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"Donate it."

“At least you have honesty going for you. Donate it to who? Coffins-are-us for the poor? And tell me something." My voice holds. I force it to hold. "The night at the bar. Was that part of the job, too? A little scouting out the victim before you moved in?"

"The bar was before the contract. But you already know that. If you read anything on my phone, it was the date of the contract. I’m no fool, Neve. And neither are you. Everything about that night was real. I didn't know your name until your photograph crossed the table at Genesis."

"And everything after?" My nails cut crescents into my palms. "The bakery? The safehouse? Warning me about Vivienne's contract while you knew your own signature was on the dotted line?" My chin lifts. "Was that real too, Thane? Or was it the hired killer keeping his target warm and close while you got a little game in?"

He steps toward me.

I step back. The distance between us opens like a wound and I watch his face register the loss, his expression tightening the way a man's face tightens when a blade slides between his ribs. Good. Let it hurt.

He holds his hands up. "Nothing is ever that simple. Let me explain."

"Yeah right. Fuck off. And by the way, according to your contract you had forty-eight hours.” I glance at the clock on the bedside table. “Tick-tock, motherfucker. You have three minutes left on the clock to do the deed." My voice drops low and the cold precision in it barely sounds like me. It sounds like my father. His blood, his training, his survival instincts surfacing in the moment I need them most. "You had my body, my trust, every single piece of me I've never given another human being. You had time to tell me the truth and you chose to fuck me instead. The condoms were a nice touch. Real thoughtful. And then you came inside me bare knowing you signed the paper that puts me in the ground."

His chin drops a fraction. The smallest flinch. The only crack in his mask and it tells me everything he refuses to speak. His eyes beg me to believe him. Every line in his face screams what I don't want to see. That he wants to fix this, save me, keep me. My fingers twitch at my sides with the stupid, reckless urge to reach for him, to press my palm against his chest and find his heartbeat the way I did last night when the world still made sense. My throat burns and my ribs ache from holding back the sob clawing its way up from my stomach. But fuck it. This man is a cold-hearted killer with trust issues.

"I took the contract so no one else could. I broke it because you are the only thing in my life worth ripping apart everything I’ve built for myself these last two decades."

"So the man who signed my death warrant wants credit for not pulling the trigger." The acid in my voice could strip concrete. "Incredible."

"Neve, if you walk out that door, you're exposed. Vivienne's people are already moving. I need you to stay where I can protect you. Since I didn’t deliver a body, they are now out for me as well. It’s part of the contract. I don’t off you, they end me and put another Runner on you until the job is done."

"And your plan is for me to stay locked in a cage with the man who was paid to put me in the ground?" I grab my bag from the counter. Wallet, phone, charger. The same bag I packed the night he drove me away from my bakery and into his world. My hands move with a calm I do not feel. "I lived with a liar, Thane. She kissed my forehead at Christmas and ordered my death. I will never let another person play me like that again."

His jaw locks. Every muscle in his body strains against the impulse to close the distance, to grab me, to force me to stay. The war plays out behind his eyes, visible and raw.

“I can’t let you go.”

Two strides and his hand closes around my wrist. He used this same grip on me to pin me to walls, hold me through orgasms…and make me believe I was cherished.

I twist out of his hold and his grip breaks. The shock on his face guts me worse than the contract on his phone.

He clearly didn't expect me to know how to do that.

"Don't touch me. Never again, killer." My voice shakes. "You lost that right forever."

I cross to the elevator panel and punch in the code. Nine. Seven. Twelve. The grate grinds open.

"Neve." His voice cracks on my name and the sound almost drops me to my knees.

I step inside and pull the grate shut between us just as he lunges for me. Cold steel bites my palm. My vision blurs and I blink hard, refusing to let the tears fall where he can see them.

Through the metal lattice, Thane stands in the center of his safehouse, hands at his sides, open and empty, a towel around his waist and water tracking down his scarred chest. I kissed those scars last night when I still believed they belonged to my protector.

"I would have understood." My voice finally cracks and I hate myself for it. "I would have been angry and terrified and I would have fought you on every word. But I would have understood, Thane. Because the bar was real and I know it in my bones. But you let me fall in love with you while you held the weapon pointed at my head, and that I will never forgive." I knew it was possible he was the hired killer. But he didn’t trust me enough to tell me. And that is where I draw the line. Of all the fucked-up things in life, I choose this hill to die on. But it’s true.

The elevator groans and drops.

Concrete walls rise around me. The last thing I see through the grate is Thane standing motionless, staring at the space I just occupied.

The sub-basement is cold and dim. My sneakers squeak against polished concrete and the sound bounces off every wall. I shoulder through the steel door and step into a Chicago morning that hits my bare arms and legs with a damp, biting cold.

Rain mists against my skin, soaking through his shirt in seconds. The city stretches in every direction, gray and indifferent. People walk around me, eyeing my bare legs and over-sized shirt while they are decked out for work in the nearby high-rises.

Fuck ’em. Let them think the worst. I have bigger concerns on my mind. Like the fact I’m still being hunted.

My legs carry me three blocks before the tears come. “Fucking asshole,” I grit out. I wipe my face with the back of my hand and keep moving.