HOW DARE YOU DEFY MARA LIKE THAT

CHAPTER 5

Mara's shock lasted all of two seconds before her whole face rearranged itself into something practiced and pleased.

"Oh my God, Killian." She bit her lip, tilting her head, looking him over like she was checking to make sure he was real. "So you're our new team captain?"

"You two know each other?" The agent's brow lifted, glancing between them with obvious interest.

"Of course we know each other." Mara stepped in close, looping her arm through his before he could pull away, her voice dropping into something syrupy and intimate. "We go way back. High school, actually. Before my stupid stepsister ruined everything."

Killian's expression didn't change. If anything, it went flatter, more bored, like he was watching a rerun of a show he'd never particularly liked. He said nothing, and Mara barely seemed to notice, already rambling on, her fingers tightening around his arm.

"We are so thrilled to have someone like him leading the Thunderbirds," she said, beaming at the agent now. "Tall, good looking, exactly the kind of face this agency needs on every billboard in the city."

"Of course." The agent cleared his throat, clearly more interested in business than Mara's commentary. "With his skill set, the Thunderbirds' numbers should climb fast. Now, shall we go through the paperwork? I believe there are contracts to sign."

Killian barely registered the question. His attention had already drifted past Mara's shoulder, past the reception desk, toward the hallway where a woman was wheeling a cart of cleaning supplies out of a side room, earphones in, humming faintly under her breath, entirely unaware that the room had gone quiet around a stranger.

Something in his chest pulled tight.

She crossed the lobby without once glancing his way and disappeared through another door, and it took him a second longer than it should have to remember how to breathe normally again.

"I want to go check out the field," he said abruptly, already stepping back from Mara's grip.

"Oh, actually." Mara's hand shot out, grabbing his arm again before he'd made it two steps. "I would love to show you around myself."

He eased his arm free, gentle but immovable. "I'll look around on my own. Thanks."

He turned again, and that was when Olivia reappeared, cart rattling softly, still humming, still completely oblivious to the six feet of tension standing between her and the man she used to know better than her own reflection. Killian's eyes tracked her the whole way across the lobby, something unreadable flickering behind his calm.

Mara's palm found his cheek, turning his face back toward hers with more force than the gesture probably intended.

"I'm afraid you'd get lost trying to find it on your own," she said, sweet as syrup, her thumb brushing along his jaw in a way that made his skin crawl. "Let me show you the locker rooms instead. We just had them redone. Top of the line, I promise."

She grabbed his hand and pulled.

He resisted, planting his feet. "Wait."

His gaze cut past her shoulder one more time, searching, but Olivia had already vanished down the hallway, the sound of her cart fading behind a closing door. The entire lobby had gone still, every eye in the room fixed on him, waiting to see what he'd do next.

He exhaled slowly, something in his shoulders sinking, some small and stupid hope quietly folding itself away.

"Never mind," he said, and let Mara lead him through the door.

By the time the sun dropped low enough to bleed orange light across the parking lot, Olivia was finishing her last round, dragging a mop bucket toward the supply closet, her shoulders aching, her mind already drifting toward home, toward Charles, toward whether Karen remembered to feed him dinner. She didn't hear the footsteps behind her until two shadows fell across the hallway, blocking her path.

She knew them both on sight. Mara's favorite pair, hired more for their loyalty to gossip than for any actual cleaning ability. The larger one had a silver hoop through her nose that caught the light every time she moved her head. The other had dyed curls pulled back so tight it stretched her eyebrows into a permanent sneer.

"Mara said you need to clean the toilets before you leave," the curly haired one said, arms folded, chin lifted like she was daring Olivia to argue.

"That's not my job." Olivia kept walking, refusing to slow down. "If Mara has a problem, she can say it to my face instead of sending her errand girls to deliver it."

The slap came out of nowhere, a gloved hand cracking across her cheek hard enough to snap her head sideways, pain blooming hot and immediate along her jaw.

"How dare you defy Mara like that." The woman's voice shook with real venom now. "You think you're something? The new captain is Mara's heartthrob from highschool and you're nothing but a bitch with a bastard son to show for yourself."

Something inside Olivia went very cold and very still.

"How dare you say that about my child." Her voice came out low, trembling, not with fear this time but with a fury she hadn't let herself feel in years, seven years of swallowing exactly this kind of cruelty for Charles's sake. "Say one more word about him. I'm warning you. You will not like what happens next."

"What else should we call a kid without a father, then, besides…"

Olivia shoved her before the sentence could finish, both hands slamming into the woman's shoulders hard enough to send her stumbling back into the wall.

Everything happened fast after that.

Both women came at her at once, and Olivia hit the floor, her shoulder cracking against the tile, white pain exploding up her arm. She barely had time to catch her breath before the larger woman's boot came down on her hand, grinding her fingers into the ground.

"Ah!" The scream tore out of her, raw and involuntary, her whole body curling around the pain.

They didn't let her recover. The curly haired one grabbed a fistful of Olivia's hair and hauled her upright, dragging her toward the mop bucket still sitting a few feet away, water gone gray and filmy from a full day's use.

"Let's see how you like cleaning it from down here."

Olivia's face hit the water before she could brace herself, cold and filthy and burning up her nose all at once, her ears filling with the muffled roar of her own pulse. She thrashed, lungs screaming, fingers clawing blindly at the rim of the bucket, at the woman's wrist, at anything at all. Panic tore through her chest, sharp and animal, leaving no room for thought, only survival.

Her vision was starting to blur, dark spots blooming behind her eyes, when a voice cracked through the hallway like a whip.

"Stop!"

The grip on her hair vanished so suddenly she collapsed forward, catching herself on shaking arms, coughing and gasping, water streaming down her face in ragged, uneven breaths. Her whole body trembled. Her hand throbbed, already swelling, already turning an angry shade of red.

Through the blur still stinging her eyes, she made out a pair of expensive shoes stopping a few feet away, and above them, a tall shadow blocking out the hallway light, standing utterly frozen.

She blinked hard, trying to clear her vision, and slowly, painfully, the shape above her sharpened into focus.

Her stomach dropped straight through the floor.

Killian stood in the doorway, jaw locked tight, eyes wide with something that looked almost like horror, staring down at her like the ground had just opened up beneath his own feet.