Because Lara wasn’t just so girl growing up under his foster father’s ticulous ’care’.
She was his weapon. An assassin on a mission to destroy a family and then to kill a general.
Yannis pressed his thumb against the bridge of his nose.
He could still rember the first ti he read her psychological profile years ago.
Subject displays exceptional emotional suppression.
High adaptability.
Minimal hesitation toward lethal force.
He had closed the file halfway through. Not because he disagreed.
Because he knew exactly how his foster father had created her.
Piece by piece.
The brutal training. The absolute obedience.
The isolation in the mountain cave. The mountains themselves.
He could not imagine how Lara survived those. But she did, and each ti, she erged stronger, while he ... he could only tend to her wounds and gave her painkillers so she could sleep.
And sowhere inside that process, Lara had stopped being a girl...
She beca sothing sharper. Sothing colder. Sothing the world feared.
But tonight...
He saw none of that.
Tonight she frowned over a password like an ordinary woman trying to rember her birthday.
Tonight she insisted on paying for the next al because she didn’t like owing people.
Tonight she humd quietly when she was thinking.
Carefree. Light. Unburdened.
Yannis leaned against a streetlamp and stared up at the dark sky.
Part of him wanted to protect this version of her.
Selfishly.
If Lara never recovered her mories...she would never rember the blood.
She would not rember the missions, especially the new one.
Those nights she ca back covered in silence, she would not recall those.
But he was hoping that...
She would rember the young man who stood beside her, pretending to be nothing more than a brother.
His chest tightened.
Because the other half of him wanted the exact opposite.
He wanted her to rember.
He wanted the past to return like a flood breaking through a dam.
Not for his foster father, not for the mission.
But for one simple reason.
In that past— in her past, he existed, not as a stranger. Not as so doctor, she politely thanked over dinner, but as soone she trusted.
Soone she chose to stand beside.
Soone she called family.
And if she rembered that...
Maybe she would rember him.
The real him.
Yannis let out a quiet laugh, though it carried a trace of bitterness.
"Pathetic," he muttered to himself.
A psychiatrist hoping his patient would regain mories just so she might rember him.
That was dangerously close to crossing the line.
No.
If he were being honest...he had already crossed it.
The mont he handed her the diary tonight.
His eyes darkened slightly.
Inside that leather book weren’t just mory prompts.
There were photographs. Old ones.
Pieces of her past carefully arranged like stepping stones.
If she followed them...
Her mories would return faster.
Which ant one thing.
Yannis was no longer pretending neutrality.
He had made a choice.
Whether he admitted it or not.
He pushed himself off the lamp post and began walking again.
But the thought of Ares surfaced again, unwelco and persistent.
The way Lara had looked confused by his irritation. The way Ares rushed her out of the restaurant.
The way his presence wrapped around her like silent territory.
Yannis’s jaw tightened.
"Troubleso man."
He adjusted his glasses slightly.
Ares might not realize it yet.
But Lara’s mory recovery had already begun.
And when it did...
The woman who would return wouldn’t be the gentle, curious girl sitting across from him tonight.
She would be the assassin the world feared.
And when that day ca—
Yannis wondered which version of Lara Ares would be able to handle.
The innocent woman who humd softly over dinner.
Or the one who could end a life before the victim realized they were already dead.
A faint smile returned to his lips.
Because, unlike Ares... Yannis had known both versions of her.
And he had loved her through each one.
Even if he never had the right to say it.
...
Lara ca into Shay’s room to check on her. She was surprised to see that Scarlet was there, holding a storybook and Shay fast asleep.
Scarlet left the bed and walked toward the door.
"Don’t ever think you can take Ares from ," Scarlet said. Her voice was toned down but was full of venom.
Lara raised an eyebrow.
"I can get close to Shay, too." She puffed her chest. "And rember this, Ares and I have a history together."
"History," Lara said calmly, "is valuable. But it stays in books."
Scarlet’s smile faltered slightly.
"The present," Lara continued, "is what shapes the future."
There was no raised voice. No hostility. Just quiet confidence.
Scarlet studied her more carefully now.
You’re not intimidated. Interesting.
"You seem very certain," Scarlet said.
"I am certain of one thing," Lara replied. "I don’t take what isn’t mine."
Scarlet’s eyes narrowed subtly.
"And what do you believe is yours?"
For the first ti, a flicker passed through Lara’s gaze.
Sothing ancient, asured and regal.
"I don’t need to claim anything," she said. "What belongs with will choose to stay."
The air shifted.
Scarlet felt it.
This wasn’t the insecurity of a hired governess.
This was sothing else. Sothing grounded and dangerous.
Scarlet spoke again, softer now.
"Just be careful, Larissa Reyes. n like Ares... they don’t tolerate emotional confusion nor won who act pitiful!"
There it was. The probe.
Lara didn’t react. Not outwardly.
But internally, sothing stirred.
Scarlet stepped back, restoring her smile.
"I’d hate for Shay to get hurt because adults don’t understand their own hearts."
That was the real warning. Not about Ares but about access and influence.
Scarlet returned toward the bed first, perfectly composed.
Lara lingered near the door a mont longer before heading to the balcony.
Sentra’s skyline stretched before her.
Glass towers, steel ambition, and a modern empire.
And sowhere deep inside her, beneath this life, beneath this na—
A queen stirred, watching...and calculating.
Scarlet wanted to say sothing but changed her mind and bolted out of the door.
Lara, on the other hand, changed into comfortable sleepwear and sat beside Shay when there was a knock at the door.
She opened it and was surprised to see Ares.
"I just saw Scarlet co out of the room. What were you two doing?"
Lara frowned. Does he think I bullied Scarlet?
"We just talked." She said simply.
A muscle flexed in his jaw.
"And what did you tell her?"
Lara’s lips curved faintly.
"That history has a habit of returning. That the present decides the future."
For a long second, they held each other’s gaze.
Sothing unspoken passed between them.
Scarlet might have history.
But Ares was no longer looking at history.
He was looking at Lara.
And for the first ti—
He wasn’t sure who had just been warned.
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