Chapter 26: Smoke and Silk

Emery’s POV

"Smoke grenade, don’t breathe it in!" He said, but his words had come a little too because I had inhaled more than I could take.  

The smoke had crawled into my lungs, it was sharp and bitter like chemicals. I hadn't attempted to take any form of undiluted chemical into my system before but I had often imagined what it would taste like. 

And the amount of grenade smoke I had taken fit perfectly with how I had imagined.

Killian's teams busted the door open. 

I couldn’t see anything, all I could make out was flashes of silver and shadows all around us in the thick air. The alarm screamed above us. It was the fire alarm and it was louder than the sound of my own heartbeat that was slamming against my ribs.

I couldn't feel anything. All I felt was the suffocating smoke that burned my eyes.

But I felt him.

Killian.

He wrapped his hands tight around my wrist, his grip on me was steady and strong. He pulled me out of the smoky room 

“Go,” he shouted, dragging me toward the hidden passage behind the bookcase, like we had been through it a hundred times but we hadn't.

The passage behind the bookcase was narrow. Barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side but long enough to accommodate a hundred people all at once. 

And the walls were made of old rough brick that had cracks running through them like veins. And there was a single naked bulb that hung on the low ceiling. The light was weak and unstable. It was flickering and casted long shadows that moved like ghosts.

The air in the passage was damp, thick with the scent of old wood, dust, and something deeper—like soil that had been hidden from sunlight for decades.

The walls were narrow, close enough that my shoulders nearly brushed them. Faint scratch marks ran along the brick, and in the flickering light overhead, they looked almost like fingerprints pressed in over time. The space felt forgotten, buried—like a part of the house no one was ever supposed to see.

Killian walked ahead of me, each step firm and silent—until one floorboard groaned beneath his weight.

The sound wasn’t loud, but it echoed down the tunnel, bouncing off the tight walls and stretching longer than it should have. He didn’t flinch. He moved like he’d been down this path before.

I glanced at the smooth planks under my feet. Worn. Faded. Like they’d carried more footsteps than anyone would ever admit to. It wasn’t built in a rush—it was designed. With care. With intent. For moments just like this.

It hit me then—he hadn’t built this passage on a whim.

He’d expected this. Not the grenade, maybe, but something like it.

A threat. A betrayal. A need to vanish fast.

I never understood the need for hidden passageways before. It felt like something out of an old movie—too dramatic, too paranoid, too rich-man-for-his-own-good. A waste.

But as the taste of smoke still lingered in the back of my throat and my legs trembled from the sudden chaos, I got it.

It wasn’t paranoia.

It was survival.

Without this narrow, hidden hall beneath his house, we wouldn’t be walking—we’d be bleeding.

And suddenly, the creaking floors, the dusty walls, the stale air... it all felt necessary.

Essential.

Killian kept moving ahead of me, steady, silent.

And for the first time, I realized: this man didn’t just live in a dangerous world.

He built one he could disappear into.

And he brought me with him.

Killian went in first but I didn't follow. I knew it should have but I didn't not with so much that much fear that had cage me

I stopped right at the foot of the entrance not because I didn't trust where the passage led to, not because I didn't trust him, But this wasn't normal, It wasn't right.

We shouldn't be running away from this. But I didn't know any other way out of the situation, and I wasn't sure we could survive it. 

There was so many what if Screaming in my head

What if we don't get out?

What We get blown up along with the house 

What if the exit had already been blocked and they locked the entrance and tried to smoke us out.

Why wasn't he thinking of all the things that could go wrong?

I didn't go in not because I didn't trust that he could keep me safe but rather I had thought of all the things that could go wrong. I wasn't sure I would survive

And I didn't think I would survive who I would become after I crossed on to the other side — if I got the chance.

I didn't even know if he understood, If he saw through me, If he saw my fear, but I saw something him

I saw his cold face soften, his tensed shoulders dropped and his ragged breathing control.

 And he did something that didn't think he would do. He was Killian but he didn't act like the Killian I knew. The Killian I knew dropped his guard. He has and would always be on his guard.

He paused.

Turned.

In the midst of the emergency, the chaos that erupted behind us, I saw something. I saw something in him that broke. And his refusal to surrender gave way, I saw him finally let me stand not behind him but beside him. 

Finally let me for once make a choice, he let me speak for myself. He let me stand without the fear that I might do something that wasn't part of his plan. Something that would disturb the flow of his strategy

 And for once… just for once

 I saw him clearly without second guessing without doubting without waiting for him to confirm my thoughts

He let his gun fall.

“Then lead,” he said. His voice cracked, rough and low. “Choose the way out.”

He steps aside for me to pass through. I didn't see him struggle to restrain himself to take back control. He really surrendered and his let me see it. giving me space to fly, trusted in my decision without doubting. He didn't say I wasn't strong enough or I wasn't ready he trust my instincts and that meant a lot

He had said just one sentence but it conved so much to me 

It wasn’t just a sentence to me, It was a fracture in everything he had built.

All his walls.

All his rules.

All his control all offered up to me like a sacrifice.

And somehow, that shook me more than the gunfire.

I stepped into the passage like I had become brave. But I hadn't 

But somewhere deep down, I just knew that none of negative thought would occur.

I walk with confidence like I had gone through the place a hundred times and knew it's every roots and corners but I hadn't.

For the first time… I was no longer afraid to walk ahead of him. 

The feel of walking ahead of him and not behind his shadows was overwhelming. 

Maybe that was why he alway felt he had to be in control. No one would want to give up the feeling even I wouldn't. 

We walked through the passage straight to the tunnel that was built beneath the estates. The twisted tunnel was just as narrow as the the passage and it was suffocating. My breathing has turned heavy from our fast movement. I could hear Killian's footsteps close behind me. 

When we finally got out of the tunnels, We surfaced at an abandoned building on the far end of his estates. My chest was still heavy from our fast movement. I tried to catch my breath.

The place was quiet. It wasn't like anything was happening at the main estate. The whole place was calm.

I turned toward him “what the hell was that?”

His suit was torn, smudged with smoke. There was blood on his collar—someone else’s, I hoped. His hands braced the wall behind me as if it was the only thing keeping him upright.

“They came for you,” he said simply.

“Why?”

His silence told me everything.

And nothing.

“You said you wanted to protect me,” I whispered. “But you won’t even tell me what I’m being protected from.”

He flinched.

“I have been your pawn, your weakness, your secret. I need to know what this is, Killian. All of it. No more riddles.”

He stepped forward, close enough that I had to tilt my head to keep looking him in the eyes.

“Operation Dusk,” he said, voice low. “That’s what they’re after. And they’ll burn everything to find it.”

I froze.

“I found the files,” I admitted. “But I couldn’t make sense of them.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” he muttered.

Killian looked past me. His gaze was unfocused. It was like he was there and wasn't at the same time. His jaw went tense and one of his hands began to shake. I couldn't tell if it was out of frustration or anger but his hands became still like he had finally been able to control his emotion.

“Years ago…” His voice came out low and rough. “Dubai was meant to be a simple and straightforward place. But one deal had turned into a mess. Someone crossed the line and his name was dropped .”

He paused. His throat moved up and down like swallowing took effort.

“and it got ugly fast. People began to disappear and others who they couldn't make disappear were paid off to forget the incident. And I…” He stopped again, staring at the floor like it could anchor the weight behind his words. “I made decisions.”

He didn’t rush to explain them. He didn’t try to justify himself.

“I did what needed to be done,” he said, his voice clipped, quiet. “I became what I had to.”

“To survive?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

He looked up, his gaze straight at me.

“No. To build something no one could touch. Not again.”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t soften. But the silence after was different.

It wasn't calculative, it wasn't distant. It was just him stripped down to the truth he never said out loud.

“And then you walked into it.”

His voice was flat. Measured. But it landed like a blow.

My throat tightened. I swallowed hard, but the lump stayed.

“I didn’t ask for any of this,” I said, barely above a whisper.

“No,” he replied, gaze fixed on the wall. “You didn’t. And that’s what makes me a monster.”

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t move toward me.

Instead, he turned away, his back rigid, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

His words settled in my chest like a weight I couldn’t shake.

They hurt.

Not because he was cruel—but because I knew he believed them.

He stood there, still as stone, but I saw the tension in his shoulders. The way his fingers twitched once, like he wanted to reach for something but wouldn’t let himself.

I’d seen monsters. Tobias made sure of that.

I’d watched them lie with perfect smiles, shake hands in luxury suites, and paint alley walls with the blood of anyone who got in their way. They wore polished shoes and pressed suits and walked past broken lives like they were stepping over puddles.

Killian wasn’t like them.

He was brutal, yes. Cold. Calculating.

But underneath all that control—he still felt. He still cared, even if he didn’t want to.

He was sharp edges and quiet storms. A man shaped by survival. A man who never begged to be understood but stood in front of me now, unarmed in the one way that mattered.

And somehow, he thought that made him a monster.

But it didn’t.

It made him human.

Still dangerous. Still difficult.

But human.

And more honest than most.