18. Layla

18

LAYLA

Kaden's voice is a deathly hiss cutting through the room.

The figure beneath him squirms in a futile attempt to free himself before he sags against the floorboards and spits, "Go to hell."

Kaden stiffens.

"I've been there," he responds. "I received the economy experience. You should be thankful. Yours is a first-class ticket."

Despite the clear threat, the assassin's lips twist into a defiant smirk. Kaden doesn't seem surprised by the stubborn resistance.

Kaden reaches out, pressing the surgical blade against the skin above Morelli's sigil tattoo.

A tremor courses through me. What I'm witnessing is far beyond any shady dealings I've stumbled upon at work. I clutch the hem of my sweater, struggling to keep my own fear in check as my moral reservations clash with a morbid fascination.

"Listen carefully." Kaden's words ring out like an executioner's sentence. "You failed. The girl is under the Scythe's protection now."

The assassin's eyes dart to me, then back to Kaden's mask.

Kaden digs the edge of the blade deeper into the man's skin, enough to draw blood. The man beneath him breathes through clenched teeth but says nothing.

A bead of crimson blooms beneath the blade and drips down the man's torso, staining my bedroom floor. Kaden angles his masked face to watch it spread as if he were observing a curious phenomenon rather than inflicting torture.

He angles the blade, pulling up a piece of skin inked with the tattoo. "Tell Morelli if he wants Layla Verona, he'll have to come get her himself."

Now, the man screams through his teeth.

When Kaden relents, a laugh bubbles from the assassin's throat, wet and clogged.

"Morelli? Come himself?" He coughs, spitting blood. "You're out of the loop, Scythe. The old man's dying. Terminal. He's not going anywhere."

Kaden goes rigid. Even through the mask, I sense the shock rippling through him.

"What did you say?"

The modulator barely conceals the disbelief in Kaden's voice.

The captive laughs, a harsh sound. "You think I'm going to explain?"

"You seem to have misunderstood your situation."

Kaden presses the blade deeper, slowly, as though he were slicing off a pad of butter. The captive's laughter dies, replaced by an anguished squeal.

A sick dread crawls up my spine. I press my lips together, keeping down the vomit threatening to rise .

"Still nothing?" Kaden's voice suddenly becomes distant, as if his spirit is the one being tortured instead of his captive. "Then let's keep playing."

With a fluid maneuver that belies his imposing size, Kaden shoots to his feet and paces around his victim, whose face blanches with panic.

Kaden kneels back down, his knee crushing into the man's sternum. "You are here because I allowed it. And you will leave only when I've had my fill."

He traces along the man's jawline. As Kaden leans in, his blade cuts along the man's cheek, lifting skin. "Tell me, or I'll replace my mask with your face."

Between gritting his teeth and arching off the floor, the assassin wrenches his lips open and sucks in a sharp breath, choking on fear and a rank mouthful of defeat. "Cancer's eating him alive. Got a few months, tops."

When Kaden's scalpel pauses, the assassin's grin is red-stained. "But don't worry. Someone's waiting in the wings. Someone who'll make you wish it was still Morelli."

Kaden flings the blade aside, its metal pinging against my window and cracking the glass. His hand shoots out, gripping the man's throat.

"Who?" he snarls, composure cracking. "Who's taking over?"

"Don't know," the assassin wheezes. "Nobody does. But the word is, they're something else. Cold. Brilliant. Morelli's perfect successor."

Kaden's breathing shreds through the mouth of his mask, the sound harsh underneath his disguise. His mind seems to be racing, grappling with the news—the revenge he so meticulously planned for is slipping away in the form of a dying enemy .

His fingers tighten around the assassin's throat, a terrible keening sound coming from behind his mask.

Seeing Kaden falter catches me off guard. Kaden's always been the epitome of control. For the first time, I notice the cracks in his armor, fissures revealing a man driven by grief, vengeance ... and futility.

My voice is a thin whisper, lost under his thunderous rage. "Stop it, Kaden."

He doesn't let go. The assassin's face is turning an ugly shade of purple, his eyes bulging. His struggles are growing weaker, flailing hands reaching for Kaden's arm with less and less conviction.

"Kaden, stop!"

My voice strengthens. I push off the bed and step into the man's pool of blood, desperate to pull Kaden back from the precipice he's teetering on. "You need him alive!"

Something in my plea seems to reach him. As if emerging from a trance, his fingers slacken, and he releases his hold on the assassin's throat.

The man collapses against the floorboards, rolling to his side as he sucks in jagged gulps of air. Blood oozes from the gash on his cheek, mingling with the rivulets of sweat that course down his ashen skin.

Kaden rises to his feet, his movements stiff and mechanical. He retrieves his scalpel from the floor, the blade glinting in the light that filters through the retreating storm clouds and into my window. When he turns to face me, the emotionless mask that conceals his features seems more ominous than ever, a barrier that shields him from the truth.

He may not win this war.

When Kaden faces the assassin again, his voice is ice. "Tell Morelli Death's coming, and it wears my face. For him, his successor, all of it. "

The assassin gives a rapid nod.

Kaden snarls, "I'll desecrate every trace of him until even his memory will bleed out and die."

Kaden stands motionless as the assassin stumbles to his feet, then limps out.

Then, when we're alone, a sound rips from him—part wounded animal, part breaking man. His fist collides with the wall. The impact shudders through the room, through me. Again. And again. Plaster rains down, pink with his blood, a macabre snowfall.

I'm rooted to the spot, lungs forgetting how to work. Each blow seems to punch through my own chest, a skewering of splintering drywall and disintegrating control.

When his assault on the wall finally ceases, his mask swivels to me. The blank face is more haunting now than ever before. In its emptiness, I see a truth laid bare: the Scythe—the name that makes hardened criminals tremble—is a man undone.

Pain slices through my heart, white and sharp.

Kaden's shoulders rise and fall with each labored breath, his fists still pressed against the crumbling wall. The sanctuary of my bedroom has become distorted, as if the violence has left an electric residue in the air.

An irrational urge to comfort him surges through me.

It's madness. Kaden's a killer, a threat. Yet my feet carry me forward, ignoring every instinct screaming for self-preservation.

"How many more will die?" I whisper, staring at the blood on his hands.

"As many as it takes to keep you safe."

I should be horrified, but instead, I feel ... protected. Cherished .

"And what happens when there's no one left to kill?" I whisper.

"I will always kill for you."

Kaden doesn't move, but the set of his shoulders tells me he's acutely aware of my approach. I pause just behind him, close enough to catch the scent of blood and sweat clinging to his tactical gear.

My hand hovers near his shoulder, uncertainty staying my touch. When I finally make contact, the Kevlar feels cool beneath my palm. He tenses but doesn't pull away.

"Face me," I say. "I need to see you."

He pivots slowly, the expressionless metal on his face a safeguard against the devastation I sense lurking beneath. But I've seen enough cracks in his facade, glimpsed the festering anguish he hides, and that knowledge hardens my determination to stay firm.

My fingers find the edge of the mask, tracing its contours.

Kaden's hand clamps around my wrist, halting my movement. His grip tightens in warning. But before fear can fully take hold, his fingers loosen, thumb brushing over my pulse point.

I lift the mask, revealing him gradually. The sharp angle of his jaw. The jagged scar carving a path on one side of his face. And finally, his eyes—blue as frosted cyanide and brimming with emotions too complex to name.

The mask clatters to the floor, forgotten. His exhales are warm against my palm.

"Talk to me," I say, cupping his face, my thumb following the ridge of his scar. "Let me in."

A muscle in Kaden's jaw twitches. He leans into my touch, the movement so subtle I almost miss it. His eyes flutter closed, a shuddering breath escaping his lips.

He leans forward, his forehead resting on mine. The contact makes my heart leap, sparks racing through my veins, and I shut my eyes, too, just to know what it's like to feel the man and not the monster.

My forehead goes cold, and I open my eyes to see that Kaden's lifted his head, the anguish in his eyes hardening into such rage, it's like staring down the barrel of a gun.

"I need to get to Morelli before he dies and kill him myself. I'll kill them all," he grinds out. "Every last one."

I take a deep breath.

"I know." My thumb traces the ridge of muscles in his scarred cheek. "But you've never told me why."

I brace myself for the surge of anger at the question, the intrusion into his life. But Kaden doesn't recoil. His gaze remains steady, his hold on my wrist reassuringly firm, before something breaks in him, like glass against steel.

"There was a time I believed in honor," he begins. "I was a soldier once, who believed in duty and country. Ten years ago, I was ... someone else. A second lieutenant in military intelligence. Analytical operations, threat assessment, data mining—the kind of work that shapes wars."

A shiver cuts through me at the detachment in his voice.

"I was good at it. Seeing patterns, predicting moves, unraveling complex networks of information." He pauses, a muscle working in his jaw. "After my tour ended, I transitioned to civilian life. Landed a position as a cybersecurity consultant for a tech firm dealing in government contracts. High-stakes work, but it felt tame after the military."

Kaden's focus drifts over my shoulder to the window, focusing on something I can't see. "I had a routine. Up at 0500 every morning for a run along the coast. The sea air, the sunrise, it centered me. Reminded me why I did what I did."

A smile touches his lips, there and gone in an instant. "Then home to my daughter before heading to the office. "

Daughter.

The word arrows into my mind, and suddenly I'm six years old again, standing in my first-grade classroom. Miss Hanson is asking everyone to draw their families for Parents' Day. I remember the waxy smell of crayons, the scratch of paper, the excited chatter of my classmates.

I'd drawn a stick figure of myself, alone.

Looking at Kaden, I see a different little girl in his eyes. One who had a father who came home to her, who probably colored family portraits with too many crayons and hung them on the fridge.

I want to ask about her. What was her name? Did she have Kaden's eyes, his rare smile? Did she wait by the window for him to come home, the way I used to imagine a father would come for me?

But the words stick in my throat, because I know. I know with a certainty that chills me to my marrow that this story doesn't have a happy ending.

Kaden's voice grows harder. "I thought I'd left the war behind when I was honorably discharged. I was wrong. The enemy was closer than I ever imagined, and I didn't even know I was still fighting."

He takes a deep breath. "There was an operation back when I was in the military. We disrupted a major overseas criminal network. Drug trafficking, arms dealing. It was all data to me then. Numbers on a screen, connections to be severed. We cost them millions. Crippled their operations. I never considered the face behind the data. Until that face found me."

"Frank Morelli," I whisper.

Kaden gives a short nod, his eyes a bottomless black. "One morning, I went for my run. Fog thick as soup. Came back to..." His voice falters for a split second. "To make my kid a pancake breakfast for graduating middle school. But the house was empty. Cassie was gone."

I forget how to exhale, my body frozen mid-breath.

The pieces start to fall into place.

"We mounted a search. Every resource, every favor called in. Nothing."

Kaden tears from my hold, pacing like a caged animal.

"I resigned that day. Liquidated everything. Called in every contact from my military days. But I refused to leave it in someone else's hands. Strangers, friends … not one of them was me. No one understood the need to find Cassie more than me . But I needed skills. So I went off-grid. Found teachers. Former special forces. Retired assassins. Learned every method of killing, tracking, disappearing."

Kaden stops, his back to me. "My first job was to track down one of Morelli's human traffickers in Bangkok. He told me Morelli sold her to him. That she was pumped full of heroin and handed around to rich, foreign executives and nothing was left of her." Kaden's voice breaks. "His death was sloppy. Messy. But effective. And I was nowhere near done."

There is literal blood on his hands as he speaks.

"I refined my methods. Became a ghost, like Morelli. The Scythe." A humorless laugh escapes him. "Ironic. I became the very thing I once hunted."

Kaden turns, and I force myself not to flinch from the cold fury in his eyes.

"Morelli was impossible to locate, but I convinced myself that every job brought me closer. Every kill honed my talent. I dismantled his network piece by piece. Year after year, hoping he'd resurface. I'd immersed myself in the disguise of an assassin for hire. So much, I didn't just wear the Scythe's mask, I became him and would take jobs unrelated to my goal just to stay believable. Until I started to enjoy it. Then one of my contacts slipped me a photograph. A picture of you. You were the unexpected variable. The key I've been searching for all these years."

I wrap my arms around my waist, hugging myself.

"Your face…" Kaden shakes his head, as if dislodging the unwelcome tenderness in his voice. "You were an innocent. I verified that by learning everything about you, including how you accessed company servers after hours. It was crafty of you, using your skills to protect yourself from that lech of a supervisor."

I ignore the flattery, my stomach churning. How long had Morelli been watching me?

"But you stumbled onto something bigger, didn't you?" Kaden continues, his words precise. "Security footage. Your boss and an unknown figure, discussing some ‘cleanup operation' involving AI tech."

The memory of that night makes me grimace. The stupidity, the confusion, the weight of the USB drive in my pocket.

"That unknown figure?" Kaden's voice drops to a near husk of itself. "It was Morelli. After a decade of chasing phantoms, there he was. On your company's servers."

Blood drains from my face as I jerk my chin up and stare at him. "But you said Morelli never shows his face. Why would he— how ? In Greycliff?"

"I wondered the same myself. It didn't occur to me that the man in the footage could be the Ghost Leader. Until we got our answer today."

My mind goes quiet at his meaning. Too quiet. "Morelli's dying, so he's personally making sure his enterprise lives on. He's preparing for a power transition and wants to ensure his successor is ready for the role. That's why he's showing his face. Because it doesn't matter anymore."

The cottage's lights burst on. I squint, adjusting to the sudden glare, but notice how the shadows seem to shrink away from Kaden, leaving nothing but the solid form of a man who's walked through hell and emerged bearing its scars.

Kaden rakes his fingers through his hair and releases a sound halfway between a sigh and a lament. "The AI tech is a trigger to guarantee his monopoly. He's using your company as a shield until his successor finishes what he started. You're a witness who could dismantle all of that. No wonder he wants you so badly."

My stomach flutters as Kaden crosses the room, each step measured. He's a man of precision, every movement deadly. It's both terrifying and mesmerizing when he holds my stare. "I'm not going to let that happen. Not again."

"But I'm still bait," I say.

Kaden's scar seems to shift to a stark white. Every inch of his frame radiates with menace. "I'm not a hero, Layla."

"I can see that. And I'm certainly not your princess."

I'm not sure whether it's the adrenaline or the insanity of my situation giving me this newfound courage, but I welcome it.

"Your hatred for Morelli is palpable," I add. "But what about after? When you've had your revenge? What then?"

Kaden's focus doesn't waver from my face. "He took my daughter away from me when she was barely twelve. She was innocent, Layla. Just like you."

The vivid picture of a twelve-year-old girl on the cusp of becoming, her future mutilated before being snuffed out, punctures any defenses I had left, acid-sharp. Kaden isn't just a steel-edged assassin, he's a man hollowed out and carved to the bone with loss. I'm drowning along with him in the depths of his anguish, at a love so violently severed, because the image of a younger Kaden cradling a baby swathed in soft blankets brings me to tears .

"Tell me about her. Tell me about the day she was born."

Tell me how you love, I add silently. Instead of just hate.

Kaden softens for the barest of seconds. "The day Cassie was born, it was chaos. I was deployed overseas and had to catch three different flights to make it back in time."

He pauses, two fingers brushing his lips as if to suppress a smile. "I burst into the hospital room, still in my fatigues, covered in dust from God-knows-where. And there she was. Tiny. Perfect."

Kaden's voice grows quieter. "Cassie's mother, Angie, we weren't together. It was complicated. She was a journalist, always chasing the next big story. When she found out she was pregnant, she told me she wasn't cut out for motherhood, but she'd carry the baby to term if I wanted to raise her."

Kaden's jaw shifts slightly. "Angie signed over full custody the day after Cassie was born. Last I heard, she was covering conflicts in some war-torn country. But Cassie, from the moment I held her, I knew. She was my whole world."

Then he sighs, the past pulling him under. "I'd give anything to hold her again."

His confession hangs in the air, a fragile thread connecting two broken souls.

And then I close the distance, sealing his pain with a kiss. His lips are soft, hesitant at first, as if he's afraid I'll shatter beneath his touch. But as I wind my arms around his neck, pulling him closer, he responds with a fervor that turns my exhales into his inhales.

Kaden's hands find my waist, fingers digging into my flesh as he deepens the kiss. It's a clash of teeth and tongue, a desperate need to feel something, anything, beyond what he's buried in.

When we finally break apart, both of us panting, I notice a forgotten piece of his past anchored in his gaze .

Hope, perhaps. Or the beginnings of reliance.

I tilt my chin, keeping the Kaden-that-was close to my heart. "I'll be your bait. I'll help lure Morelli to you."

Kaden stills. "You're sure?"

I nod, no longer weighed down by terror.

Because looking at the man before me—the killer, the protector, the stolen father—I realize that I would wade through rivers of blood, stain my soul beyond recognition. In Kaden, I see a love so fierce that a little girl and her crayon scribbles rewrote his entire existence, and for the first time, I'm ready to color myself into someone else's world, even if it's painted in shades of black.