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Mia steps across the threshold first, and Ashton follows close enough to protect her, far enough to give Carter space. The math of it is precise, deliberate, and I watch Carter’s eyes track every millimeter of the man’s movement.

The door closes behind them with a heavy click, and the security system beeps once, resetting. We’re sealed in together, me, Carter, Mia, and the hit man she’s been secretly dating, standing in the entryway of a house that was supposed to be our sanctuary.

Nobody speaks for a long moment. The silence is charged, electric, thick with the weight of everything that hasn’t been said yet. I can feel Carter’s body behind me, a physical barrier of barely contained fury, and I press my bandaged hand against his forearm, not to restrain him, but to ground him, to remind him that I’m here, that he’s not alone in this room.

Ashton is the one who breaks the silence.

He moves slowly, deliberately, telegraphing every gesture like a man who knows exactly how dangerous a wrong move could be. His hands stay visible, palms open, and he moves his weight, so he’s angled slightly away from Carter, presenting his profile rather than a full-frontal threat.

“My name is Ashton Cole,” he says. His voice is controlled, measured, each word placed with deliberate precision. “I’m with the Savage Oath Brotherhood. We operate out of Meridian, about forty minutes from here.”

I feel Carter’s arm tense beneath my hand as he positions himself between me and this man, this stranger who just admitted to being part of a club that, from the way Carter’s jaw is grinding, he knows exactly the reputation of.

“Contract work,” Ashton continues, and the words land. The silence ripples out from it. “That’s our primary business. We handle contracts that come through specific channels. Discretion based. High end.”

Contract work. The words hang in the still air, plain and ugly. The clock in the kitchen ticks, each sound like a hammer blow. He’s a professional killer, standing in my home, telling us what he does for a living.

Carter’s breathing changes. I feel it through the point where my hand meets his arm, a shift from the controlled, measured rhythm he’s been maintaining to something shorter, sharper, the breathing of a man who’s two seconds away from doing something irreversible.

“Before you react,” Ashton says, and his eyes find Carter’s with a steadiness that’s either courage or insanity, “hear me out. All of it.”

Carter doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. But the tension in his body is a living thing, coiled and ready, and I press my hand harder against his forearm, willing him to wait. To listen. To give this man, this killer, the thirty seconds he’s asking for.

Ashton’s gaze flicks to Mia, and something passes between them, something intimate and complicated, a history written in the way his expression softens for just a fraction of a second before the professional mask slides back into place.

“Mia and I knew each other when we were teenagers,” he says. “Before the Brotherhood. Before any of this.” His jaw tightens, a barely visible flicker of something that might be regret. “We grew up in the same neighborhood. Same school. We were—” He pauses, choosing his words. “Close. Then my family moved. I ended up in Meridian, and the Savage Oath started there. New chapter, new territory. I’ve been with them for eight years.”

I watch Mia’s face as he speaks. She’s staring at the floor, her arms wrapped around herself, her shoulders hunched with the particular posture of someone bracing for impact. She looks young. Too young to be standing in a room with a man who kills people for money and the woman whose life is currently being measured in contracts.

“We ran into each other three months ago,” Ashton continues. “At a bar on the east side. Neither of us was looking for it, it just happened.” His voice is careful, measured, each sentence constructed like a bridge across dangerous water. “I didn’t tell her what I did. Not at first. She figured it out before I had the chance.”

“Two weeks,” Mia says quietly. Her voice is barely above a whisper, and she still won’t look up. “It took me two weeks to figure out what the Brotherhood really was. What he— What they—” She swallows hard. “I stayed anyway.”

The admission lands in the room, live and dangerous. I watch Carter process it, the information, the implications, the fact that this young woman he’s known since she was a child has been sleeping with a contract killer and keeping it quiet. His jaw works, the muscle jumping beneath the skin, and I can feel the fury building in him like pressure behind a dam.

But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. He’s giving Ashton his thirty seconds, and the restraint it’s costing him is visible in every line of his body.

“The contract came across my desk the day before yesterday,” Ashton says, and his voice drops half a register, not dramatic, not performative, but the natural shift of a man moving into the heart of something difficult. “Standard routing. Caldwell’s name was on it as the client. The target was listed as Beatrice Reyes, trauma nurse, currently residing in your jurisdiction, engaged to testify against one of Caldwell’s associates.”

He pauses. His eyes find mine, and what I see there is complicated. It’s not guilt, exactly, but something adjacent to it. The recognition of a man who looked at a name on a page and made a calculation and is now standing in front of the woman that name belongs to, seeing the reality of what he almost agreed to.

“I denied it,” he says. “The Savage Oath doesn’t take contracts on women. Or children. It’s written into our code, the oath, the one the club is named for. We don’t cross that line.” His jaw tightens. “I denied it, filed the paperwork, and moved on. The name—it didn’t register. Beatrice Reyes. It was just a name on a form.”

He turns to Mia, and something in his expression gives way—not a collapse, just a loosening, the careful neutrality he’s worn all morning suddenly sitting wrong on his face. “She called me last night. Told me what happened at the bookstore. Told me about the abduction attempt, the van, everything…”

His eyes drop to my bandaged hands, the bruise on my arm, and I watch something dark move through his expression. “She said the woman’s name was Trixie. Short for Beatrice. And I⁠—”

He stops. His throat works, and for the first time since he walked through the door, I see genuine emotion on his face, not the controlled watchfulness of a professional, but the raw, unguarded horror of a man realizing how close he came to being complicit in something he would never have forgiven himself for.

“I didn’t connect the dots,” he says quietly. “I had the name. I had the information. But I wouldn’t have connected the dots if Mia hadn’t called me…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to.

The silence is a heavy, metallic presence in the air. I’m right behind Carter, my hand gripping his arm, feeling the shift in him from blind rage to something more calculated, a man recalibrating after a game-changing revelation.

A price on my head. The words echo, colder than the alley, heavier than the van door. It wasn’t just a threat. It was a contract. And the men who grabbed me weren’t the end of it—they were just the beginning.

“They’ll send someone else,” Ashton says, and his words are a slap to the face. “The contract is still live. Caldwell paid up front. I saw the records. The Brotherhood said no, but there are other clubs with different codes. It’s just a matter of time before it hits the right desk.”