POV Owen
“Again,” I say.
Noelle rolls her eyes but obeys. She jerks the stroller backward, pivots, and crouches low like I taught her. It’s ridiculous—seeing her in a silk blouse and bare feet, practicing evasive maneuvers in the middle of our living room—but the world stopped caring about ridiculous the moment bullets entered our airspace.
“Too slow,” I tell her. “You’d have taken a hit by now.”
“I’m not you,” she snaps, breathless. “Some of us don’t come with built-in combat settings.”
“You could learn,” I say. “That’s why we’re doing this.”
She straightens, brushing hair from her face. Luna’s toy giraffe dangles from the stroller handle, squeaking with every move she makes. “You realize the neighbors probably think we’re insane.”
“Good,” I grunt, checking the hallway cameras. “Insanity keeps people away.”
She throws the giraffe at me. “You sound like my father.”
I catch it easily. “Your father couldn’t teach you how to break an arm with a diaper bag.”
Her mouth twitches despite herself. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re improving.”
We train every afternoon. It’s the only time the walls stop closing in.
She learns fast—how to use the stroller as a shield, how to find exits, how to drop flat when gunfire starts. I make her repeat until her arms shake and her breath turns ragged.
Rhea calls us “domestic chaos with a tactical edge.” I call it survival.
When Noelle collapses onto the couch, I kneel beside her, checking her pulse out of habit. She slaps my hand away. “I’m not dying, Owen.”
“I know,” I say. “Just making sure you stay that way.”
She stares at me a moment. “Do you ever stop?”
“No.”
“Even when it’s over?”
I shake my head. “It’s never over.”
***
At night, she handles court chaos from her laptop—statements, affidavits, the DA’s endless harassment. Every new article calls me the ex-hitman husband, the criminal protector, the man she can’t quit.
I watch her read through them like they’re threats made of paper. Her jaw tightens; her eyes flash with that same stubborn light I fell in love with.
“Don’t read that trash,” I say.
“If I don’t, who will? They’re rewriting our lives, Owen.”
“They can rewrite all they want. Truth isn’t something you can edit.”
She looks at me sharply. “Then why won’t you tell me all of it?”
The words land hard. I knew they’d come eventually.
She closes the laptop, setting it aside. “You talk about Silas like he’s a storm that just happened to you. But you were part of it. What did you do for him?”
I stare at the floor. “You don’t want to know.”
“I’m asking anyway.”
The air feels heavy. Luna’s sleeping in the next room—soft breaths through the monitor, a reminder of how much we could lose.
I sit back against the couch, fingers digging into my knees. “You remember the night at the warehouse? The men guarding the shipment?”
“Yes.”
“They weren’t guards. They were hostages. Civilians. Silas told me it was a trade deal gone bad. He lied. I executed all four before I realized.”
Her breath catches. “Oh my God.”
“I didn’t question orders back then,” I continue, voice hoarse. “He said they were weapons dealers, and I believed him. By the time I saw the family photos in one man’s wallet, it was done.”
She covers her mouth, eyes wide and wet.
“I buried the evidence,” I say. “Silas kept the footage. Said one day he’d remind me who owned my soul. That’s why I can’t let him near you. He doesn’t need to kill me—he just needs to make you look at me the way you’re looking now.”
Her hand drops from her lips. “How am I looking?”
“Like you finally see what I am.”
She moves closer, slow and deliberate, until she’s kneeling in front of me. “I see a man who regrets it.”
“Regret doesn’t erase blood.”
“No,” she says softly. “But it keeps you from spilling more.”
I shake my head. “You shouldn’t forgive me for that.”
“I’m not forgiving you.” She places her palms flat against my chest. “I’m claiming you.”
Her words make something inside me go still.
“You’re mine now,” she says, voice trembling but sure. “Whatever you were before—Silas’s soldier, my father’s weapon—it ends here.”
I close my eyes, because if I look at her too long, I’ll break. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I do,” she insists. “You told me once that monsters speak to monsters to keep the peace. Then let me be the monster that saves you from him.”
I grab her wrist without meaning to, too tight, then loosen it when I feel her pulse hammering under my thumb. “You don’t need saving.”
“Yes, I do,” she whispers. “From the part of you that still thinks you belong to anyone else.”
The words hit harder than a bullet. I breathe out, long and slow, trying to steady myself. “If you knew the things I’ve done, you’d run.”
She leans in until our foreheads touch. “I already know enough to stay.”
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. Only the hum of the city below and Luna’s soft sighs fill the space. I open my eyes. She’s still watching me, unwavering.
“Then you’ll never do it again,” she says finally.
“What?”
Her grip tightens on my shirt. “You’ll never kill like that again. You’ll never let him use you. You’ll never drown in what he made you do. Because you’re mine now.”
Her voice breaks on the last word, and it undoes me. I pull her into my arms, burying my face in her neck. She smells like rain and resolves.
“I don’t deserve you,” I whisper.
“Maybe not,” she says, “but you’ve got me anyway.”
The monitor crackles softly—Luna stirring, reminding us that even monsters get to have families sometimes. I press a kiss to Noelle’s temple, the tremor still in my hands but something new in my chest—a peace I don’t trust yet, but maybe someday will.
She looks up, eyes fierce, unyielding. “We fight him together, Owen. Every ghost, every lie. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
She brushes her lips against mine, whispering against my mouth, “Then it’s over. The old life. The killing. The guilt.”
I nod once, breath shaking. “Then it’s over.”
Outside, the city hums. Inside, she lays her head against my chest, where my heart finally beats steady again.
Her words echo through me like a command I’ll spend the rest of my life obeying—
Then you’ll never do it again. Because you’re mine now.