She recoils when I take another step—shoulders tightening, chin tucking, her bruised throat disappearing behind her hands. She’s protecting herself from me.
Me.
She doesn’t know who I am.
The realization hits hard.
I stop where I am, the distance between us now a gulf. My hands stay raised, palms open. My voice is the only anchor I can give her.
“It's me, Babygirl.”
Her breath catches, and her eyes flash with recognition. The terror in them breaks, and something in her shatters wide open. Her body softens, every tight line and defensive curl unwinding, and then she’s moving. Not cautiously or hesitantly. She launches herself off the bed and into me with a force that almost knocks the breath from my lungs.
“Bastien.”
The way she says my name, shaky and strangled, full of relief and disbelief, undoes me in places I didn’t know could come undone.
“You saved my life.”
She wraps her arms around my neck, trembling as her body presses against mine. I slide my arms beneath her, holding her tight to my chest.
“He was strangling me,” she whispers into my shoulder. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t breathe.”
If I could kill him again, I would.
A violent tremor rolls through me. Fury roars up, white-hot and blinding. My jaw locks so hard it aches. My hold tightens without meaning to, as if I could shield her from what already happened, as if I could rewind the last ten minutes and take the bruises from her throat and give them to the bastard on the floor instead.
She buries her face against my neck, breath shaking against my skin. I shut my eyes and hold her as tight as I dare, clinging to the illusion that I can keep her safe.
For a moment, wrapped around me, she is mine. But I know I won’t get to keep her.
Her grip tightens when I pull back, fingernails catching my skin, but I guide her onto the mattress with slow, steady pressure. “Easy, Babygirl. Sit for me and breathe. I’ve got you.”
Her breath shakes out in broken pulses, but she obeys.
I rise and turn to the body. My pulse is still a war drum in my ears, but my hands move steadily, trained and automatic. I roll the man onto his side, my fingers working with the same practiced efficiency drilled into me during missions I’m not allowed to talk about.
Pockets first. Empty.
Waistband next. Nothing.
Shoes. Sole inserts, tongue, heel. Clean.
No ID. No wallet. No identifying marks at all.
Of course. Killers don’t carry IDs they can drop as incriminating evidence at murder scenes.
I turn him again and slip my hand into the inside pocket of his jacket. My fingers brush plastic, lightweight and cheap.
There it is. A burner phone—disposable and untraceable. A phone you buy with cash and destroy before sunrise.
I take it out, my jaw ticking once. Behind me, Laurette’s breath stutters, but I don’t look back. Not yet.
I thumb the burner awake. No passcode. No contacts. Just a call log with one number repeated over and over.
I hit call without hesitation and lift the phone to my ear. It rings once before a woman answers, clipped and sharp, her German accent threaded with impatience. “Is it done?”
“There was a complication.”
