Page 63 of The Final Contract

Killian swipes his thumb across the screen, bringing the phone to his ear.

“Shaw.”

A long, exaggerated smooch noise echoes through the speaker.

“Sorry to break up make-out time.”

Killian’s face hardens, all sharp lines and fury. His grip on my hip tightens until I feel the bruise forming. “If you’re watching her cameras right now, I’ll put a bullet through your eyes myself.”

I gape, heat rushing up my neck.

My mouth works soundlessly before I manage to get out, “Excuse me? I did not sign up to be some goddamn reality show on display.”

Jaxon’s laugh filters through, dry and careless. “Relax, princess. I’m not a perv. Just making sure the new system is actually doing its job since you two finally made it back.”

I roll my eyes, looking around, trying to spot where the cameras are.

“And don’t worry, I’ll keep your little forbidden affair between us girls.”

My phone buzzes with a text from Stasia—a reminder about Aurora’s birthday party. The gifts I bought arrived, wrapped beautifully, and Ro instantly started shaking them.

The normalcy in all this chaos makes me smile.

Killian, however, doesn’t smile. His jaw flexes once, twice. “What do you want, Jaxon?”

“Grumpy! Sheesh.” There’s a lot of typing. “The kid gave me a composite of your stalker. I’m running it through every facial-recognition system I can bend to my will. But it’s gonna take time—a day, maybe two.”

Killian lowers the phone and pins me with that searing stare. “You want to see it?”

Every instinct screams no. To hide. Pretend none of this exists. But that’s not an option anymore. My throat bobs as I nod, making my way out of my room and toward the kitchen. “Yeah. I need to.”

Following me, Killian lifts the phone back to his ear. “Send it.”

“Already did,” Jaxon says, and then his voice is muffled like he’s eating something. “There’s more. No scrambler last night, so I got him on the cameras. Not his face, though. He knew he would be recorded—kept his head down, hat pulled low. But…I caught some warped reflections when he moved through the kitchen. I’ll see what I can do with them and add them to the composite.”

No scrambler.

My stomach knots, icy realization washing through me. “Maybe he didn’t have time to prep. He wasn’t ready for last night.”

“Bingo,” Jaxon says, mouth even more full of food than before.

“Just what I was thinking,” Killian adds.

There’s a knock at my door, and the guard opens it, letting Eve in with Finn trailing behind her. She raises her eyebrows in greeting.

Jaxon mumbles, “Mmm, so good.” He’s literally licking his fingers clean on the other end of the line. Like—Christ almighty—I’m running for my life and he’s chowing down on something.

“What the fuck are you eating?” Killian bites out, like it’s been bothering him too.

“The world’s best fucking chocolate chip cookies. Freshly baked by my future wife.” He kisses someone on the other end. Eve makes a big show of rolling her eyes.

“Okay, I need to go smear melted chocolate on someone and then lick it off.”

“Fucking Christ, Jax,” Eve blurts out. “Could’ve died happy never hearing that.”

“Hey,” he bites back—their friendly banter always entertaining. “I had to hear about your fucking nipple piercings. I will never be the same.”

Someone laughs, and the phone muffles again. “Gotta go.” The call ends, and we fill Eve in on the news. A peek at Killian’s phone and I smirk. He’s looking at chocolate chip–cookie recipes.