Page 82 of Shadow Man

“Can you walk?” He crouches down to assess my injuries. My cuts and bruises weave a tale of abuse, but the dried blood on the inside of my thighs tells of a much darker story. I meet his eyes and an unspoken tragedy passes between us.

“I–I’m not so sure,” I stutter.

“I need to shoot. I can't do that with you in my arms.”

I nod again, slow and hesitant. I can't seem to take anything in. My brain is shaking as hard as the rest of me, making everything loose and unreal.

“Stay close to me,” he says, cupping my cheeks with his hands, absorbing my flinch; refusing to let me go anyway. “I won’t let them touch you again.”

“Are you my moon?” The words fly from my mouth in a tangle of hope and desperation.Is he the one to guide me home?

There’s a pause. “No, sweetheart. You’re your own moon.”

“But I can't find her! I can’t find her!” My voice rises hysterically. “My sky is all black. I don’t know how to fix me!”

“One day at a time, sweetheart.” His grip tightens on my face. “You and I are goddamn survivors, Anna. You hear me?”

“I can't do it on my own. Find me, Joseph Grayson,” I beg him. “When all of this is over… Help me put the pieces back together again.”

“I will find you again, Anna. I will protect you until you’re strong enough to protect yourself.”

“How will I know?” I say, crying softly, needing his reassurance like air and water. “How will I know you’ll keep your word?”

There’s a pause. “Because I will hang my promise around my neck for all to see, myLunagirl. I will hang it there to remind you of just how fucking committed I am to it. And when you see it, and you want to take it, I’ll be here waiting for you to fucking claim it.”

“Okay,” I whisper.

“Okay,” he says, pulling out his gun.

There’s a twister blowing up inside of him as he takes my hand and leads me from the room. It’s a storm that’s binding us together. It’s a blizzard to blow all of our pain away. It’s something that was set in motion long before there was a sidewalk, a stare and a red dress, but tonight?

Tonight, that twister is turning for me.

33

Joseph

The jet banks sharply and then rights itself for our final descent. The ocean is a strip of violent blue beneath us. Dante’s island is glinting like a not-too-distant jewel on the horizon, and Anna can’t seem to take her eyes off it.

“Holy shit,” she breathes. “Now I get why she married you, Santiago.”

His resultant glare is tossed across the aisle at her, but she returns it with a flick of her middle finger.

“Bad girl,” I murmur into her ear and she wriggles her ass against my dick as sweet punishment.

“A bad guy wouldn’t have any other,” she says, locking her arm around my neck and drowning me in her scent again. I steal a taste of her happiness in a kiss and feel a small hand toying with the rings on my chain. “Just tell me one thing. Did you buy them to prove a point, or are you actually intending to—?”

I shut her up with another kiss. “A shadow never shares his secrets,” I murmur, trapping her jaw between my fingers. The outlines of her bruises are still visible from the car accident in Colombia, but she’s never looked more alive. Beneath her skin is that emerging butterfly again, and I want to be present for every beat of those beautiful new wings. “Get back in your seat. We’re landing.” I tip her off my knee, but her river-deeps are still gleaming at me.

“Keep on turning, Joseph,” she says quietly. “Whatever happens, just keep on turning for me.”

I frown at her. “What—?”

This time it’s her who shuts me up, not with a kiss, but with the lightest touch of her finger to my mouth. “I don't know who you are or where you’ve come from,” she says, her eyes darting across my face in a way that makes me forget my own fucking name. “There are scars on your soul that may never heal. You’re a killer and a savage, and the secrets in your past scare me more than your trigger finger sometimes. But you showed me I had too much time running through my veins to stop all the clocks.”

I think of my brother in that moment. I think of sitting on straw bales the day the Texas sun set on his life. I remember him telling me I’d catch the right one when it came my way.

“Does this mean your pussy’s back on the menu later?” I shake off her finger and temper my crude words with a smirk.