49: Not Part Of The Plan
KILLIAN
I heard the glass shatter the instant I stepped into my study. It hit the marble with a loud, echoing crack. But it was the silence that followed that instantly set me on edge. I turned back towards the hallway just as she appeared. Colour had drained from her face, and she was both barefoot and trembling.
Her phone slipped from her fingers next, clattering to the floor.
"Alexa," I said carefully.
But she didn't answer.
Her wide eyes found mine. They were wet and frantic. And she had a strange look on her face. The kind of look you give a person when the world is burning and they're the only thing left standing. She moved towards me in an almost dazed manner. As if she didn't even register her surroundings and nothing else existed except me.
And then, she dropped.
To her knees.
I froze.
"Killian," she choked out, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Her usual sarcastic and venom-coated defiance was gone without a trace. Tears streamed down her cheeks in floods.
"I shouldn't have lied to you," she whispered. "I—I just... I didn't know who else to turn to. You're the only one I can trust."
What the fuck?
I clenched my jaw, but I didn't move. I eyed her, confusion buzzing inside of me. Was this some sort of game? I couldn't help but wonder.
She looked up at me with tears still dripping. "Please. I need you. I need you."
My heart...the dead, rusted thing I'd buried years ago...it lurched traitorously.
"You're the only person I have," she whispered. "You're the only one who makes me feel safe."
Safe.
That word hit me like a blade to the ribs.
She had no idea what I'd done to her and what I'd planned to do to her.
I should've pulled away.
I should've reminded myself that this was all a game.
Unable to process the sight unfolding before me, I made to walk away but froze when she held out her hands.
Her hands were shaking as she reached for mine. "Please don't walk away from me. I can't lose you. Not when everything else is falling apart."
My throat burned.
Fuck.
This wasn't part of the plan.
She was supposed to bend eventually, yes. But not like this. Not sobbing at my feet, begging for forgiveness.
I married her for revenge. For leverage. For power.
But watching her unravel and watching her choose me in the midst of it made something vicious burn in my chest.
I should've felt smug.
Instead, I felt something else.
Possessiveness.
So, I stepped closer. Then I bent down, cupped her chin, and forced her eyes to meet mine.
"You lied to me," I pointed out.
She nodded helplessly.
"You snuck out."
Another nod.
"And yet here you are. Crying at my feet like I'm your goddamn savior."
Her voice cracked. "Because you are."
I stared at her, this girl I'd meant to ruin, this woman who somehow kept slipping under my skin and twisting something I thought was long dead.
And in that moment, I couldn't decide if I wanted to kiss her...or break the world apart for making her cry.
Her shaking hands clenched in the fabric of my pants as if she thought that I might disappear if she let go.
Letting out a sigh, I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, my thumb brushing the tear tracks on her face.
"Tell me," I whispered. "What happened?"
She swallowed hard, her voice barely more than a whisper. "It's Vincent."
Of course it was.
Her gaze lifted to mine, full of guilt and something else that made my chest tighten. Fear.
"He gave me three days," she whispered. "Three days to figure out how to accomplish the mission that he gave me. And for every day that passes... someone around me dies."
I stilled, my fingers dropping from her face.
She kept going. "Yesterday, it was Lio."
That sweet, reckless bastard was gone. He had nothing to do with the mafia. Yet, it had stolen his life.
Vincent had always been messy. And that’s what made us different. I could be reckless, but I never let innocent people get involved.
"There was a note," Alexa added, her lips trembling. "It was for me. It was a warning.”
Rage speared through my veins.
"I thought I could keep everyone safe," she continued, her voice cracking. "But I couldn't. I can't."
She looked down, her shoulders slumping.
"I'm so tired, Killian," she whispered. "So fucking tired of pretending I'm okay when I'm not. I don't even know who I was before. But he does. And he's using it against me."
My fists clenched at my sides.
Vincent wasn't just threatening her anymore.
He was taking pieces of her, slowly. This wasn’t something he should be doing if they were truly on the same side.
Alexa looked back up at me again, a hopeful expression on her beautiful face.
"I came to you because... you're the only person who can truly help me.”
I stared at her for a long moment, and then I reached down and lifted her to her feet.
"I told you once," I said softly, brushing a kiss to her temple, "Nobody touches what belongs to me."
She let out a shaky breath, sinking into my arms.
War had officially begun.
And this time, there would be no survivors.
...
My wife was asleep, curled up on her side, her cheek pressed into the silk pillowcase.
I watched her chest rise and fall just like I always did when I couldn’t sleep. And that happened most of the time.
The moonlight painted her in silver. So deceptively soft. So fucking fragile.
I reached out, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face, my fingers lingering at her temple. Her skin was warm. A part of me couldn’t believe that this woman—this delicate, trembling thing in my bed—had once shot me clean through the chest and walked away without looking back.
Alexa. No... Seraphina.
The assassin who used to whisper death into men's ears like a lullaby.
But now, all I saw was a woman who was slowly breaking apart.
A woman trying to hold the pieces together while the world set her on fire.
Something didn't add up. There were gaps in her memory, yes. But there was also guilt. And that guilt told me one thing—
She wasn't the one who'd written the ending of our story. There had to be something I was missing. Seraphina and I had been deeply in love. Sure, there were some toxic factors. But what we had was real.
Alexa shifted slightly in her sleep, a small whimper escaping her lips.
Then a single tear slid down her cheek, and her brows furrowed deeply as though she was trapped in a nightmare she couldn't wake up from.
"I'm sorry, Killian," she whispered, her voice slurred. "I'm so sorry."
My throat tightened.
I reached down and wiped her tear with my thumb, careful not to wake her. Then I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
I didn't know what kind of hell had carved her into this.
But I was going to find out.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I almost ignored it until I saw the text flash on the screen.
"Miss me, sweetheart?"
— Your little Hellcat
My blood turned to ice in my veins.
No.
No fucking way.
She was supposed to be dead.
Arabella Monroe.
The woman with a heart so twisted, she destroyed everything she loved. She'd tried to drag me to hell with her, literally.
I stared at the message again, tense.
She'd vanished three years ago in an explosion that had left no trace of her. But if Arabella was alive...
Then this game?
It was far more chaotic than I'd thought. Because the monsters weren't done crawling out of the dark.