In love with an Assassin

Unwanted Chemistry

Chapter 4: Unwanted Chemistry

(Isabella’s POV)

After the attack at the gala, Kevin’s team was adamant that I stay at his estate all the time. No more back and forth, no time off. I went along with it. It felt like the safest option for him, and it made keeping control easier for me. But honestly, it felt like a trap. Living in his world meant I’d have to drop my guard, even just for a moment. And that was risky.

On my first morning there, I found Kevin in the kitchen before his meetings. He was leaning against the counter, sleeves rolled up, tie loosely hanging around his neck. He looked nothing like the guy you’d see in magazines.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” he said while pouring coffee.

“I’m not here for chit-chat.”

He smiled, like that was exactly the response he expected. “Most people try to charm me.”

“Well, I’m not most people.”

He chuckled, a low and easy sound, as if I’d cracked a joke. I hadn’t. He kept pushing, looking for a reaction. I maintained a flat tone, my gaze sharp. Keeping some distance felt safer.

But Kevin didn’t let it go. In the car on our way to his office, he tried again. “You saved my life,” he said. “I think that gives me a right to know at least one personal thing about you.”

I glanced out the window. “Personal details can get people killed.”

He studied me for a long moment, quiet this time. Then he dropped the subject.

Later that night, when the house finally quieted down, I couldn’t shake thoughts of Julian Vance. At the gala, when he smirked at Kevin, I noticed something—barely visible beneath his collar, a scar. Thin and curved. I’d seen it before. Years ago. On a man who stood in the same training yard I’d bled in. The Order had left its mark on him, and now he was here, circling Kevin like a hawk.

I gripped the edge of the sink in the bathroom, staring at my reflection. The scar on my jaw looked sharper in the mirror. The past was creeping closer, no matter how hard I tried to run away from it.

The next evening, Kevin asked me to follow him down a hallway I hadn’t noticed before. “I want to show you something,” he said.

I kept my hand close to the inside of my jacket, braced for anything. He opened a locked door and led me inside.

What I found wasn’t what I expected. The room wasn’t filled with cash or power. Instead, it was packed with art. Paintings, sculptures, canvases leaning against the walls. Not the kind of stuff you buy at auctions to show off. These looked personal.

“I started collecting after my parents passed away,” he said quietly. “It was the only thing that felt real. Business is just numbers. This... this is something else.”

His voice had lost its usual edge. For the first time, he sounded vulnerable. I was at a loss for words. Vulnerability wasn’t something I allowed myself, and seeing it in him made me uncomfortable.

He paused in front of a painting of a storm over the ocean. “This one reminds me of them. Strong, beautiful, but always out of reach.”

I really looked at him then. The public persona was gone. What stood before me wasn’t the billionaire in the limelight. It was just a guy trying not to drown.

For a brief moment, I forgot myself. The walls I’d built around my heart thinned. I felt something I hadn’t in years—connection.

It scared me.

“I should check the perimeter,” I said quickly, stepping back.

Kevin gave me a small smile, as if he could see right through me. “Of course. Always working.”

I left the room quicker than I should have, my heart racing.

Later that night, when the house was still, I found the piano in the lounge. My fingers brushed the keys before I could stop myself. The first notes came out soft and uncertain, but muscle memory kicked in. I played a song I’d learned as a child, before The Order, before blood and shadows. The sound filled the empty room, shattering the silence I usually wrapped around myself.

For a few minutes, I wasn’t an assassin or a bodyguard. I was just Isabella, a girl who once believed in something gentle.

When the last note faded away, I sat there in the dark, staring at my hands. They had killed. They had saved. And now they had made music.

I didn’t know which version of me would endure this job. The weapon The Order created—or the woman Kevin was slowly, dangerously, drawing into the light.