The Breach

Adrian kept his word about training, meeting her in the yard just past sunrise with two mats already laid out on the grass and a look on his face that told her he wasn't going to make this easy.

"Feet apart," he said, adjusting her stance with a light touch to her hip that made her breath catch for reasons that had nothing to do with technique. "If someone grabs you from behind, you don't fight the grip. You fight the balance."

"That sounds like something out of a movie."

"Movies get some things right." He stepped back, arms loose at his sides. "Come at me."

She did, awkward at first, and he corrected her twice before letting her actually knock him half a step backward, something like pride flickering across his face for the effort. They worked through the basics for almost an hour, her muscles aching in places she didn't know could ache, Adrian patient in a way that surprised her every time given everything else she knew about him.

The first sound didn't register as wrong right away. A car engine, too fast, tires screeching somewhere past the gate.

Adrian's head snapped toward the sound before Ivy had even processed it as a threat, his whole posture changing in the space of a breath, training partner gone, replaced by something colder and faster.

"Inside. Now."

"Adrian."

"Now, Ivy."

The gate exploded before she'd taken three steps, a sound so loud it knocked the air out of her lungs, metal shrieking as something heavy tore through it. Men poured through the gap almost immediately, more than she could count, gunfire cracking across the yard before she understood which direction to run.

Adrian grabbed her, hauling her behind an overturned bench as the first bullets tore into the grass where she'd been standing seconds earlier. "Stay down."

"What's happening. Is it him?"

"Halloway. He's not testing anymore." Adrian's voice had gone flat, focused, nothing left of the man who'd been correcting her stance twenty minutes ago. He pulled a gun from beneath his jacket, checking it in one fast motion. "He's making his move."

Two of Adrian's men went down near the ruined gate, and Ivy pressed her hand against her mouth to keep from making a sound, the training from an hour ago colliding with something far more real than she'd been ready for. A man rounded the side of the bench, gun raised, and Adrian fired before Ivy could even scream, the man dropping just feet from where she crouched.

"Move," Adrian said, already pulling her up. "The house, now, stay behind me."

They ran across open ground, bullets chewing up dirt on either side of them, and Ivy's legs burned with a fear she'd never known existed until this exact moment. Near the terrace, a man stepped out from behind the pool house, gun swinging toward Adrian's back, and Ivy did the only thing her body remembered from an hour of training. She threw herself sideways into him, breaking his balance the way Adrian had taught her, sending his shot wide as he stumbled.

Adrian spun and fired, and the man went down.

"Ivy." Adrian's voice cracked with something raw, staring at her like he hadn't fully believed she could do that until she'd done it. "That's exactly what I taught you."

"I know." Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely feel them. "I know, just move."

They made it through the terrace doors as more of Adrian's men converged from inside, a wall of them forming around the entrance, gunfire slowing as the numbers shifted. Marta appeared from somewhere, pulling Ivy further into the house, away from the windows, while Adrian stayed at the door barking instructions that sounded like they belonged to a completely different man than the one who'd held her hand at breakfast.

It took almost twenty minutes for the gunfire outside to fully stop.

When Adrian finally came inside, blood soaked through the sleeve of his shirt, not his own from what Ivy could tell, he found her exactly where Marta had left her, sitting against the kitchen counter with her knees pulled to her chest.

"Are you hit," he asked immediately, dropping to his knees in front of her, hands moving over her arms and shoulders like he needed to check for himself.

"No. I'm fine." Her voice shook despite the words. "Are you?"

"I'm fine." He didn't move his hands away, not yet, thumb pressing gently against her wrist like he was checking for a pulse he already knew was there. "You saved my life out there."

"I panicked."

"You didn't panic. You did exactly what I showed you, under real fire, on your first day." Something in his voice cracked open, unguarded in a way she'd never heard from him. "I've had men with years of training freeze in worse situations than that."

"Was it Halloway. All of it."

"It was him." Adrian's jaw tightened, something dark passing behind his eyes. "He lost three men today and gained nothing. That's not going to sit well with him. He'll come back harder next time."

"Then teach me more."

He looked at her for a long moment, something shifting behind his expression, respect maybe, or the particular fear of someone realizing how much they'd already come to need another person. "You're not supposed to want more of this."

"I don't want the fighting." Ivy reached for his hand, the one still resting against her wrist, and held it properly this time. "I want to survive whatever's coming. And I want to do it next to you, not hidden behind you."

Something raw crossed his face, and for a moment neither of them said anything at all, the sound of his men clearing the grounds outside the only thing filling the silence between them. Adrian's hand slid from her wrist to her jaw, tilting her face up to his, and this time he didn't stop himself. He kissed her hard, almost angry with himself for how badly he wanted to, one hand fisting in the back of her shirt like he needed something to hold onto after nearly losing her. Ivy kissed him back just as fiercely, months of fear and grief and something far more dangerous than either finally breaking loose at once, her fingers gripping the collar of his blood streaked shirt like she could pull him closer than his body would actually allow.

"Halloway just made this personal," he said against her mouth, voice low and rough, forehead still pressed to hers. "Which means it's going to get worse before it gets better."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"I know." His hand tightened in her hair, something possessive and unguarded in the way he held her now, like the danger outside had burned away whatever restraint he'd been using to keep his distance. "That's what scares me most."

Marta's voice broke through the quiet from down the hall, sharp with something that wasn't relief. "Mr. Voss. You need to see this."

Adrian pulled back slowly, reluctant, and Ivy followed him toward the front of the house where two of his men stood over something on the floor. A folded note, tucked inside what was left of a dead attacker's jacket, addressed in handwriting Ivy didn't recognize but Adrian clearly did, his jaw going rigid as he read it.

"What does it say."

He didn't answer right away, refolding the note like the words on it had cost him something to read. When he finally looked at her, the softness from moments ago was gone, replaced by something colder, sharper, afraid in a way she hadn't seen from him yet.

"It's not about me anymore." His voice had gone very quiet. "Halloway isn't coming back for territory next time. He's coming back for you."