Kill Order Kiss Novel Chapter 06

Kill Order Kiss Novel Chapter 06

Three months into my fellowship, I received a package at the college with no return address.

Inside was a velvet box containing a necklace-a thin gold chain with a small diamond pendant. I recognized it instantly. It was the first gift Dante ever gave me, on our one-month anniversary, clasping it around my neck at a rooftop restaurant while the city glittered below us.

“Every time you touch this,” he’d said, “remember that someone in this world would burn it all down for you.”/

I stared at the necklace in its box, my throat tight.

There was a note, handwritten in his bold script:

You left this behind. It was always yours. -D

No apology. No explanation. Just a claim disguised as a gift, a reminder that he could find me whenever he

wanted.

My hands were shaking-not with fear, but with rage.

I walked to the Thames that evening, stood on Waterloo Bridge, and dropped the box into the river. Watched it

disappear into the dark water without a ripple.

When I got home, I called Sofia.

“He knows where I am.”

“I figured. What are you going to do?”

“Nothing different. If he wanted me dead, he’d have done it already. This is a power play. He wants me to

know he’s watching.”

“That’s not comforting, Val.”

“It’s not meant to be. But I’m done running.”

I emailed a digital copy of the kill order to Sofia, to Priya, to Professor Ashworth’s secure university server, and to a journalist contact Sofia had cultivated over the years. Each email contained the same message:

If anything happens to me, release this to every media outlet and federal agency on the list.

Then I texted Rome: Tell Dante I got his gift. And tell him I have insurance policies he can’t buy, threaten, or kill. If he’s smart-and we both know he is-he’ll leave me alone.

Rome’s reply Noted. For what it’s worth, I don’t think he wants to hurt you I think he’s drowning and you were the only thing that kept him afloat.

That’s not my problem anymore, I typed.

But I sat with the phone in my hands for a long time after, staring at the words, hating that some small. stubborn part of me still ached for the man behind the monster.

Yuki found me in the lab the next morning, red-eyed and running on espresso.

“Bad night?” she asked.

“Bad year.”

She set a matcha latte on my desk. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay.” She squeezed my shoulder. “When you’re ready, I’m here. And Oliver’s making scones.”

I laughed—a real laugh, unexpected and raw-and for the first time in months, the weight on my chest lifted just enough to breathe.