Page 160 of Lady and the Hitman

“She’s not safe with you,” he said to Ronan.

Ronan took a step forward, his full height eclipsing the soft glow of the porch light behind him. “Say that again,” he said, voice low and lethal.

Trevor’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t back down. “You heard me. She’s not safe with someone like you.”

“Someone like me?” Ronan’s laugh was bitter, humorless. “You don’t know the first fucking thing about me.”

“I know enough,” Trevor shot back. “I warned her. I told her men like you don’t change. That theydrag good women into their shadows and call it love.”

“Trevor—stop,” I said, stepping between them again.

But it was too late. The air had shifted. Ronan’s control was slipping. His hands twitched like he was restraining himself with every fiber of his being.

“I’ve killed men for less,” he said quietly, and the words weren’t a threat. They were a truth. Cold. Final.

Trevor flinched.

“Is that supposed to scare me?” he asked, but his voice wasn’t as steady this time.

“No,” Ronan said. “It’s supposed to remind you that Zara’s not the one who needs warning.”

I turned sharply to Ronan. “Enough.”

My voice cracked through the tension like a whip, and for a second, both of them froze.

Trevor looked at me, the concern in his expression giving way to something more resigned. Like he already knew the outcome, and it hurt.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said softly. “You don’t have to go back to him.”

I looked at him—and for a breath, I almost believed that version. The version where he brought me coffee and called my mom on her birthday and never made me bleed with silence.

But then I looked at Ronan.

His body, corded with tension. His jaw locked, his hands shaking. Not from rage, I realized—but from restraint. From holding himself back. For me.

I couldn’t breathe.

Trevor stepped toward the car. “I meant what I said,” he told me. “You deserve better.”

Before I could respond—before I could tell Trevorthank youorgoodbyeordon’t do this—my phone rang in my pocket.

I flinched at the sound, the shrill tone slicing through the moment like a blade. I yanked it out, glanced at the screen, and felt the world tip.

Mom.

She never called at this hour.

“Hello?” My voice wobbled, breathless.

“Zara,” she gasped. “It’s your dad. He—he collapsed in the greenhouse. The EMTs think it’s his heart. They’re taking him to MUSC.”

I couldn’t speak. The ground didn’t just shift—it cracked.

One second, everything had felt heavy—complicated, yes, but survivable. Ronan’s secrets. Trevor’s presence. The nursery, the flash drive, the aching mess of my heart. But now?

None of it mattered.

Not if my dad wasn’t okay. Not if the man who used to lift me onto his shoulders and call me “Zee” like it was a magic word could be taken down in an instant by something as silent and brutal as a failing heart. Everything else fell away.