Chapter 18

Killian Savage

I dress while she does. I kissed her after sex, and this time it was different than the other times our lips met. I can't put my finger on it – why it was different – but I know that it meant something to her too. I saw it in her eyes when I pulled away. It makes me wonder what my own face looked like if I looked as confused as I felt because I haven't felt this way since the last time I kissed my wife. That was the morning of the day she died. The day that changed everything.

Kissing her feels like being pulled from a coffin I buried myself alive in. Because I deserved it. Because I belonged there. But the moment she's in my space, I feel relief. Fresh oxygen. The fading of fear. The pull back from the slow suicide I've been striving for when I put myself in that coffin in the first place.

I didn't know I was walking a dark path until her. It doesn't turn my mind from the man I'm trying to find, and it doesn't change my outlook on life, but it does make me feel like I found a home when I didn't feel like that'd ever be possible again. A home in her.

How am I supposed to leave her now? It may just be the hardest thing I'll ever do, and I've done a lot of difficult things, but I promised myself I'd make that man pay. While standing on their fresh graves, I swore to my dead wife and kids that I'd make him suffer.

I push back a few loose strands of hair and turn to face her as she buttons up her shorts. When she's finished, she swivels on her heels to me with her lips twisted to the side.

"What?" I ask, a little amused by the expression.

"I swear to god that I never do this."

I cock my head to the side. "Do what?"

She cringes. "I never sleep with a guy twice." The grin I wear makes her laugh. "What?"

"Does that mean you like me?" I tease.

Her face sobers, and I know then that what she's going to say next does not play along with my joke. She's serious when she admits in a murmur, "I shouldn't. I don't even know you, and . . ."

"And what?" I murmur back. It's the only volume I can muster because, for some odd reason, my heart patterns a different beat, waiting on bated breath as she bares the truth.

Her shrug is small. "You won't even share anything with me about yourself. I know nothing about you."

I consider her carefully. "But you like me anyway?"

She crosses her arms and looks down at her feet as she toes the floor. "I shouldn't. By all rights, I shouldn't be more than attracted to you."

"You're right," I whisper. "You shouldn't."

She raises her gaze to mine and studies me for a second. "Why? "

I clench my jaw because denying her what she's feeling isn't an easy thing to do. "I'm not the marrying type. I'm not the happily-ever-after guy. Not anymore."

Her brows pinch together. "What do you mean?" I say nothing. I don't want to burden her with my past, especially with Pierce's words echoing in my head as a warning about how fragile she is. Because he's not wrong. "What happened? What can't you tell me?"

"You don't need to know that."

Angrily, she looks away. I'm relieved to have her attention off of me, but that relief quickly fades when her gaze lands on the picture that's resting on the nightstand. She travels to it, unfolds her arms, and gingerly picks it up.

I freeze as she studies the picture of my family. Eventually, she turns to me. "Are these – Are you – Is this your wife? Your family?" The accusatory tone settles in the pit of my gut like a rock.

"Yes."

"You're married?" she hisses.

I rake a hand through my tied-up hair, messing it up more than sex and working out had. "Was."

The frown returns to her face, and she opens her mouth to say something but snaps it shut and returns to studying the picture. After a pause, she asks, "You got divorced? Wait . . ." She lifts her eyes back to mine. "I don't understand. If these are your kids, why are you so far from them?"

My hand slides down to my face and swipes at my now-stressed expression that pulls my cheeks taut. "They don't need me anymore."

"Why? I don't understand, Killian."

I drop my hand back to my side. "Because I buried them before I left. "

I watch as her throat constricts in a heavy swallow. "And your wife?"

"Her too," I mutter.

"Oh, Killian." I barely hear her voice, but more clearly, she adds, "I didn't know. I-I'm so sorry."

My shrug is my only answer because how do I explain to her everything that happened? How it was my fault? How I wasn't there when they needed me?

She gently sets the picture back down. "How'd they die?"

"They were murdered," I manage to say.

She doesn't look at me for a second, but when she does, her expression is full of sorrow. "How?"

I sigh and head to the bed. The mattress dips when I take a seat and balance my elbows on my knees. "What I did for a living had consequences that I never thought about. I thought I was careful. Even Larissa had no idea what I was doing because I was protecting her. Protecting them . In the end, it got them killed."

She comes to sit on the edge of the bed with me. Her tone sounds almost like she's not sure if she wants to know, but she asks anyway, "What did you do for a living, Killian?"

I open my palms and stare at the lines across them. "I was a private interrogator. Hired mainly by New York's worst."

"Oh," she breathes. I'm sure her mind is going through all the scenarios of what the job implies. I give her credit; she doesn't scoot away. "The pain thing. It's why you like it. You're punishing yourself for everything you'd done to others."

I shrug a little because, honestly, I'd never thought about it. The way my brain works has never been something I'd dwelled on too long because I don't like what I find when I do.

"How did it kill your family?" she asks when I don't verbally admit anything.

I clench and unclench my fingers, letting my nails bite into my palms as the memories resurface and the way their bodies were lying for me when I arrived home to find them dead. Each was holding a lily petal in their palm as blood spread out around them from their stab wounds.

I breathe out slowly. "I interrogated a man who had kidnapped a crime lord's niece. He never admitted to anything, but I had enough information on him to know that he impregnated the women he stole off the streets. Kept the children as his own." I chuff. "The sickest part was he used to be a gynecologist." I look at her. "Rumor has it that his first kidnapping was one of his patients."

She gulps. "And then what?"

"Somehow, he figured out who I was. Where I lived. I don't know how he did it, I don't know how he learned it, but I came home to a dead wife and two dead sons."

"Jesus," she breathes. "How do you know it was him?"

"There were signs," I say because she doesn't need the dirty details etched into her mind. The last thing I need is for her to fear me more than she already might.

"Does their death have anything to do with you traveling the States?" I know she's just trying to understand me since I'm giving her the information so freely, but the probing is painful.

I'm sure my expression is hard when I turn my head to look her in the eye. What I find is nothing but concern. "Something like that."

She nods again, knowing that's the best answer I can give. She doesn't need to know that I plan to put my skills to use one last time. Make him suffer. Make him pay. The begging for his life will be far better than the gush of his last dying breath.

"Thank you," she eventually says.

I hadn't expected that, so I scowl at her. "For what?"

"For being honest. I hadn't come here for that, but I need you to know one thing."

"And what's that?"

She leans forward and presses a soft kiss to my cheek. "I'm not the marrying type either." When she pulls away, she adds, "I would never expect you to change for me, to tarnish the memory of your wife by taking another, for however long this lasts before you leave to do . . . whatever it is you're doing. I know this is temporary – I know that – but I want to give in to what I'm feeling because it just feels right. I just want to do something that feels right while everything else around me is so wrong."

"Okay," I rumble because I can understand that. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want the same thing. It'll make it harder to leave, but moments with her to remember and look back on will be worth it.

She smiles a little. "Okay." Gripping my knee, she stands up. "I have to go meet Derek, but I'll see you later?"

I nod, and it's almost on the tip of my tongue to ask her to stay, but I don't. I know she has a lot to think about, a lot to sift through concerning everything I just told her, so I remain silent as she makes her way to the door.

With one last glance at me, she heads out, and I'm left there with nothing but memories, a picture, and a backpack full of everything I have left.