder and flip to the second page.
There's a photo.
A still from a security cam, date-stamped the week Leo died. He's standing beside his boat, texting someone, smiling.
There's a second figure, barely visible in the shadows near the dock.
The photo's grainy.
But I know those shoulders.
I'd know that posture anywhere.
Killian.
He's standing behind a rusted metal gate, dressed in civilian clothes — cap low, stance watchful.
Watching Leo.
Watching me.
Because I was supposed to be there that night.
Leo had begged me to come.
Said he had something "important" to tell me.
A "favor," he'd called it.
I'd said no.
I didn't want favors.
I wanted peace.
I didn't go.
Leo died anyway.
But now — now — I'm not sure if it was a coincidence.
Or a correction.
I close the folder, slowly.
Then walk into the adjoining suite where Killian is asleep.
Shirtless. Sheets tangled. Chest rising slow and steady like nothing ever happened. Like there isn't blood under his fingernails and ashes under mine.
I stand there for a long time.
Watching him.
Breathing in rhythm with the man who might have murdered someone for me.
Or because of me.
Or instead of me.
His hand twitches in his sleep, a soldier's reflex.
I step back.
Quietly.
Back to the couch.
Back to the ghosts.
By morning, I've memorized every line of the file.
I know the official ruling was "unrecovered."
I know Leo's family was paid to stay silent — a trust fund sealed with federal hush money.
I know Killian signed off on the case closure with a signature that now looks more like a warning than a bureaucratic flourish.
And I know that if I ask him about it now — if I look him in the eye and say the name "Leo Mallory" — I'll lose whatever fragile thread is still tethering this marriage to fiction instead of war.
But I do it anyway.
Killian's pouring coffee when I walk into the kitchen. His back's to me, bare skin and old scars.
I wonder which ones are Leo's.
He senses me.
He always does.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asks.
"No."
He turns.
Hands me a mug. Black. Strong.
"Something happen?"
I stare into the cup.
Then up at him.
"Do you remember Leo Mallory?"
He pauses.
It's a subtle thing. A flick of the eye. A breath skipped. But it's enough.
"I do," he says finally.
Of course he does.
I sip the coffee.
"It was you, wasn't it?"
He doesn't answer.
I set the mug down.
"He died alone. On his boat. On a night I was supposed to be there. But I didn't go. You were watching."
Still no answer.
I step closer.
"You knew he had something to tell me."
"He was compromised," Killian says, voice low.
"By what?"
"By whom."
He meets my eyes now.
And I hate how much I still want to believe him.
"Leo Mallory worked for your father."
I freeze.
"What?"
"Unofficially. Quietly. He was laundering campaign money through private equity firms. When the firm collapsed, he tried to leverage what he knew for immunity."
I shake my head.
"No. Leo— Leo hated politics."
Killian gives me a look that cuts through that delusion like a razor.
"He was inside it, Pheobe. He had documents. Names. Codes. Accounts."
"And you killed him?"
"I stopped him."
"That's not an answer."
"I neutralized a threat."
I take a step back.
He doesn't follow.
"Did he really die in an accident?" I whisper.
Killian's silence is an answer I don't want.
I want to scream. I want to throw something. I want to rip that calm, perfect mask off his face and see what's underneath.
But instead, I laugh.
Not from humor.
From heartbreak.
"You knew he had a message for me."
"I did."
"And you didn't let him deliver it."
"I couldn't risk it."
My hands are trembling.
"You talk about risk like I'm a country. A code. A contract."
His voice drops.
"You are a contract."
There it is.
The truth.
Stark. Ugly. Final.
And yet...
And yet...
Something inside me whispers:
He didn't want me to find that file.
But he didn't bury it too deep either.
Later that night, I sit by the window, watching the city blink like a sleeping beast.
Killian's outside.
Maybe walking.
Maybe pacing.
Maybe deciding whether or not he should finish what he started three years ago on a boat that never made it back.
In my lap, the folder feels heavier than any weapon.
Because it is one.
Truth is always a weapon in Aurelia.
But I don't know who to aim it at yet.
And I don't know if I'm the assassin…
…or the next target.