Chapter 5

Lila

I stand at the kitchen island slicing strawberries, the knife flashing red, red, red. My hands don’t shake. Not anymore. Six months ago they would have. Six months ago I would have cut myself just to feel something other than the hollow where his voice used to live.

Now I feel everything.

The ache between my thighs. The ghost of his teeth on my throat. The faint nausea that started yesterday and hasn’t left.

Ethan is upstairs on a call. I heard the low rumble of his voice through the floorboards, Russian syllables, clipped and furious. He thinks I don’t speak enough to follow but udo. Enough to know the word thief,keeps coming up. Enough to know someone is bleeding somewhere and it isn’t us. Yet.

I set the knife down. Wipe my hands on the shirt I stole from him again. It smells like cedar and gunpowder now. I like it.

The front door opens without a knock.

I freeze.

The footsteps are heavy and deliberate and they are not Ethan’s.

I grab the knife,my heart slamming against my ribs.

A man fills the doorway. Six-four, maybe six-five. Black coat dusted with snow. Face like a slab of granite, scar running from temple to jaw. He doesn’t smile.

“Mrs. Grant,” he says with a thick accent. “We need to talk.”

I tighten my grip on the knife. “You’re in the wrong house.”

He steps inside and closes the door with a soft click that sounds like a gunshot.

“Your husband owes a debt. He paid with money. Now he pays with you.”

I laugh. It comes out sharp. “You’re late. He already has me.”

The man tilts his head. Studies the bruises on my thighs where the shirt rides up. “Not like this.”

Ethan’s voice cuts down the stairs like a blade. “Lila?”

The man doesn’t flinch. Just pulls a gun from his coat with the Silencer already attached.

“Tell him to come down. Slowly.”

I raise the knife. “Tell him yourself.”

Ethan appears at the top of the stairs, shirtless, hair wild, eyes black with murder. He takes in the scene in half a second, me, the knife, the gun. His jaw flexes.

“Let her go, Viktor.”

Viktor. Of course. The name I’ve heard in nightmares Ethan pretended weren’t about him.

Viktor smiles. “You think this is a negotiation?”

Ethan starts down the stairs. Barefoot. Unhurried. “It’s always a negotiation.”

I shift my weight, ready to lunge. Ethan catches my eye. Shakes his head once.

“You paid the principal. Interest is due. She is interest.”

Ethan reaches the bottom step. “She’s not currency.”

“She’s whatever I say she is.”

I move.

Not at Viktor,at Ethan. I slam into him, shove him sideways just as the silenced shot spits. The bullet buries itself in the wall where his chest was. Plaster explodes. Ethan roars, tackles me to the floor. The knife skitters across the marble.

Viktor advances. Another shot. The chandelier shatters, crystal raining like hail.

Ethan rolls us behind the island. His body covers mine, heavy, protective. I feel his heart hammering against my spine.

“Stay down,” he hisses.

“Fuck that.”

I grab a shard of crystal, sharp as sin. Viktor rounds the island. Ethan surges up, catches his wrist, slams it against the counter. The gun clatters. I slash Viktor’s calf with the crystal He bellows and backhands me. My head snaps back from the impact.

Ethan snaps.

He grabs Viktor by the throat, lifts him clean off the ground, slams him into the fridge. Magnets and takeout menus scatter. Viktor claws at Ethan’s arms, face purpling. Ethan headbutts him.

I scramble for the gun. Find it under the table. My hands are steady now. I rack the slide.

“Ethan.”

He drops Viktor. The man slumps, gasping. Ethan turns. Sees the gun in my hand. His eyes flick to the blood on my lip. Something feral flickers there.

I point the gun at Viktor’s head. “Get up.”

Viktor coughs, wipes his mouth. “You won’t shoot.”

I smile. “I popped the tyres of a moving subway car at forty miles an hour. This is easier.”

Ethan steps beside me. Takes the gun from my hand. .

“He’s mine,” he says quietly.

Viktor laughs, ragged. “You think this ends with me? My brother—”

Ethan shoots him in the knee. The sound is deafening in the enclosed space. Viktor screams, collapses.

Ethan crouches, presses the barrel to Viktor’s forehead. “Tell your brother the debt is paid in blood. Next time I take his.”

Viktor spits blood. “You’ll never be free.”

Ethan stands. “I already am.”

He drags Viktor to the door by the collar, throws him into the snow. The man crawls, leaves a red trail. Ethan watches until he disappears into the snow.

Then he turns to me.

I’m shaking now. He crosses the room in two strides, cups my face. His thumbs wipe the blood from my lip.

“You okay?” His voice is raw.

I nod. “You?”

He kisses me like he’s checking I’m real. I taste copper and terror and him. I kiss back just as hard.

When we break apart, we’re both breathing like we ran miles.

“The Russians,” I say. “This is what you were hiding.”

He nods. “They’ll come again.”

I pick up the crystal shard, turn it in my fingers. “Then we’ll be ready.”

He watches me. “You’re not scared.”

“I’m furious.” I meet his eyes. “You should have told me.”

“I know.”

I drop the shard. It shatters. “No more secrets.”

He pulls me into his chest. “No more.”

We stand there amid the wreckage,broken glass, blood, the smell of gunpowder and strawberries. The ocean roars outside like it approves.

Later, we clean.

I sweep glass. He bandages my hand where the crystal cut me. We don’t speak. We don’t need to. The silence is different now.

When the kitchen is spotless, he lifts me onto the island. Steps between my thighs. His hands slide under the shirt, trace the bruises he left, the new ones from the fight.

“Day five,” he says against my throat.

I tilt my head back, give him access. “Twenty-five left.”

He bites down and imoan.