Don't You Dare Not Love Me

"When it was time to bring the operation home, I was the one who snapped the cuffs on his wrists. He tilted his head back, looking up at me from his knees. The flashing blue and red lights painted his face in strobing color. ""Ava,"" he asked, his voice low and steady despite everything. ""Did you ever love me? Even a little?"" A smile found my lips. I leaned down and patted his cheek, the metal of the cuffs cold against my knuckles. ""Not for a second."" I straightened up. ""Enjoy the food in federal prison, Sebastian. My own personal Medal of Valor."" ... The next day, the man who had taken half the city's police force and a six-month surveillance operation to catch, escaped from custody. 1 The news broke while the ink on my commendation paperwork was still drying. The transport van heading to the East End correctional facility was hit by an IED. Nine officers dead, one critically wounded. Sebastian Vale, the target of a multi-agency task force, the man we'd spent two years hunting, hadn't even had time to get used to the feel of a prison bench before he was gone. I stood on the scorched asphalt, the ghost of smoke still acrid in the air, staring at the blackened blast pattern on the road. And to make a catastrophic situation worse, the consensus back at the precinct was clear. As the undercover officer who had spent two years by his side, who had not only played with his heart but had driven the final knife into his back, I was now, without a doubt, his number one target. 2 ""You don't look too happy, Agent Reed."" ...Nobody's happy when their Medal of Valor goes on the run. Twenty-seven hours after Sebastian Vale's escape, we had nothing. Fifteen drones, nearly every K-9 unit in the state, and a city-wide lockdown had turned up zero trace of him. He hadn't just vanished; he'd left a message. Scrawled in the blood of a dying officer on the overturned door of the transport van were four words: I'll recapture my rose. Who was the ""rose""? Every head in the briefing room swiveled to face me. ""You can all stare,"" I said, crossing my arms and shrugging. ""But the only thing this proves is that Sebastian Vale is a sucker for a love story."" What else could explain it? A man with the world crashing down around him, and his last question is whether I ever loved him. It was pathetic. Of course I didn't. My job was stressful enough without adding real feelings to the mix. 3 In the back of the squad car, my partner, Mark, handed me a tablet. ""We tracked a call Vale made from a public payphone after the breakout. The location might look familiar."" I looked down at the photo on the screen. An old brick apartment building in the warehouse district. ""Yeah,"" Mark said, reading my expression. ""It's the place you two shared."" After we'd made the ""relationship"" official, Sebastian and I had lived there for quite a while. Stepping inside, the first thing I saw was a pair of women's slippers next to a pair of men's boots by the door, a staged tableau of domesticity that felt like a lifetime ago. Everything looked untouched, except for the ashtray on the coffee table. It was filled with fresh ash. ""Lab report on the cigarette butts came back. It's Vale's brand, alright,"" Mark said, walking into the bedroom. He let out a low whistle. ""Guy's got balls. Hiding out here just hours after the escape. Playing the 'hide in plain sight' card."" Crime scene techs were dusting for prints, their cameras flashing, but I was somewhere else entirely. This was the first place Sebastian and I had called home. He was the first kingpin I was ever assigned to. 4 Right after graduating from the academy and inheriting my father's badge number, I was tapped for the undercover operation targeting Sebastian Vale. The reasons were simple: I looked like a college student, my eyes had a disarming clarity, and I had been the most ruthless hand-to-hand combatant in my graduating class. Back then, Sebastian wasn't the head of the largest narcotics syndicate on the West Coast. He was just an ambitious number two, but his youth and rapid ascent had put him on our radar. To take down the whole organization, we had to plant a fuse deep inside, and I was that fuse. My cover was a cashier at the 24-hour bodega on the ground floor of his apartment building. Every night, usually between eleven and midnight, he'd come down for a pack of cigarettes. He had this intense gaze, deep-set eyes, and always wore a black tactical jacket. The first time I saw him, I was surprised. For a rising drug trafficker, he was beautiful in a way that was almost jarring—skin so pale it was nearly luminous, with features that seemed carved from cold marble. To avoid spooking him, I waited two weeks before saying more than ""have a nice night."" I finally made my move, a simple comment as I handed him his change. ""You know, you buy a pack of these every night. You should try to cut back."" He raised an eyebrow, his cool gaze sweeping over me for a fraction of a second before he grunted a noncommittal ""hmph."" After that, I used that tiny opening to exchange a few sentences with him every night. Honestly, after weeks of this, I felt like I could have charmed a statue into bloom, but Sebastian remained completely unmoved. Thankfully, my backup team decided to accelerate the timeline. They orchestrated a small-scale bust on a lower rung of the supply chain. It wouldn't hurt the organization's core, but it was designed to wipe out a few minor crews, including the one Sebastian was affiliated with. Letting him escape, bleeding and barely alive, was part of the plan. It was my cue to ""find"" him in a dumpster-filled alley nearby. He was covered in blood when I got to him, the crimson stark against his pale skin. Even then, on the verge of collapse, his guard was up. I played my part perfectly—the terrified bodega girl. When he rasped, ""No hospitals,"" I took him back to my place. He stayed with me for the next few weeks, recuperating. Everything was meticulously staged. The location of his room, the way my towel ""accidentally"" slipped when I walked out of the bathroom, the unavoidable physical contact as I changed his bandages. I was bubbly, cheerful, doing everything I could to make him smile. I made him curry with the rice shaped like a teddy bear and tied his bandages into neat little bows. And yet, even with a man and a woman alone in a small apartment, he kept his distance for weeks. Night after night, I'd feel his eyes on me, dark and unreadable. The Captain kept telling me to be patient, but there were moments, watching him watch me, that a cold dread washed over me—the fear that I'd already been made. Then one night, after a late debrief with my handlers, I came home to a dark apartment. That was unusual; he always left a light on. ""Sebastian?"" I called out tentatively as I slipped off my shoes. No answer. As my hand fumbled for the light switch, a gentle touch grazed the back of my neck. In a split second, I fought down the instinct to spin around and throw him over my shoulder. Instead, I froze. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, his breath warm against my ear. My body went rigid. The feeling of being controlled by this stranger, this target, sent every nerve ending screaming in protest. But I had a mission. I knew what I had to do. Slowly, deliberately, I forced my body to relax, to melt into his embrace. His lips found the side of my neck, his kisses tender and searching. ... I had to be the naive girl, looking at him with wide, trusting eyes. Even after we were officially a ""couple,"" Sebastian remained quiet, watchful. His suspicion was a wall between us. That wasn't good enough. He had no idea the lengths I'd gone to for him. The things he liked, the things he hated, his subtle tells—the way his brow would lift almost imperceptibly when he liked a meal I cooked, the way the corner of his mouth would twitch into a half-smile when I wore a certain dress. I cataloged every detail, replaying them in my mind each night. Slowly, it started working. He began to laugh when I'd get spaghetti sauce on my nose. He'd gently stroke my hair when he found me asleep on the couch, waiting for him to come home. One night, he knelt in front of me, looking up with a soft expression. ""Sunshine,"" he murmured, ""why are you still up?"" In that moment, I knew. Phase one was complete. I had won. But it wasn't enough. I wasn't part of his future; I was a girlfriend he could discard at any moment. He never told me about his deals, his locations, or what exactly he was moving. Then, my opportunity arrived. I was targeted by one of Sebastian's rival syndicates. They snatched me off the street on my way to the farmers' market. Their goal was simple: use his girlfriend as leverage. They tied me to a chair and set up a camera. The man across from me laid it all out—told me my loving boyfriend was a ruthless drug lord, detailing Sebastian's cruelty, painting a picture of a monster. My mind was racing. I had to appear terrified, but not useless. Heartbroken, but not weak. I had to be a woman who was resolute, brave, and above all, utterly devoted to Sebastian. Eleven hours later, Sebastian walked into that dusty factory. He was born to wear black; it was the color of the shadows he commanded. My eyes, wide and tearful, locked onto his. But the man I had been sleeping next to for months just gave me a single, dismissive glance. ""The terms,"" he said, his voice clipped and devoid of emotion. ""Your three main suppliers,"" the man holding me said, pressing the barrel of a gun to the back of my head. ""And fifty kilos of the new product."" There was a long pause. Then, a cold, sharp laugh from Sebastian. ""You really think she's worth that much?"" He gave me one last look, a look of pure contempt, and turned to walk away. I watched his tall frame disappear into the darkness. In that moment, I truly believed I was going to die. But then, the gun at my head moved, shifting its aim toward Sebastian's retreating back. ""LOOK OUT!"" The instant before the trigger was pulled, I threw my entire body weight backward, knocking the gunman off balance. The shot went wide, but the momentum was uncontrolled. A bullet, meant for Sebastian, tore through the flesh of my arm. I'd been shot before, but always while wearing a vest. The searing pain blanked out my vision for a second. When it cleared, the men around me were being cut down in a hail of gunfire. Of course. Sebastian hadn't come alone. He had a fire team hidden in the shadows. He walked over to me, his face unreadable. The pain on my face was real. I stumbled toward him and collapsed into his arms, sobbing. He stiffened for a moment, surprised by the embrace. Then, after a long second, I felt his hand gently stroking my hair. ""Why?"" he whispered, his voice rough. ""I abandoned you. Why would you still save me?"" Because your backup would have Swiss-cheesed him before the bullet even left the chamber, I thought. But what I said was, ""I... I just reacted. It was just... instinct... to protect you."" In the darkness, I heard his voice soften. ""You don't care what I do?"" I shook my head against his chest. Sebastian Vale, I thought, the pain in my arm a searing promise. One day, you will be the shiniest medal on my uniform. 5 ""What's on your mind?"" A hand holding a lit cigarette pulled me from my thoughts. The smell of tobacco was foreign; it had been a long time. Many of my colleagues chain-smoked when they were stressed. But Sebastian didn't smoke. And to maintain my ""good girl"" image, neither did I. ""So, after this Medal of Valor comes through, they'll put you on desk duty, right?"" Mark and I were sitting on the steps of the precinct's back entrance. He ran a hand through his messy hair as he flipped through a case file. I nodded. For people like us, no matter the outcome, we were meant to fade away, to become ghosts in the system. ""What do you want to do? After you retire."" ""Teach English,"" I answered without hesitation. He raised an eyebrow. ""I think... I think I'd be a good teacher."" ... Sebastian had never finished high school. So I was the one who taught him English. Maybe I really did have a talent for it, or maybe he was just that smart. The same man who once struggled to say ""You are mine,"" could now declare war on the entire police department in perfect, taunting English. Because that's what this was. A declaration of war. A way to force me out into the open. By brazenly returning to our old apartment and leaving a trail, he was sending me a message: I will find you. No matter how many cops are protecting you, you can't run from me. ... ""That's why I don't think holing me up here is the right move,"" I said, leaning against the doorframe of the cheap motel room they'd stashed me in. Mark sighed, his shoulders slumping. ""He's coming for me, Mark. You should let him."" ""Don't talk like that,"" he said tiredly. ""Nobody's life is expendable. We don't sacrifice our own unless there is absolutely no other choice."" When I didn't respond, he stood up and put a hand on my shoulder. ""Ava, you know better than anyone what these monsters do to undercovers who are burned."" ... Bright sunlight sliced through a gap in the blackout curtains, a single, dancing line of dust motes in the dim room. Of course I knew. My father had been the captain of the Westbridge City Narcotics Division. A foreign cartel put a million-dollar bounty on his head. I was still at the academy when my uncle, also a cop, found his body. I should thank my father. He gave his daughter one last, brutal lesson. Because in my entire life, I have never seen a corpse more mutilated than his. After that day, nothing I saw on the job could ever shake me. My dad always told me that for a narcotics detective, a Medal of Valor is something you usually get after you're dead. I decided then and there that I was going to get one while I was still alive, just to show him, wherever he was. ... Day three of Sebastian's escape. The department's criminal profiler was grilling me for details again. As the person who had been closest to him, every insight I had was priceless. After I took that bullet for him, Sebastian had slowly started to let me in. And I discovered something crucial: he was starved for love. It was the perfect vulnerability. He'd had almost no romantic contact with women his entire life. He was an orphan, raised by human traffickers. He was smart and charming enough to avoid the fate of the other kids—maimed and sent to beg on the streets—but his childhood was a wasteland of cruelty and pain. He probably didn't even realize how desperately he craved a gentle, kind soul to love him. Sebastian was a natural criminal: decisive, calm, obsessive, and brutal. But as a lover, he was a fool. He was too eager to drown in affection, desperate to please the person he cared about. He tried to act indifferent, but his micro-expressions betrayed him every time. So, even though I was no expert in romance myself, I used every psychological tactic I'd learned at the academy to reel him in. It was clumsy at times, but I got him. The final step was to embed a hook in his heart so deep he could never remove it. What's more powerful than a lifetime of devotion? A lifetime of devotion that is suddenly, violently snatched away. As Sebastian climbed the ladder of his organization, women naturally started to gravitate toward him. They knew about me, the official ""girlfriend,"" but that didn't stop the butterflies from flocking to him. The most dangerous of them was a woman named Ruby. Ruby was her business name, I assumed. She was stunning, a completely different style from me. If I was sunshine and innocence, she was a beautiful, poison-tipped needle. And she had her sights set on Sebastian, and my position. On paper, she was the owner of a chain of local nightclubs. In reality, she was the biggest independent distributor in her territory. If she and Sebastian teamed up, it would be a power merger, and I'd be out of the picture. She saw me as a naive little student, someone she could crush without a second thought. At the time, my relationship with Sebastian had hit a plateau. He was still good to me, doting even, but he never explicitly rejected Ruby's advances. And I thought, Perfect. The hero, the villain, the other woman. It was the setup for a perfect tragedy. If I played my part right, he would never, ever forget me. ...The stage was a corporate yacht party. Publicly, it was the annual gala for some shell corporation. In reality, it was a summit for the region's top traffickers. We had assets on board, hidden among the crew. The whole night was a powder keg. I was there as Sebastian's girlfriend. But Ruby pushed, relentlessly. First, she tried to humiliate me during the reception, then she brazenly flirted with Sebastian right in front of me. He didn't stop her. And right there, I knew something was wrong. Even if he was losing interest, he wouldn't disrespect me so publicly, not when I was known to everyone as his girl. Later that night, I walked into his stateroom after a shower. He grabbed my wrist and slammed me against the doorframe. ""Ava,"" he said, his voice dangerously low. ""Swear to me. Swear you've never lied to me."" For a second, my blood ran cold. I saw my entire mission, my life, crumbling. I had already pictured my triumphant return, but now I wasn't even sure I'd make it back in one piece. But he'd said ""swear."" Swear. That meant he had no proof. It was just a suspicion, probably planted by Ruby. He was trying to decide if I was a cop. He wasn't sure. I couldn't be too defensive, but I couldn't be too calm either. ""I have never lied to you,"" I said, meeting his gaze, repeating his words back to him like a sacred vow. He let go of my wrist. ""Sebastian, I—"" I reached for him, but he pulled away. ""I didn't lie to you..."" My voice trembled, a perfect performance of hurt. ""Go back to your room, Ava,"" he said, his tone softening slightly, but the command was absolute. I didn't move. I reached for his hand again. He pushed me away, not hard, but enough to make me stumble back. I just stared at him, my eyes wide with disbelief. ""Ruby was right,"" he said, his dark eyes boring into me. ""Maybe you are just a very, very good actress."" I watched him, incredulous. ""You'd rather believe her than me?"" ... The only answer I got was the solid click of the door shutting in my face. The tears that welled in my eyes vanished the second I was alone. Sebastian's instincts were sharp. I didn't think it was just Ruby. It was his own gut, his seventh sense, telling him something was off. With a man like that, no matter how perfect my cover was, suspicion was always a risk. And once the seed of doubt was planted, it was only a matter of time before it grew into a conviction. I needed to do something drastic. And thanks to Ruby, I had the perfect stage. 6 I had always told Sebastian I was afraid of the water. In truth, I was the captain and gold medalist of my high school swim team. The pieces you put on the board early in the game sometimes come in handy when you least expect it. There was another undercover officer on the yacht, disguised as a crew member. He'd told me that a specific spot on the edge of the top deck was perfectly covered by a security camera. According to the ship's route, we would be passing a small, uninhabited island about half a mile off our port side. The sea was calm that night. By 2 a.m., the deck was deserted. I stood in the exact spot we'd planned, perfectly framed by the camera. The wind whipped my white dress around my legs. I typed out a text message to Sebastian. I know I'm not as smart as her, or as powerful. But maybe this... ...maybe this will prove I never lied to you. Then I jumped. ... The drama of faking a suicide to prove your love and innocence is amplified a thousand times when the target is a man starved for affection. I won't bore you with the details of that night: how I navigated half a mile of open ocean with only a compass and the glowing dial of my sports watch; how I collapsed on a sandy beach, fighting off birds that thought I was a corpse, while waiting for my contact. It was the kind of harrowing experience you could write a novel about. Eventually, an officer picked me up in a small inflatable boat, and I spent the next few weeks hiding out and recovering in a fishing village on a different island. The ordeal had left me with more than a few injuries. During that time, I heard that Sebastian was tearing the ocean apart looking for me. Even with the security footage clearly showing his ""non-swimmer"" girlfriend leaping into the sea to prove her devotion, he refused to believe I was dead. Witnesses said they'd never seen him so unhinged, commandeering dozens of fishing boats for the search. He found me on a day when the setting sun bled across the water. I was sitting on a small stool outside a fisherman's hut, my hair in a single braid, watching the light fade. I had calculated the angle. From where he would first see me, my profile would look tragic, beautiful, and devastatingly fragile. All that effort paid off. He stumbled toward me, his steps unsteady, and pulled me into an embrace so tight I thought my ribs would crack. Men. They're all the same. They crave a woman who will destroy herself for them, a woman who asks for nothing in return. I could feel myself being absorbed into him. I parted my lips, my voice deliberately soft and hoarse. ""Sebastian,"" I whispered. ""You could have just let me go."" ""I'm okay."" ""If you want to be with her, just let me go."" ""Just... just tell me to my face,"" I choked out, ""that you don't want me anymore..."" I felt his body go rigid. His fingers threaded gently through my hair. This was different from before. This time, it was real. Sebastian was hooked. He was the one who couldn't leave me now. I rested my chin in the crook of his neck. If jumping into the ocean was a gamble, then in that moment, I knew. I had won the whole damn pot. ""So, where do you think he'd go? Now that he's out."" ""He's a madman, Mark. How am I supposed to know what a madman is thinking?"" In the office, the ceiling fan spun lazily. Light filtered through the blinds, striping the room where my exhausted colleagues were hitting one dead end after another. No tips, no sightings. He'd vanished. And yet, we all knew he would surface again. Sebastian Vale was not the type to let things go. ""Ava's family is secure, right?"" the captain asked the room. ""She's burned. We can't rule out the possibility that Vale will retaliate against her relatives,"" Mark said, rubbing his temples as he looked over at me. He was right. Now that my identity was compromised, my entire family was under 24/7 police protection. Everything should have been fine. But my right eye had been twitching all day. I'm not superstitious, but some of the older guys on the force are. They have little rituals, like eating their favorite meal before a big bust to see if the taste is off—a ""tell,"" they call it. My breakfast this morning tasted like ash. I sat at my desk, my head down. This mission was supposed to be my ticket to a quiet desk job. I was already planning my vacation. It felt like the universe was playing a cruel joke. The door to the briefing room burst open. A uniformed officer rushed in, his eyes wide with panic. When his gaze landed on me, my stomach dropped. ""Agent Reed,"" he panted. ""It's your nephew."" ... "He was found at nine this morning, near the East Maple Road market." I sat in the car, a thick fog filling my head as the officer recited the report. ""Multiple injection sites. Upper arm, wrist, inner thigh. Prelim tox report shows a massive, repeated overdose of heroin."" ""He's at First General. In surgery now."" ""..."" Sebastian's revenge... had begun. I opened my mouth, but no words came out. A buzzing filled my ears. Stay calm, stay calm. What did I need to ask? What was the question? ""He had a protection detail, didn't he? How the hell did this happen?"" Mark's voice was sharp, cutting through my haze. ""The kid's a senior in high school. Finals are coming up,"" the officer explained, looking miserable. ""His mom said he couldn't miss any more school. So they scaled back the detail to just escorts to and from."" ""Somehow, they still got to him..."" ... I remembered. I'd promised my nephew, Leo, that if he got into a top-tier school, I'd buy him a top-of-the-line gaming PC. Now, he was in an operating room, and I was standing outside it. My cousin's raw, guttural sobs echoed in the sterile hallway, hammering against my eardrums. In my hand, I clutched an evidence bag containing a small, folded piece of paper. They'd found it in Leo's pocket. A message from Sebastian. His handwriting was messy, but sharp, just like him. It said: Don't you dare not love me."

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