“The immediate threat has been neutralized,” I report, remaining standing rather than taking a seat. “Kozlov himself has retreated to Moscow, according to our intelligence.”
Xavier finally turns, his gray eyes assessing us both. “And your girl?”
“Recovering,” Cyrus says, a muscle in his jaw twitching.
“I see.” Xavier walks to his desk, trailing his fingers along the polished surface. “You know, when Knox suggested you two for the Hunt, I had reservations.”
I feel my spine straighten imperceptibly.
“The Dexter twins have always been our most reliable assets precisely because you remained... uncompromised.” He looks up, his gaze penetrating. “Yet here we are, with you conducting a rescue operation that put three of my men in the hospital, all for a Hunt prize you were supposed to simply fuck and discard,” Xavier continues, his voice cutting through the silence. “Believe me, I understand your situation more than you might think, but I recognize a liability when I see one.”
I feel Cyrus tense beside me. My own hand drifts imperceptibly closer to my weapon.
“Relax,” Xavier says with a dismissive wave. “If I wanted Ms. Valentino eliminated, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
He takes a seat behind his desk, fingers steepled beneath his chin. “I’m offering you a choice, gentlemen. Continue as my elite operatives, the positions you’ve held with distinction for years, with the understanding that your... attachment... to Ms. Valentino creates a permanent vulnerability. One that our enemies will exploit repeatedly.”
He leans forward. “Or retire from active assassination work. Maintain your security contracts, your legitimate business interests. Live a life less likely to result in Ms. Valentino being bound to a chair in an abandoned warehouse.”
Cyrus and I exchange a silent glance, a lifetime of communication passing between us in seconds.
“How long do we have to decide?” I ask.
“Seventy-two hours.” Xavier stands, signaling the end of our meeting. “Choose wisely.”
The drive back to the penthouse passes in tense silence. Our lives have always been defined by death—dealing it, avoiding it, living in its shadow. The thought of walking away leaves an unexpected hollowness in my chest.
“We need to tell her,” Cyrus says as the elevator climbs to our floor.
Keira is waiting in the living room, reading a book with her legs curled beneath her. She looks up, eyes instantly assessing our expressions.
“What happened?” she asks, setting her book aside.
I sit beside her while Cyrus paces. “Xavier gave us an ultimatum. Continue as his assassins, knowing the danger will always find you through us, or retire from active work.”
Cyrus stops pacing. “We need to decide what matters more—our old life or our new one with you.”
Keira’s expression hardens. She stands, moving between us. “I don’t want you changing who you are for me. I fell in love with you both—exactly as you are. Killers and all.”
I watch Keira’s face carefully, knowing what we’re about to share goes deeper than the sanitized version we gave her before.
“There’s more to our past than what we told you,” I say, my voice steadier than I feel. “The Architect Program didn’t just train us. They broke us. Rebuilt us. Over and over.”
Cyrus moves closer, his shoulder against mine. “They started with isolation. Separate cells, complete darkness, for days. I was seven the first time.”
“They’d flood the cells with ice water when we fell asleep,” I continue. “By eight, we could stay awake for seventy-two hours straight.”
“At nine, they gave us our first kill assignment.” Cyrus’s voice drops. “A homeless man. They told us he was practice.”
“When I hesitated, they beat Cyrus instead of me.” The memory still burns. “That’s when we learned our pain was connected. Missing a target meant watching each other suffer.”
“By twelve, we could disassemble and reassemble any weapon blindfolded,” Cyrus says. “At thirteen, we’d mastered sixteen methods of killing with our bare hands.”
“The real training wasn’t physical,” I admit. “It was turning off your humanity. Making death mechanical. Calculated.”
“Handler Seventeen,” Cyrus says, his voice catching. “What he did in those rooms with …me, it wasn’t just torture. It was abuse similar to what Henderson did to you.”
“I’m so sorry,” Keira says, taking his hand.
