Chapter 10

AVERY – 

Sunday mornings are supposed to be slow. They’re for the lazy drift of dust motes in the sunlight, for the weight of the weekend pressing you into the mattress. A predictable, comfortable boredom.

This Sunday is different.

My head isn’t quiet. It’s a crowded, noisy room. I stare at the familiar crack in my ceiling, the one that looks like a river on a map, but it offers no direction. My sheets are a damp, tangled knot around my legs. The room is silent, but the silence itself feels thick, pressurized. It’s holding the echo of last night.

The images play on a loop behind my eyes, crisp and unforgiving.

The exact way the man’s body lost all its structure, folding in on itself like a marionette with its strings cut. Victoria’s face. Not triumphant, not anguished. Calm. As still as the surface of a deep, dark lake. The sound. It wasn’t a loud, dramatic bang from an action movie. It was a short, wet thump, a sound that was absorbed by the alley walls. It was a private sound. An intimate one.

That’s what’s unravelling me. It’s not just the fact of the killing. It’s the method. The utter normalcy of it for her. It was a task she performed with the same effortless competence as tying her shoes. It was nothing. And because it was for me, it was also everything.

And then my own reaction — or lack thereof.

The truth, the one that sits in my gut like a cold, heavy stone, is that I didn’t want her to stop. A part of me, a part I’m terrified to acknowledge, was mesmerized. I wanted to see the whole, brutal process. I wanted to understand the mechanics of her power.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with me?

I sit up, the movement slow and stiff. My body aches as if I’ve been in a fight. Juno meows from the foot of the bed, arching her back in a luxurious stretch. Her world is unchanged, while mine has been cracked open.

My thoughts are racing against each other, twisting back on themselves without end. And now, beneath the shock, a deeper feeling is settling in.

Heaviness. A sense of being haunted. And, God help me, that same, stubborn arousal.

It hasn’t faded. It’s just changed. It’s deeper now, a persistent, aching throb that’s fused with the guilt and the fear. It’s a physical craving tangled up with a moral crisis, and I have no idea how to separate the two.

I swing my legs out of bed, my feet meeting the cold hardwood floor. I stand up carefully, as if the floor might tilt. Making coffee feels like a monumental task, a ritual I’m performing to mimic a person who feels normal.

But nothing about this is normal.

Not the quality of the silence in my apartment. Not the leaden weight of complicity in my chest. Not the dark, insistent pulse of desire that answers every time I remember the look in her eyes.

The logical part of my brain tells me I should be afraid of her. I should be planning how to never see her again.

But the louder, more honest part is terrified of something else entirely: how much, even now, I still want her.

***

VICTORIA –

The sun is too bright. It glares off the hood of the car, a sharp, intrusive light that feels at odds with the lingering darkness of last night. I’m already halfway to her apartment before the conscious thought fully forms in my mind.

The steering wheel is cool beneath my hands. The engine is a quiet, expensive hum. I should be at the club, going over the previous night’s receipts. I should be in my home gym, burning off the restless energy that’s been coiled in my muscles since the alley. I should be anywhere but here, driving across the city on a Sunday morning like a man possessed.

But I’m not.

I’m on my way to her.

I find myself pulling into a parking spot outside a corner café I’ve passed a hundred times and never paid attention to. It’s the kind of place with a faux-rustic aesthetic, a chalkboard menu listing twelve kinds of avocado toast, and the faint smell of burned coffee beans. It’s the absolute antithesis of my world.

And yet, I’m cutting the engine and walking inside.

The barista is young, with a bright, practiced smile. “What can I get for you?”

I stare at the menu, the words blurring. I don’t know what she likes. The thought is absurd. I know the exact pressure point to incapacitate a two-hundred-pound man, but I don’t know if Avery takes sugar in her coffee.

“Two black coffees,” I say, the words automatic. Then I stop. I remember the faint, sweet scent of vanilla on her skin the first night we met. I correct myself, the gesture feeling foreign and clumsy. “No. One black. And one… with oat milk. And vanilla.”

I add two bagels to the order, one plain and one with cinnamon, because I have no frame of reference for what she might prefer. The whole transaction feels surreal. I am Victoria fucking Vale, standing in a sun-drenched café, holding a flimsy paper bag that’s already starting to grease through, feeling utterly exposed.

This is not who I am. I don’t bring breakfast. I don’t show up unannounced. I don’t offer comfort. I provide solutions, protection, consequences — not bagels.

But Avery… she erases my lines. She makes my well-ordered instincts blur and shift.

I picture her now, in that apartment I’ve never seen. Curled in a bed, buried under blankets, her mind racing through the same brutal loop mine has been. Wide awake and exhausted all at once.

This isn’t guilt. I stand by what I did. It’s… consequence. The consequence of letting someone see the unvarnished truth. I needed her to see the monster so she could make a choice. Now, I need to see the choice in her eyes.

I get back in the car. The interior now smells of warm bread and cheap coffee, overlaying the familiar scent of leather. It’s disorienting.

I grip the wheel, my knuckles white. The paper bag sits on the passenger seat, a silent accusation of my own unpredictability.

“One time,” I mutter to the empty car, my voice tight. “That’s all this is.”

A pathetic, desperate hope that a peace offering of carbohydrates and caffeine can bridge the chasm I opened between us last night.

***

AVERY –

The knock isn’t loud. It isn’t frantic.

It’s three distinct, measured raps on the wood. Solid. Patient. A knock that knows it will be answered.

I freeze in the middle of my kitchen, the chipped ceramic mug of bitter, hastily-made coffee halfway to my mouth. My heart gives a single, hard thud against my ribs. I don’t need to ask who it is. I already know.

Only one person knocks with that kind of quiet authority.

I stand there for a long moment, my bare feet cold on the linoleum. I’m wearing yesterday’s sweatpants and an old t-shirt, my hair a mess. I’m not ready. But the part of me that needs to see her, that needs to look into her eyes in the clear light of day, is stronger than my fear.

I open the door.

And there she is.

Victoria. Dressed in dark, tailored trousers and a simple black sweater, her hair pulled back. She looks pristine, as always, a stark contrast to the chaos of my morning. But her eyes… they’re different. The usual impenetrable coolness is still there, but there’s a new intensity in them, a focused attention. She’s assessing me.

In one hand, she holds a small, grease-spotted paper bag. In the other, a cardboard drink carrier holding two tall cups. The smell hits me first — rich coffee, the warm, yeasty scent of baked bread, and a hint of cinnamon and sugar.

My heart does a foolish, traitorous flip.

“I brought coffee,” she says. Her voice is even, low. It’s the same voice from the alley, but the words are impossibly mundane.

I just stare. “You brought… breakfast?”

A small, almost imperceptible shift of her shoulders.

“Seemed like the kind of morning for it.”

I step back, pulling the door wider. A silent invitation. “Come in.”

She moves past me, her arm brushing mine. The air stirs, carrying the faint, expensive scent of her perfume into my apartment. She doesn’t comment on the stacks of books on the floor, the thriving jungle of plants on the windowsill, or the soft, morning light filtering through the slightly dusty curtains. But I see her gaze sweep the room, taking it all in.

“Sorry for the mess,” I murmur out of habit, closing the door.

“There isn’t any,” she replies, her tone factual. She’s right. It’s just lived-in.

As if on cue, Juno saunters out from the bedroom. She goes straight to Victoria, weaving a figure-eight around her ankles, her purr a loud, rumbling motor. Victoria goes perfectly still. It’s the most uncertain I have ever seen her.

Her lips twitch. It’s not quite a smile, but it’s something. “Not a big cat person, actually.”

A surprised, quiet laugh escapes me. “No shit.”

But she doesn’t shoo Juno away. She just stands there, tolerating the feline inspection, before carefully stepping around her and placing the bag and drinks on my small kitchen counter. The normalcy of the gesture is disorienting.

“I think she likes you,” I say, leaning against the doorframe.

Victoria gives Juno a sidelong glance, then turns her gaze to me. “She has questionable taste.”

Another laugh, softer this time. The tight knot of anxiety in my chest loosens just a fraction. It’s absurd, but watching this formidable, dangerous woman navigate the presence of my fluffy, imperious cat is the first thing that has felt real and grounding all morning.

I walk over and open the bag. Inside are two bagels. One is plain. The other is a cinnamon raisin bagel, lightly toasted, with a generous smear of cream cheese. It’s my exact, specific favorite from the café down the street.

I look up at her. “How did you…?”

She raises one eyebrow, a silent challenge. “Lucky guess.”

I don’t push it. I pick up the coffee cup I know is mine and take a sip. It’s oat milk with a splash of vanilla. Perfect.

The warmth of the cup seeps into my hands. I look down into the steaming liquid, gathering my courage.

“Thank you,” I say, my voice quieter than I intended.

She watches me, completely still, completely focused. “For the coffee?”

“No.” I meet her eyes. “Well, yes. That too. But… for last night. For being there. For… stopping him.”

I swallow, the memory a cold stone in my stomach. “I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t.”

She doesn’t fill the silence with empty platitudes. She just holds my gaze, her expression unreadable but present. The seconds stretch.

“No one should have to find out what would’ve happened,” she says finally. Her voice is low, absolute. It’s not a comfort; it’s a stark, simple truth.

My throat feels tight. I just nod.

And for the first time since the muffled gunshot echoed in that alley, the fine, constant tremor in my hands finally stills.

***

VICTORIA –

Her apartment is a map of her mind.

I take it in with a single, sweeping glance. It’s small, but not cramped. Warm light filters through the windows, catching dust motes dancing in the air. There are towers of books everywhere — on the floor, on a small table, their spines cracked and faded. The plants on the sill are a little leggy, a few leaves tinged with brown, but they’re holding on. It smells of used tea bags, the faint, dry scent of paper, and underneath it all, the vanilla from her shampoo.

It’s the antithesis of my sterile, curated space. There is no strategy here, no performance. Only the quiet, unorganized evidence of a life being lived. It’s disarmingly human.

Juno brushes against my leg again, a living, purring obstacle, and I let her. Animals have always been able to sense the predator in me, and they usually keep their distance. This one is either foolish or perceptive enough to know I won’t harm what belongs to Avery. She’s stayed close to Avery since I arrived, a silent, furry guardian.

Smart cat.

When she thanked me, her voice was quiet but clear, the words meant for me and no one else. I’ve been thanked before — with trembling voices, with tears, with transactional deference. But this was different. It was an acknowledgment, not just of the action, but of the necessity behind it. It was real.

Now, sitting across from her on a sofa that has clearly molded itself to her body over the years, I can see the aftermath still playing out beneath her calm exterior. The steadiness in her voice is a conscious effort. Her fingers pluck nervously at a loose thread on the cuff of her sleeve. And her eyes, when she thinks I’m distracted, keep darting to my mouth, a fleeting, hungry look she quickly masks.

The questions are there, a palpable pressure in the room. She wants to know about the gun, the body, the cold mechanics of what I did. She wants to understand the woman who did it.

And a part of me, a part I’ve kept locked away, wants to tell her. To lay it all bare.

But not today. Not with the scent of coffee and cinnamon still hanging between us, a fragile illusion of a normal morning.

So, I offer a different kind of truth.

I reach out. My movement is slow, deliberate, giving her every opportunity to flinch, to pull back, to say no, before my palm cups her cheek.

She goes completely still.

Her skin is warm, impossibly soft. The heat of it seeps into my hand. My thumb drifts downward, a whisper of contact, and comes to rest on the full curve of her bottom lip. It’s an echo of that first night at the club, a callback to a question I never let her answer.

But this time, I don’t pull away. I don’t use the touch as a test of her composure.

This time, I am the one waiting.

The balance has shifted. I am done making decisions for her. I have shown her the darkest part of my nature. The next move must be hers.

If she wants this — the danger, the complexity, me — she will have to show me.

If she doesn’t, my hand will fall away, and I will walk out of this warm, cluttered apartment and out of her life.

But for now, I hold her there. Her breath hitches, her eyes wide and fixed on mine. The world narrows to this point of contact — the warmth of her skin, the softness of her lip beneath my thumb, the silent, charged space between us.

And I wait.

***

AVERY –

Her hand is on my cheek.

The weight of it is real, her palm warm and solid against my skin. Her thumb strokes my bottom lip, a slow, deliberate pass that sends a jolt straight down my spine. My body reacts before my mind can, a subtle, involuntary lean into her touch.

She is perfectly still. She isn’t pulling me closer or pushing me away. She’s just… waiting. A question held in the silence.

I don’t have an answer in words.

So I move.

It isn’t a decision. It’s a reflex. One moment I’m suspended in her gaze, and the next, I close the small space between us, and my mouth finds hers.

It’s not soft or tentative. It’s hard. Immediate. A collision. My hands fist in the soft, expensive wool of her sweater, clinging to her because my knees have gone weak. I can feel the solid strength of her body beneath the fabric, an anchor in the dizzying rush.

And God, the taste of her. The lingering bitterness of black coffee, the clean, sharp scent of her skin, and underneath it, something else — something metallic and cold, like the air after a storm. Like the scent of a gun. It should repulse me. It only makes me kiss her harder.

My heart is hammering against my ribs, a frantic, wild rhythm. A fine tremor runs through my limbs. This is beyond want. This is a deep, aching need, a hunger that has been building since the first time she looked at me.

I want her mouth, her hands, the crushing weight of her. I want her to dismantle me and put me back together in her own image.

My hips betray me, tipping forward, instinctively seeking pressure. My thighs are trembling, holding a question I can’t ask aloud.

And then—

She breaks the kiss.

She doesn’t push me away. She just pulls back an inch, enough for the cool air to rush between our lips. Her eyes are locked on mine, dark and intense. The cool control is still there, but it’s banked now. She’s watching me, studying the frantic rise and fall of my chest, the way I’m still clutching her sweater, completely unraveled by a single kiss.

Her hand is still cupping my jaw, her thumb now resting on the frantic pulse in my throat. The air is still. Heavy.

Then, her voice, low and even, a vibration I feel in my bones. “Come to Lilith tonight.”

It’s not a question. It’s an invitation to a specific kind of fate. I swallow, trying to find my breath. My voice is a husk of sound. “Okay.”

It’s barely a whisper, but it’s absolute.

I’ll go.

Whatever waits for me there, in the shadows of her world, I want it.

I want her.