POV: Phoebe Thorne
There are two kinds of goodbyes.
The kind you prepare for—messy, trembling, cushioned with too many words that fail to make anything hurt less.
And the kind that's ripped out of your hands before you even realize you're holding on.
This one is the second kind.
They come for Killian before sunrise.
No knock. No courtesy. No warning.
Just the low growl of a black SUV rolling into the drive like a predator that already knows its prey can't escape. Men step out—faceless in the early morning gray—and one of them, a man with a voice colder than winter steel, announces without looking at me:
"Agent Cross is being relieved of duty. Effective immediately."
For a full second, I forget how to breathe.
The room tilts—slow, dizzy, wrong. I look at Killian, searching his face for some sign that this is a mix-up. A misunderstanding. A joke so terrible it loops back into cruelty.
But the moment our eyes meet, I know.
He didn't see this coming either.
