Page 51 of Creeping Lily

TITAN

C utting Sheila Shine’s throat was all it took to turn Larry Shine into a sobbing, snot-nosed mess.

The man actually thought that if he started spilling secrets, I’d take pity on him.

That told me everything I needed to know about how deep he was in filth no decent human should ever be aware of.

Monsters, real monsters, only care about themselves.

By the time he realized I was dead serious—that I would gladly open his throat the way I’d opened his wife’s—he was standing ankle-deep in her blood, desperate enough to start singing every song he knew.

I turn the thick red leather-bound book over in my hands, brushing off the dirt from its cracked spine.

The thing is heavy with secrets. Larry Shine’s meticulous record-keeping wasn’t for nostalgia—it was his weapon.

Every page, every name, was part of his insurance policy, a collection of leverage on wealthy, powerful people he could blackmail into giving him anything he wanted.

“That’s what you killed two people for?”

Lily’s voice cuts through the air, sharp and incredulous.

I glance up at her from under lowered lashes, then set the book down on the table between us.

She doesn’t look away. When she ran after seeing me bathe the kitchen floor in red, she was all fear and panic.

Now, her chin tips up in defiance, and her eyes demand an answer.

“No,” I say. “I killed two people to save countless others. That’s what happens in war.”

She scoffs, her lips curling. “This isn’t a war. It’s a one-man killing spree. And I’m not going to be your accomplice.”

I lean back, crossing my arms over my chest, studying her like she’s a puzzle I’m still deciding whether to solve or smash.

“What do you think will happen to you when the police catch up to you?”

“They’d have to catch me first, darling.”

“They will,” she says evenly. “They always do. At least, when it comes to the bad guys.”

I almost let the words slip—the question I want to throw in her face about whether those missing children would get the same ‘justice’ she got as a girl.

But I hold it back. No sense pushing her away when she’s already circling the truth.

She’s too curious for her own good, and that curiosity is dangerous.

“You need to take off your rose-colored glasses, Lily,” I tell her. “Not everyone gets the justice they deserve. That’s why people like me exist.”

The hit lands. I see it in the way her throat works, in the way her gaze shifts like she’s trying not to remember something she’s spent years burying.

She swallows it down, but I know the taste of that kind of bile.

And the fact that she chose journalism—a profession built on digging where you’re told not to—only makes her more vulnerable.

She’ll never stop asking questions. Which means she’ll never truly be safe.

“There’s more of you,” she says, her voice tightening, her face paling.

I say nothing. My silence tells her all she needs to know .

I rise from my seat, scoop up the red leather ledger, and slide it under my arm. It’ll take me weeks to go through every page, but that’s fine. This isn’t work I can hand off to anyone else.

“Why am I here?” she asks again, and my patience for that question is running thin. Lily is proving to be more trouble than I anticipated.

When I start to turn away, she moves fast, wrapping her fingers around my arm. I glance down at the hand holding me, then back to her eyes. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she peels her fingers away, one by one, until her hand drops to her side.

Good. She’s remembering something important.

I’m the kind of man who touches.

Not the kind who gets touched.

From across the garden, I watch her—framed perfectly in the window like a portrait that doesn’t belong in this ugly world.

She’s leaning against the glass, eyes fixed on something far away while I pace with my phone pressed to my ear.

There’s a glow about her, but under it, a restless hum.

A flicker of boredom twists at her expression.

I curse myself for not bringing her something to read.

Something to distract her from the walls closing in.

When my call ends and the phone drops from my ear, the door creaks open.

She steps outside, each of the three steps taken slowly, like she’s making sure I notice.

Her cardigan is pulled tight over a plain T-shirt—armor she wraps around herself in place of steel.

The way she clutches it tells me she’s gearing up for a conversation she’s been rehearsing in her head.

“I can’t just sit around doing nothing all day,” she says, her voice steady, her dark eyes catching sunlight until they glow.

I meet her gaze, already knowing where this is headed. We’ve danced around this fight before, never quite letting it catch fire.

My eyes drift down, taking in the shape of her in those tight jeans—the sweep of her hips, the line of her waist. Lily has that kind of beauty you don’t see anymore, the kind that belonged to old Hollywood actresses.

Timeless. All curves and confidence, even when she’s trying to hide it.

She pulls the cardigan closer, like it can shield her from my stare.

This is the same woman who let me kiss her. Who didn’t flinch when I breathed her in. Whose pupils widen when I look at her a certain way. She should hate me—after what she’s seen, she should want nothing to do with me. But she’s still here. Which means I need to tread lightly.

She holds my gaze without flinching. No fear. Just that same quiet challenge she’s been building since she first set foot on campus. She’s come a long way, but she’s not at the finish line yet.

“Want to go catch a movie?” I ask, smirking to make sure she knows I’m mocking the suggestion.

Her arms tighten around her body like she’s locking herself in. The look she gives me could cut glass.

“How long do we have to stay here?”

“As long as it takes, Lily.”

“As long as what takes?”

Her anger comes fast, sharp enough to make me raise a brow. Lily Snow is beautiful when she’s angry. But angry and bored? That’s when she’s dangerous—and she doesn’t even know it.

We’ve just gone another round about me being a murderer.

Lily can’t let it go—what she saw, what I am .

I can see it written all over her face. She’s trying to figure me out, digging for some tragic backstory that explains why my head is so screwed up.

Fine. Let her believe that if it helps her sleep at night.

Better for her to think I’m broken than to accept the truth—that maybe I’m just a monster because I choose to be.

“I didn’t choose my path,” I tell her. “The path chose me.”

She doesn’t get it. She probably never will. She’s never felt that kind of hollow, all-consuming loss. Never had someone she loves ripped away and been forced to keep breathing while the world moves on.

“There are always choices, Titan,” she says.

“Not when the justice system fails,” I counter. “Not when closure is just a word they throw at the families of the dead. Not when the verdict is ‘not guilty’ and the guilty walk free. Not when the powerful are too connected to ever see a prison cell.”

“Without laws, corruption is everywhere,” she argues.

I scoff, sharp and bitter.

“Laws? You mean the same ones that let murderers slip through on technicalities? The same ones that hand convicted rapists their freedom just so they can go out and destroy more lives?”

She flinches at the heat in my voice, but I don’t stop.

“For every wrong we manage to right, there’s still the shadow of what can’t be undone.

Yeah, it’s a win when we give families closure, but it’s never enough.

They’ll never get their loved ones back.

Closure isn’t a finish line, Lily—it’s a road you crawl down for the rest of your life. Trust me. I know.”

Her voice drops to a whisper. “What happened to you?”

I tilt my head, pretending I don’t understand. “What do you mean?”

“What happened to you? Why are you like this?”

“The monsters came.”

Her brow furrows. “Monsters? ”

I want to tell her. I want her to see the truth—how the monsters crept in, slow and silent, until they owned me. How they poisoned my reality, rewrote my future, and dragged me off the path I was meant to walk. But she wouldn’t understand. Most people don’t.

So I keep it to myself, repeating the words in my head like a prayer: The monsters came.

Then I give her the version I want her to have.

“Sometimes there are no other choices in life, Lily. Not if you want justice.”