Ashton’s POV
The sun bled orange across the windshield, and I hadn't slept.
I sat in my truck in the empty parking lot behind the athletics building, engine off, hands gripping the steering wheel like it was the only thing keeping me tethered to sanity. The campus was quiet at this hour—just me and the sunrise and the weight of what I'd done.
I could still smell her on my skin. Vanilla and something sweeter, something uniquely Lyra. Every time I breathed, she was there.
Fragments of last night crashed through my mind without permission. Her lips on mine, tentative at first, then desperate. The way she trembled when I laid her across the backseat. How she looked up at me with those wide eyes, suddenly shy, suddenly vulnerable—nothing like the defiant girl who'd been making my life hell for weeks.
I'd driven her back to her dorm around three in the morning. She was half-asleep, curled against my chest, and I carried her up the stairs and laid her in her bed fully clothed. She murmured something I couldn't catch and reached for me, and it took every ounce of willpower I possessed to step back and close the door behind me.
I should have stayed. Should have been there when she woke up.
Instead, I fled like a coward, and now I was sitting alone in my truck trying to figure out how to face her.
I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror and disgust curled through my stomach.
Thirty-six years old. Lines around my eyes from years of violence. Shadows in my past that would make her skin crawl if she knew the details. I'd killed men. Broken bones without flinching. Spent decades doing Kian's dirty work, cleaning up messes that couldn't be cleaned any other way.
And last night, I put those same bloodstained hands on his daughter.
The thought made bile rise in my throat. Kian had trusted me. For fifteen years, he'd trusted me with everything—his secrets, his empire, his life. I was the one he called when things needed to be handled quietly. The one who stood at his side through wars and betrayals and the kind of violence that would have broken lesser men.
When he asked me to watch over Lyra, to keep her safe while she was at college, I'd agreed without hesitation. It was supposed to be simple. A favor for the man who'd given me everything—purpose, belonging, a family when I had none. She was his kid. Practically family. Off-limits in every way that mattered.
I'd known that. Understood it in my bones.
And I'd crossed the line anyway.
Did I take advantage of her? The question had been eating at me for hours. She'd been drinking—not wasted, but loosened, uninhibited. She'd started it, pulled me close, kissed me first. But I was the adult. I was the one with decades of experience and control. I should have been stronger. Should have pushed her away, driven her home, and pretended it never happened.
Instead, I'd kissed her back. Touched her. Taken something I had no right to take.
I wasn't supposed to be the one who—
I slammed my palm against the steering wheel, the pain grounding me. She deserved better than what I gave her. Candles and romance and a boy her own age fumbling through first love. Someone clean. Someone without a body count. Someone who hadn't spent his entire adult life in a world built on blood and violence.
Instead, she got me. Used. Dangerous. Old enough to know better and weak enough to do it anyway.
But that wasn't even what terrified me most.
What terrified me was the savage sense of ownership that had roared to life the moment I touched her. Mine. The word had pounded through me, primal and possessive and completely unacceptable. Every instinct I had screamed that she belonged to me now, that I'd never let anyone else have her, that I'd burn down anyone who tried to take her away.
She's not mine. She can never be mine. She's Kian's daughter.
And I'd betrayed him in the worst possible way.
My phone buzzed against my thigh. Kian's name flashed on the screen, and my stomach dropped through the floor of the truck. I stared at it for two rings, three, my heart slamming against my ribs. Then I answered, keeping my voice steady through sheer force of will.
"Report." No greeting. Kian never wasted words.
"The boyfriend?" I asked. "Handled. He's scared, keeping his distance for now."
"For now isn't good enough. He's not the real problem anyway—you know that." Kian's voice hardened. "Someone's feeding information. Someone close to her."
My jaw tightened. The leak. We'd been chasing shadows for weeks, and every lead went cold. "I'm watching everyone. If someone slips, I'll catch it."
"The enemy is patient, Ashton. They've waited years to make a move on my daughter." A pause that felt like a knife at my throat. "Don't let your guard down just because the boy is handled."
I stared at the sunrise, orange bleeding into pink, beautiful and indifferent to the wreckage I'd made of my life.
I should tell him.
The words burned in my throat, demanding release. I should confess everything—that I failed, that I crossed the one line I was never supposed to cross, that I touched his daughter in ways that would end our friendship permanently. End me, probably. Kian didn't forgive betrayal. I'd helped him deal with men who'd done far less.
I knew exactly what happened to people who crossed him. I'd been the one to make it happen, more times than I could count.
And now I was one of them.
"Everything's under control," I said instead. The lie tasted like ash. "She's safe."
Safe. From everyone except me.
Kian grunted in approval and hung up.
I let the phone fall to the seat beside me and pressed my forehead against the steering wheel. The weight of my betrayal settled deeper into my bones, permanent and unforgiven. I'd looked Kian in the eye—metaphorically, at least—and lied to him. After fifteen years of loyalty. After everything we'd been through together.
I was risking everything for a girl I had no right to want.
Hours later, I saw her crossing the quad with her friend Angel.
She looked tired. Hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, dark circles under her eyes. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt that might have been mine—I couldn't tell from this distance, but the thought made something twist in my chest.
Our gazes met for a split second.
Her steps faltered. Pink flooded her cheeks. Then she looked away, pace quickening, putting as much distance between us as she could without actually running.
She wouldn't look at me. I didn't blame her.
I stayed where I was, watching her disappear into the science building, still wanting, still completely incapable of walking away.
This was the problem. This was why I should have been stronger last night.
Because now I knew what she tasted like. Knew the sounds she made. Knew the way she looked at me when all her walls came down.
Duty demanded I confess and accept whatever punishment Kian delivered. Walk into his office, lay out the facts, and let him decide my fate. It was what I deserved. What honor required.
Desire demanded something else entirely. Find her. Touch her again. Make her understand that last night meant something even if it shouldn't have.
I was trapped between the man I was supposed to be and the man she was turning me into. Between loyalty to the only family I'd ever known and this consuming need for a girl who was completely off-limits. Kian's daughter. Nineteen years old. Everything I shouldn't want and everything I couldn't stop wanting.
I had no idea how either of us would survive what came next.
But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
I wasn't strong enough to stay away from her. Not anymore.