Chapter 22 : What He Buried

Emery’s POV

I shouldn't have… I shouldn't

I shouldn't have eavesdropped on his call. Sometimes it's better to know nothing than to know at all.

My hands were still trembling. I had tiptoed back to the room and collapsed stiff on the cold mattress at the corner of the dark room. The chill crawled up my spine like fingers made of frost.

I didn't sleep. I couldn't. How could I?

Not after what I had overheard.

I listened to every footstep as they passed by the room door. My mind played out every moment with Killian with precision like a broken record — again and again

I could hear it.

His voice echoed in my head in a circular motion — “if she finds out the truth…” — and something inside me whispered that whatever he was hiding wasn’t just about business or politics.

It was about me.

And him.

And whatever bound us together so tightly that even the lies couldn’t tear it apart.

But I had to know.

I had to.

I had woken up early — morning mist still alive. I moved quickly, my mission in clear view. 

A mission I must fulfill. 

I tiptoed, retracing my step right back to the room where I had heard him. I searched the room, I wasn't sure of what I was searching for but just any clue was enough and it didn't take long for me to find a locked drawer

I found Killian lying on the velvet couch. He had arrived hours earlier, and his breathing was steady and heavy. Exhaustion swallowed him whole. I watched him as he slept, monitoring the development of his breathing just to make sure he was actually asleep before heading to the locked drawer

The drawer was at the right top corner of a coffee brown office desk.

The drawer was secured by a fingerprint- code.

But he wasn’t the only one with access.

He’d given me everything at one point — passwords, passcodes, keys. Trust. Or the illusion of it.

I pressed my thumb to the scanner and whispered a silent prayer.

Click.

The drawer slid open.

There was a flash drive, flies, and a single black journal

I took the journal first.

It was thick. Leather-bound. Pages filled with tidy, slanted handwriting that I instantly recognized as his.

I flipped through slowly.

It wasn’t a diary.

It was a record of dates, name transactions and then it held… photos.

But one in particular made my breath catch.

It was a woman, she was young, elegant and her dark hair was like ink across the white marble floors.

It was the same woman from the famous Dubai

She was dead in the photo.

She lay on a tile floor, her face down. It seemed like it was taken in a hotel bathroom setting.

The page beside the photo held just one word boldly:

“Gina.”

My throat tightened.

Not because of the image, but because I suddenly knew.

This was the secret.

The one he had buried.

Killian hadn’t just been involved with her.

He had found her.

And he had to cover it up.

Or worse…

Maybe he blamed himself.

He stirred as I stood in the doorway of the suite, journal clutched to my chest like a weapon.

His eyes opened slowly, confused. Then he saw me.

Saw what I was holding.

And everything changed.

He stood fast. “Emery…”

“She’s dead,” I said, my voice flat. “She’s been dead this whole time.”

He said nothing.

I stepped forward. “You didn’t just run from scandal. You ran from this. From her.”

Killian’s throat worked. “You don’t understand.”

“Then help me understand!” My voice cracked. “Because right now, all I see is the man I trusted, covering up someone's death and lying to me about it!”

His face didn’t move at first. He just stood there, as if the weight of her name alone had turned him to stone. But then his shoulders dropped — not in defeat, it was more like he had just taken a hit straight to the chest and couldn’t find his breath.

His eyes, which were usually sharp and calculating, had gone distant. Not like he was escaping — but like he was being dragged back into something he had spent years trying to forget.

“She killed herself,” he whispered.

His voice cracked around the edges, rough like it scraped its way out of his throat.

I saw it then — the moment his composure broke. His jaw clenched hard, once, and his bottom lip trembled before he bit down on it. He blinked slowly, like he was trying to push back whatever was rising behind his eyes. His hand lifted — just barely — before falling again, useless at his side.

He turned away, just a little, but not enough to hide the way his fingers curled into a fist.

The silence wrapped around us like smoke.

Then he dragged a hand down his face, slow and uneven, as if wiping away something that wasn’t there — or maybe something only he could feel.

When he looked at me again, his gaze was raw. Unguarded.

There were no masks left.

Only grief.

And guilt.

I blinked. “What?”

“Gina. She overdosed. In my hotel suite. After her father used her to manipulate me into sealing a deal I knew was corrupt. She’d just found out her father sold her out like a bargaining chip.”

He looked at me then — eyes hollow. “She left me a note. It said she was sorry for dragging me into her father’s game. She said she couldn’t live in a world where she was nothing more than leverage.”

I lowered the journal.

“I didn’t kill her,” he said, voice rough. “But I didn’t save her either. I walked out of the suite that morning after our final fight. I left her crying on the bathroom floor.”

Killian exhaled, his breath heavy and shaky

“When I came back, she was gone. Just… gone.”

I didn't speak

I couldn't

I could visualize a picture of what happened, the weight on him 

I was to comfort him, but I couldn't voice out a word; every word stuck. My throat dried up

Because every breath choked on the truth, and the liquid pouring down my face wasn’t sweat — it was tears.

I felt her pain I could relate cause I too have been used I too have been used to manipulate I have been there I'm just like her

I was just like her.

 I was manipulated by my ex-husband to feed the press and she was used to manipulate business partners to sign off deals. We weren't different 

I couldn't comfort him not when I myself needed to be comforted 

Maybe she was right Veronica, my ex-husband wife — “not every woman survives in this world, some become collateral” — her last word to me

He rubbed a hand over his face. “Her father would have used it to destroy me. Frame me if he had to. So I did what I had to do. I cleaned it up. Paid off who I had to. I buried her name, buried the scandal. I still see her sometimes. When I close my eyes. When the guilt gets loud.”

He finally looked up. “And now you know.”

The air between us felt fragile, like if we breathed wrongly it would shatter.

“She wasn’t just a scandal,” I whispered. “She was a person. And you’ve been carrying this alone.”

You are not alone

You don't have to carry this weight alone 

You should lain on me sometimes

My shoulders are always open for you to lay on, I will always be here to give you a shoulder to cry on, be here to comfort you, be here to encourage you. Even when you are wrong, I would never judge you.

But how?

How would I tell him? Not when he's so used to being in control, when he's so used to locking things up tight in his cage never for them to leak out, when he's so used to keeping up a strong front, putting on a mask never to let anyone penetrate — to see him

how?... How?... How do I tell him this? 

How do I convey these word that don't exist in his vocabulary

Which leaves me wondering, should I or should I not — run

“I didn’t want you to look at me like you are now.”

“How am I looking at you?”

“Like you don’t know if you should run or reach for me.”

I swallowed.

Because he was right.

I felt both.

My chest was tight, full of every emotion I didn’t know how to name. Anger. Sorrow. Empathy. Betrayal.

But most of all?

Understanding.

“You loved her,” I said my voice low

“Yes,” he answered honestly. “But not like I love you.”

That cracked something in me not in a soft, romantic way but rather in a real, painful, terrifying way.

Because if this was how he loved — with control, with lies, with manipulation and blood and secrets — then what did that mean for me?

I have seen how he loves. I have felt it, I don't need to be told for a second time for clarification.

But yet.

I'm still drawn to him, I want to know more, want to see more, hoping there might be improvements.

Maybe one day…. Just one day

He might let me in and I would see clearly what lies behind that mask of his. Not me having thoughts second, guessing myself, doubting not knowing what is right, what is wrong. 

Not him giving me fragments of what lay beyond that mask of his. Not him giving me fragments of secrets that would occasionally leak out of his cage in his vulnerable state 

And still wanting to understand him, even when it hurts.

Because that’s what love is, isn’t it?

Not perfect.

But honestly maybe eventually.

I crossed the room before I could change my mind, dropping the journal to the couch as I stood in front of him.

“Don’t shut me out again,” I said, voice low.

“I don’t know how to be anything but a fortress.”

“Then let me find the cracks.”

His eyes searched mine — for permission, for forgiveness, for something to hold on to.

And then, without warning, he leaned forward and kissed me.

Soft.

Slow.

Unlike any kiss we’d ever shared before.

There was no desperation in it. No battle. No bruised passion.

Just the truth.

And something rawer than anything he could have said.

But as raw as it could be

But as true as he could present himself 

I still doubted, why?

This wasn't the first time he has done something like this. This wasn't the first time I have felt something like this

I couldn't know anymore.

His manipulation has mixed with reality and has become hard to tell what is real from what is fake.

How do I know that this isn't just a trick

Even if it isn't a trick, how do I know he had finally agreed to change for good not going back to following his way — his strategy

But rather align mine with his

Despite me being all careful 

I was still drawn just for him just like a child with sweet tooth drawn to sweet candy

How could just one man hold so much of my emotion

I want to be careful, I don't want to believe, I know this is just another trick

But yet…

I wanted to see, I wanted to see, I wanted to know if he would really change, if there was hope… Just this once but I doubt even there isn't I would be able to leave

When we broke apart, his forehead rested against mine.

“I’m still not a good man,” he murmured.

“I’m not asking for good,” I whispered. “I’m asking for real.”

And for the first time…

He gave me both.