This chapter cuts to the heart of Killian’s fractured relationship with his mother, and his unraveling realization that what he feels for Ivy might not just be obsession. The conversation with Elena is a reckoning not just for the past, but for what lies ahead.
Chapter 120 – A Fragile FreedomThe walls of the safe house hum with silence. Not the kind that feels oppressive, but the kind that teases me with a taste of freedom I’m not sure I’ll ever fully have yet. For the first time in what feels like forever, I can breathe without victor’s shadow crawling across my skin. There are no locked doors here, no eyes watching every step, no whispers of disobedience waiting to be punished.Here, the air smells of dust and paper, the faint musk of old wood, and Killian’s cologne lingering in the fabric of the room. Here, I am not caged. And yet, I am not free either.But I like this freedom. Freedom is a strange thing, fragile, fleeting. I can feel it brushing against me like a breeze through an open window, but just as quickly, it threatens to slip away. Victor and his father are out there, plotting, waiting. Victor doesn’t let go of what he thinks belongs to him. He never has.I sit curled up on the couch, notebook abandoned in my lap. My thought
The burner phone vibrates against the table. A low, steady hum that cuts through the silence of the safe house.I freeze. My hand stills halfway to the glass of water in front of me, eyes locked on the device as if it might explode. It shouldn’t be ringing. It was meant to stay cold, untouched, waiting for me to make the call, not the other way around.The sound gnaws at the quiet between Ivy and me. She looks up from the notebook she’s been scribbling in, her brows pulling together.My chest tightens. I stare at the phone once. Twice. The kind of hesitation that tastes like old wounds reopening. Then I reach for it, slow, deliberate, and press it to my ear.“Killian.”The voice slices through me before I even breathe. A whip I thought I’d long ago learned to stop flinching from.“Mom,” I say, barely more than a breath.The silence that follows is heavier than the word itself. For a moment, I almost regret answering. Almost.“You reckless, stubborn boy,” she snaps, the edge in her voi
Chapter 118 – Closing the NetThe Wolfe mansion gleamed under the midday sun, but inside, the air felt weighted, like a storm pressing against glass.Robert sat at the head of the long mahogany table, every inch of him a portrait of control, shoulders squared, movements deliberate, expression carved into cold stone. Victor paced at the far end, the energy in him frantic, restless, spilling into every corner of the room.The phone on the table buzzed once, discreet, and Robert picked it up. He listened in silence, his expression never shifting.“The extraction is complete,” the voice reported.Robert’s eyes narrowed, though his tone remained calm, clinical. “Hold position. Secure until further instruction.”He ended the call and set the receiver down with surgical precision, as though he were placing a scalpel back on a tray. He didn’t need to pace, didn’t need to shout orders. His control was absolute. He had always known where this game was heading. Killian, for all his arrogance, was
The line went dead.But the echo of it, the scream, the manic laughter, Robert’s voice like a blade carving through me, kept bleeding into the silence. I sat there with the phone pressed to my ear long after it had already gone cold, my body rigid, my mind refusing to believe what I’d just heard.Mrs. B’s voice. Her cry. Victor’s madness. The sound of her life being torn away.And Robert’s calm pronouncement, like he’d just ordered the weather to change.I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. All I could do was sit there and listen to the silence where she used to be.Ivy’s hand touched my arm. “Killian?” Her voice was soft, fragile, as if she already knew. “Calm... Calm down.."I turned to her, but no words came. My throat closed up, the weight in my chest pressing down until it hurt to exist. I saw the question in her eyes, the terror, the need, and I still couldn’t say it. Because if I said it, it would be real.Mrs. B was gone.The only person who ever looked at me and saw a boy wort
The burner phone buzzed against the table.A sharp, vibrating sound that cut through the silence of the safehouse like a blade.Ivy was asleep again. it was as if she had not had any good sleep in months, her head pressed against my chest, her hand curled over my heart as if she could anchor me there. I’d spent hours listening to her breathing, memorizing the rhythm. For the first time in years, I felt something close to peace.And then that damned phone lit up.Unknown number.But I knew.I stared at it, jaw locked, blood turning molten in my veins. I should’ve thrown it into the fire the second I brought Ivy here, but part of me had been waiting for this. Expecting it.The Wolfe don’t let go. Not without blood.The phone buzzed again.Ivy stirred, whispering my name. I pressed a kiss to her hair, forcing calm I didn’t feel.“Go back to sleep,” I said, my voice a gravelled lie.Her lashes fluttered, but she didn’t push. She trusted me. And that was the cruelest part.Because when I sl
The safe house was too quiet.It had the kind of silence that never sat right with me,,too clean, too distant, like a room waiting for something to break. Ivy was asleep on the couch, her knees drawn up, her hair spilling like dark silk over the pillow. I sat across from her in the armchair, half a whiskey in my hand, half a curse in my mouth.I should’ve been at ease. She was here. Out of that damned mansion. Out of Victor’s cage. But there was no ease in me. Not now. Not when every second we breathed was borrowed time.I kept watching her chest rise and fall, the steady rhythm like an anchor, but it was also a weight. She trusted me enough to sleep. That meant I couldn’t afford to fail.The burner phone on the table buzzed, shattering the quiet.I was up before the second vibration, snatching it. My voice was a low growl when I answered. “Yeah?”“Killian?”Mrs. B.My shoulders unclenched just enough to let out a breath. “It’s me.”“Good.” Her tone was brisk, but beneath it I could he