Lena’s POV
Blood.
Not much—just a warm trickle down her arm, soaking into the torn sleeve of her coat. It wasn’t the worst she’d had, but it was
And was still here.
The room smelled like old leather and antiseptic, like secrets that had been kept too long.
Kai stood across from her, silent, a storm barely restrained beneath the surface.
run the second the bullets stopped flying.
But here she was.
Here they were.
The same hands that had once traced fire down her spine were now carefully unrolling a bandage.
He wasn’t looking at her face. Not yet.
Good.
Because she wasn’t sure she could keep her mask up if he did.
“Take off your coat.”
Kai’s voice was low, rough around the edges.
Lena didn’t move.
he wanted her to react, wanted her to crack first.
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“Why?” she asked, arching a brow.
“Because you’re bleeding.”
Lena exhaled slowly, the exhaustion sinking into her bones. “It’s not deep.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
That , that effortless authority. The same one he wielded over men who now feared him.
But she wasn’t one of them.
She never had been.
Still, she could feel the warmth of her own blood sticking fabric to skin, feel the dull ache beginning to sharpen.
She sighed, then shrugged off her coat, wincing slightly as the fabric peeled away from the wound.
Kai’s gaze flickered. Just a second. Just long enough for her to see the tension in his jaw shift into something else.
Something unreadable.
Erased. Like everything else between them.
He knelt beside her, pulling a chair close.
The antiseptic burned as he pressed a cloth to the wound.
but she didn’t make a sound.
Kai noticed. Of course he did.
“Still stubborn,”
Lena huffed a quiet laugh. “Says the man who dragged me here instead of letting me walk away.”
His grip tightened—just for a fraction of a second.
Then, just as quickly, he was .
“You don’t get to disappear again, Lena.”
There it was.
The edge beneath his words.
Sharp. Dangerous.
Something inside her twisted, but she didn’t let it show.
“Watch me.”
The ghost of a smirk ghosted over his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“You always were a terrible liar,” he said.
Lena’s fingers curled into the fabric of her jeans.
Five years ago, he would have been right.
But not now.
Not after everything.
She forced herself to look at him then.
At the scars that weren’t there before. The in his movements, like he was made of something harder now. Something unyielding.
She had done this.
She had left him in the wreckage.
Patching her up like she hadn’t been a ghost for five years.
Like he still knew her.
Like he still cared.
The weight of it pressed against her ribs.
Too much.
Too close.
She needed to break this moment before it became something neither of them could afford.
Lena pulled back. “It’s fine. I can handle it.”
Kai didn’t move. Didn’t let go.
His hand was still against her skin, steady, warm, unrelenting.
The silence stretched between them.
his fingers brushed against her wrist. Just slightly. Just enough to feel the faint, betraying tremor beneath her skin.
His gaze snapped to hers.
And just like that,
Something in his expression hardened.
“Who were you running from?”
Lena inhaled sharply.
She couldn’t.
Kai’s grip tightened ever so slightly.
“You don’t just disappear for five years and come back with a target on your back,” he said, voice low, measured.
Lena met his gaze.
For a moment, something flickered between them.
A memory. A past that had never really died.
But then she did what she had always done best.
lied.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Kai’s eyes darkened.
His jaw tensed.
And she knew——he wasn’t going to let this go.
Not now.
Not ever.