Chapter 29
I ’d barely gotten a chance to say goodbye to Adam’s family.
It was ridiculous that after less than a day there, nearly all of it spent trying to convince them I wasn’t what they wanted me to be, I was devastated that my unexpected time with his family was being cut short.
But I’d wanted more of their stories that never seemed to end. I’d wanted more of the way Adam and his siblings constantly threw things, and his mom seemed to appear out of nowhere, ready to lovingly reprimand one of them with food and a soft smack on the back of the head. I’d wanted more days of being curled up on the couch, watching as they all passionately spoke in two languages at once, and witnessing their dad’s outright joy whenever he spoke to anyone.
A joy that was so completely pure, it was no wonder Adam had clocked mine as fake the moment he met me.
I’d just wanted more time, but Adam had haphazardly thrown everything into his bag, and we’d been gone within ten minutes of when Cameron had first stormed into the room, demanding we leave.
The drive to the airport had been filled with tense conversations between Cameron, Adam, and whoever Cameron had called. Not one of the Shadow crew, and someone I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, given how he made Asher sound like a child on Christmas morning. I’d slept off the remnants of my exhaustion and vertigo on the plane’s couch while the guys had worked nonstop. But the drive home was filled with a heavy silence.
Adam and Cameron were apparently done planning, as well as talking. Unfortunately, that meant Adam wasn’t talking to me either. He hadn’t spoken to me since before we’d left his parents’ house. And other than glancing over at me every few minutes from where he’d elected to sit with me in the second row of Cameron’s truck, a seat away, he didn’t acknowledge me at all.
Then again, from the worried glances he’d given me ever since he’d more or less let me know he planned to kill Owen, I had a feeling he thought he’d finally succeeded in freaking me out.
He wouldn’t be wrong.
But this wasn’t a get-away-from-me, I’m-reconsidering-everything kind of panic, it was...well, it just was .
I didn’t know what all they’d done during their time in the military, and I was sure I didn’t want to know, but I had no doubt every member of the Shadow Industries team had killed someone. Well, maybe not Beau, since he’d been brought in later. But even if Lainey hadn’t filled me in on the small bits of their pasts she was allowed to know and share, Adam had already told me what he was capable of.
“People like that usually turn out to be threats, Bubbles. Now, tell me why I’d let a threat set foot anywhere near my family. Tell me why I’d let a threat live.”
“Chloe, I could kill you without ever waking up. Don’t you get that?”
So, I’d already known, just as I’d known they weren’t idle words. But knowing what he could do and hearing his intentions were totally different things.
I sat up when I snapped out of my thoughts enough to realize where we were— definitely not my adorable neighborhood —and glanced around at the land leading up to Asher’s expansive farmhouse. “What are we...this isn’t my house,” I said pointlessly.
When more silence filled the car, Cameron glanced back as if checking to see if Adam would respond, then said, “Everyone’s gonna gather here. It’s safer for now,” he added just as I started asking why .
I looked over in time to see Adam tear his gaze from me and drag his tattooed hands over his face. When they fell to his lap, he looked more worried than before and equally determined.
The third car garage door opened as we were driving up, surprising me because it didn’t look like anyone was home, and I was sure the guys had said Asher and Lainey weren’t getting back to Texas until this evening.
But when Cameron pulled his truck in, both Hudson and Mallory were waiting for us in the garage.
“If it isn’t my new favorite,” Hudson called out when I hopped out of the truck.
I gave him my best smile, refusing to let anyone else see what this day was doing to me. “I’m surprised you haven’t found another new favorite yet,” I tossed back as I shut the door behind me and stepped forward to get my bag out of the front passenger seat, only to stagger back when I came face to face with Adam.
Worried eyes studied me as he gently guided me back in that way I was becoming increasingly familiar with—nothing more than his fingers pressed to my stomach.
He reached for the handle of the door I’d been going for, his head dipping low to whisper, “Give that mask to whoever you need to, Bubbles. But promise me you’ll drop it when it’s just us.”
I felt my eyebrows pull close. “That’s what it took to get you to talk to me? Hudson?”
A heated shiver tore through me when he let his fingers spread across my stomach and around my waist until he was gently gripping me and pulling me closer. “I saw the look on your face earlier. I was giving you time.”
“Time to what ?” I asked earnestly. “Realize you saying one admittedly terrifying thing is going to change how I feel?”
“Yes,” he said resolutely.
My head moved in slow shakes. “If you’d found out I’d actually been hiding something the way you’d assumed—that I was actually a threat—would that have changed the way you feel?”
His jaw clenched as he stared at me, clearly battling over what he knew he should say and what he couldn’t. Because, as I now knew, he’d started falling for me even when he’d thought I was a threat to him and the people he loved.
“You could’ve just talked to me,” I said softly.
“Then tell me what you’re thinking,” he begged just as quietly, his hand flexing against me.
I instinctively glanced to the side and nearly choked on the breath I’d just taken when I saw we weren’t alone. “Hudson’s smiling at us,” I whispered when I met Adam’s stare again.
Adam glanced over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing when Hudson wryly said, “Don’t mind me.”
With a heavy sigh, Adam focused on me again. “We won’t have time once we go in there,” he informed me. “There’s a lot the team needs to go over and prepare for. A lot we need to try to fix.”
“Go,” I told him, jerking my chin in the direction of where Hudson stood. “Do what y’all have to.”
“Talk to me,” he begged on a whisper, drawing me even closer.
“Adam, we can?—”
“My head isn’t gonna be in it,” he said over me. “I’m gonna be worrying about you and this the entire time, and I need my head to be clear so I can do my job.”
I released a heavy sigh before relenting. “I already said it was terrifying to listen to you say you were gonna destroy Owen—that you were gonna enjoy it—and it was. It’s unsettling to think about anyone actually killing someone, let alone planning it. And, yes, it’s worse that it’s Owen, but not because I want to be with him, or anything like that.
“It’s that he’s someone I know,” I explained and felt embarrassment heat my cheeks. “It’s that I did love him and thought I was gonna be with him forever—not that any of it was real. But it felt real at one point, and that part of me hurts at the thought of him dying.”
“Chloe, he kidnaps and traffics women,” Adam ground out. “He’s setting you up to kidnap and traffic you .”
A shuddering breath escaped me at the reminder. “I know. I know, but killing?—”
“He just had another woman taken this morning,” he continued over me, shocking me into horrified silence. “We think he did it because we got you away from here. We think it was his way of getting us back here—getting you back here.”
I didn’t realize my breaths were coming too quick and too shallow until Adam curled his hands around my cheeks and forced me to look at him.
“Breathe for me,” he said softly yet firmly. “I won’t let him anywhere near you.”
“But—” My chest pitched and ached as my stomach rolled, this time not having anything to do with the altitude.
First Lainey, now this woman, all because I’d fallen for Owen’s charms...
“Breathe,” Adam commanded as he pressed his forehead to mine.
A strained sob wrenched from me. “Who was she?”
“This isn’t on you,” he whispered, sensing where my thoughts had gone. “We messed up by focusing on the wrong people here, but we’re looking for her. All right?” When my head just shook, he repeated, “We’re looking for her.”
“But everyone’s at this house or flying.”
He hesitated before saying, “Trust me.” Leaning back, he lifted my head to search my eyes as he repeated his earlier vow. “I won’t let Vance get anywhere near you. But he’s already shown he doesn’t care that you now have all of us around you, and guys like him ? They don’t stay in jail, if they even go, which means he needs to be taken out.”
My jaw trembled as I processed what he was saying. “And you? I’m pretty sure you don’t have a mafia family to keep you out of prison, and murder usually has a long sentence attached to it.”
One side of Adam’s face pinched in both offense at my assumption and worry for my next reaction. “Yeah...I was trained so I wouldn’t get caught.”
A desperate laugh bled from me at the insinuation, not that I should’ve expected anything less with their background.
“The only thing we need to worry about with this is retaliation from the Wreckers, which we’re already dealing with anyway,” he told me, his head subtly bobbing before slanting in hesitation. “Briggs might have a plan for that, though.”
“Might,” I said on a heavy breath.
“We’ll take care of this,” he said unquestionably. “No matter which plans succeed and fail, we’ll end this.”
His dark eyebrows drew close as one of his thumbs brushed across my bottom lip, then trailed to my jaw as he searched my face. “I didn’t understand the rash decisions Briggs made, or the lengths he went to when he thought Lainey and Kaia were being targeted by the Wreckers, but I get it now,” he mumbled. “I would go to war to keep you safe. Gladly.”
My heart stuttered before taking off at an unforgiving pace at the stunning declaration. Because I knew those words weren’t a superficial statement tossed out by someone who didn’t know their meaning. Adam understood their weight. He was haunted by the aftermath. And he’d do it all over again...for me.
And that... that I understood. Wholeheartedly. It wasn’t any less terrifying than what he’d vowed to me that morning, but I understood it.
I placed my hand over the thunderous beating against his own chest and whispered, “And here I thought you hated me, Superman.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Tried to,” he teased before capturing my lips. The kiss was soft and slow but no less passionate, as if he was sealing every one of his promises with the kiss alone, and it had my body buzzing and my world spinning in the best possible way.
“Talk to me,” he begged against my lips. When I just looked up at him as he pulled away, slightly dazed from the kiss, he prompted, “What else were you thinking?”
“Oh.” A breathless laugh tumbled free as I tried to reorient my thoughts. “Um, nothing. Nothing; that was it, except I wished we hadn’t had to leave.” I lifted my shoulders. “I wanted more time with your family.”
A smile lazily pulled at the corners of his mouth before he stole another kiss—this one firm and quick. “I’ll take you back there,” he vowed. “Soon.”
My eyes widened at the implication because Adam and I weren’t, well, anything , and as I’d already found out, not just anyone could be taken back to his parents’.
But before I could ask if he realized what he was saying—if he was sure —he gently turned me so my back was pressed to the truck. Caging me in and brushing his mouth across mine, teasing me and making me lean in to get more of the feather-soft kiss. “Can you wait until Christmas? Or should we make a trip for Thanksgiving?”
Amusement bubbled from me as I playfully pushed him back. “Considering your parents’ rules, I’d say you’re awfully sure of something that hasn’t even started.”
His smile turned downright sinful. “Bubbles...we started the second I began choking on that donut. It just took me a minute to realize it and stop fighting against this .”
Curling my hand against his shirt, I pulled him toward me again, accepting the next kiss eagerly?—
And jolting when Cameron barked, “ Thatch .”
Adam shifted back just enough for me to see the enjoyment in his eyes, then cleared his throat. “On my way,” he told Cameron without ever turning around.
I glanced over his shoulder at the giant Viking in time for him to say, “I need him, Chloe.”
“Yes, sir,” I said seriously, then halfheartedly shoved at Adam’s chest when he pulled me closer. “You need to go,” I weakly reprimanded as he drew me in for one last kiss that I immediately melted into.
Slow and perfect, assuring and powerful, and enough to make my knees weak.
“Stay close,” he said once it ended, switching into Shadow Adam mode, then finally opened the passenger door and grabbed our bags. “If you need your phone for anything, let me know. Otherwise, we need it in case Vance reaches out to you.” He glanced at me as he shut the door with his elbow. “That okay?”
I gave a little shrug. “I don’t need it for anything. My parents think I’m in Aruba, so they won’t be calling.”
He nodded absentmindedly as he searched my face as if he was trying to memorize it. With a determined exhale, he said, “Let’s go.”
I followed him into the house, winding through until we stumbled upon where the rest of the Shadow crew sat around the large dining table—laptops, tablets, drinks, and food scattered everywhere.
“Take long enough?” Mallory asked from where she was staring at a laptop, but the corner of her mouth was twitching with amusement.
“‘You have bewitched me, body and soul,’” Hudson began, then grabbed my hand and twirled me into his arms like we were on a ballroom floor. Giving me a devilishly handsome smile once I settled against his chest and was sure I wasn’t going to fall over, thanks to the unexpected spin and my heels, he continued the quote in—what I was sure was—his swooniest drawl, “‘And I love, I love, I love you.’”
My head tilted back with a laugh as he went on.
“‘I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.’”
“Relentless,” I said as I pushed against his chest, trying to free myself.
“Nerd,” he tossed back just as playfully.
Before Hudson and I could fully separate from each other, I was pulled away and abruptly settled against a steel wall of a chest. The tattooed arm wrapped firmly and possessively around my waist did the wildest things to my heart and my fluttering stomach.
Whether the reaction was more from the act itself, the intention behind it, or that Adam was boldly claiming me in front of the people he admired most, I wasn’t sure. I also wasn’t sure I cared because... swoon .
But before I could clear my romance-loving mind enough to tease Hudson about the quote, Adam asked, “You sure you wanna do this?” his voice dark and low and startling me.
I twisted to look up at him, a stilted laugh punching from my lungs as I reminded him, “It’s Hudson, Superman. He’s harmless.”
“Hey,” Hudson said, only partially sounding offended, but he was smiling good naturedly when I focused on him again.
“Did you really watch Pride and Prejudice ?” I asked excitedly.
At that, his mock offense deepened. “ Watch it?”
I gave Hudson a dry look. “That quote isn’t in the book...”
He made a face and gestured to me as if to say point proven . “Nerd.”
“Valiant effort though,” I told him and felt my entire body light up when Adam smoothly settled me back against his chest. Once again, right there, in front of nearly all his friends.
As if this was something we did. As if he was truly that comfortable in whatever we were. As if we hadn’t been working through so many suspicions, worries, and miscommunications just this afternoon. As if a part of me wasn’t still worried I’d wake up tomorrow to find out none of this had been real either...
Hudson’s approving stare bounced between us before he winked at me. “I try,” he said as he walked to the table and sank into one of the chairs.
Squeezing Adam’s hand, I maneuvered out of his hold and softly repeated, “Harmless.”
He gripped my hand before I could slip away and gave me a grave look. “Tell me that the next time a girl falls into my arms and tells me she loves me.” My stomach dropped as I remembered Wren hanging onto Adam and touching him, and the way he’d smiled at her. “Exactly,” Adam murmured as if sensing I was imagining something I really didn’t want to be.
“Gray still hits on Lainey,” Cameron said from where he was tapping on a tablet, never looking up from it. “If Briggs can get over it, you can too. Now, get set up.”
I forced away the unwanted memory, knowing it didn’t mean anything. Not to Wren, who acted that way with every guy, and not to Adam, given all the things he’d said to me.
Right?
Slipping my hand from Adam’s, I gave him an understanding smile and whispered, “I’m gonna go read on the couch before Cameron has me fired for being a distraction.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed as they darted over my face, easily catching onto the worries I was trying not to think about, but he let me go. Watching intently as I grabbed my purse off the top of my suitcase and hurried away.
Once I was away from the dining room, I released a slow, weighted breath as I fought the insecurities that were quick to return.
I didn’t want to be one of those annoying, insecure women I sometimes read about. I wanted to be confident in myself and...well, I wasn’t sure there was an us yet, but... us .
But I’d been that confident woman with Owen, who’d been my first everything , and I’d missed every single lie. I hadn’t seen how he’d been controlling me until it was far too late. I’d failed to notice the darkness that apparently emanated from within him.
Not that Adam was anything like him. Not that he treated me in any way like Owen had. Not that I’d ever felt an inkling of that nauseating chill with Adam. But some hurts weren’t surface level. Some cut deep and lingered, never fully healing. I had a feeling having a man manipulate all your thoughts and wants until you could no longer trust yourself was one of those hurts.
Slipping my book free, I stepped out of my heels and set my purse next to the couch, then settled onto the plush cushions, determined to get lost in the pages I’d been struggling through all weekend. But hours later, I was still there. Curled into the same position, hand pressed against my chest, staring at the pages but not seeing the words as I replayed every conversation with Adam these past days. Every look, every touch, every kiss...
Chills skated across my arms at the same moment I realized why I was pressing a hand to my chest.
It was hard to breathe. It felt like there was a weight on me I couldn’t lift. But this weight and those chills...they felt like a warning.
I slowly lifted my head and glanced over the back of the couch, in the direction of where I could hear the hushed sounds of Adam and the other Shadow members talking, as they had been ever since I’d left. Each pained beat of my heart felt so heavy and so sluggish as I listened, waiting for some sign of what had caused the reaction in me.
When nothing happened, I contemplated going and sitting in the dining room with them for a few seconds before realizing that was ridiculous. It was most likely just my subconscious leaking through, worrying about what Owen had done—what he was still trying to do.
I forced as deep of an exhale as my lungs would allow and settled back against the couch, a scream clawing up my throat when I saw the four strange men standing in the room with me.