21
CONNOR
Imade it through Mila's workday on sheer willpower and enough coffee to kill a normal person.
Six cups. Maybe seven. I'd lost count somewhere around noon when the barista at the café two blocks from the residency started giving me concerned looks.
My nerves were shot.
Every face that passed could be Merrick. Every car that slowed at an intersection could be his people. Every shadow that moved wrong sent my hand drifting toward the pistol tucked into my waistband.
By the time Mila finally emerged from the residency—camera slung over her shoulder, that soft, distracted expression she got when she'd been working—I felt like I'd been through a firefight.
She took one look at me and knew.
"Connor," she said quietly, stopping a few feet away. "You look terrible."
I managed a tight smile. "Thanks. You really know how to boost a guy's confidence."
"I'm serious." She stepped closer, her hand settling on my arm. "What's wrong?"
Everything.
The word sat in my throat, heavy and unwieldy. Everything was wrong. Merrick was out there. My past was closing in. I'd dragged her into a situation she didn't understand and couldn't escape.
And the worst part? I still didn't want to let her go.
"I'm worried," I admitted finally.
Her expression softened. "About me?"
"About all of it."
She squeezed my arm gently, trying to console me, and I almost broke.
Almost told her everything.
About St. Paul's. About the nine of us. About the first man I'd killed and all the ones that came after. About the fact that I wasn't a hero—I was a weapon someone else had forged, and now that weapon was pointed at her whether I wanted it to be or not.
But I couldn't.
Because if I told her the truth, she'd run. And I'd lose the one good thing I'd found in years.
The right thing would be to disappear.
Pack my shit. Leave Paris. Let Ellsworth and Micah clean up the mess. Let her go back to her life—her residency, her friends, her art—without the shadow of my past hanging over her.
That was the right thing.
So why the fuck couldn't I do it?
"Connor?"
Her voice pulled at me, but I was barely hearing her. She was saying something about her day—Élodie's feedback, a shot she'd nailed, Amaya making some joke—but the words slid past me.
All I could think about was the weight of the pistol at my waistband. The fact that Merrick was out there somewhere, watching. The probability that every minute I stayed with her increased the likelihood of something going catastrophically wrong.
I was so distracted I didn't see them until it was too late.
