Chapter 6 #2
Her throat works like she’s swallowing glass. I can tell she didn’t expect this, not from me.
I lean back, exhaling slowly. “So no, Willow. I’m not turning you in. Because frankly? I think you did what needed doing.”
The words hang between us, heavier than any curtain.
She swallows hard, then narrows her eyes. “And what about you? You’re really not worried I’ll out you?”
My laugh is hollow. “Every day of my life I’m worried someone will out me. You?” I lock eyes with her, willing her to see the truth. “You need me quiet just as much as I need you quiet. These secrets? They die with us.”
Something flickers in her expression—fear, relief, and something warmer.
Trust. Fragile, dangerous trust.
I can’t help softening my voice. “I don’t want to ruin you, Willow. And I don’t think you want to ruin me. So, we keep each other’s secrets. That’s the deal.”
She studies me like I’m another spread of cards on her table, trying to read between the lines. Then, finally, she exhales.
“Okay,” she says, though her voice cracks slightly. “These secrets die with us.”
The air feels different after that. Like someone finally opened a window in a sealed room and there’s oxygen again.
“Let me walk you home.” I offer before I can stop myself.
Willow tilts her head, suspicious as hell. “What, worried I’ll stab another guy in the street?”
“Maybe,” I say with a shrug. “Or maybe I just don’t trust Vegas after dark. Half the people out here are drunk enough to think they can take on God.”
Her lips twitch like she wants to smile, but she doesn’t give me the satisfaction. Still, she doesn’t say no. She jerks her chin toward the door. “Alright. Keep up.”
I yank on some shoes and follow Willow down the dark hallway that leads to the private door.
We look a little ridiculous right now, me in sweatpants and a t-shirt, Willow in that damn dress that was almost my downfall tonight.
But we fall into step. Neon light spills over us, flickering across the pavement.
A group of bachelor cowboys in cheap hats howl at a showgirl working the sidewalk for pictures.
Vegas, baby.
I break the silence first. “How long have you lived here?”
She glances at me out of the corner of her eye. “Since I was thirteen, so, fifteen years. We moved around for a few years before that, so, I guess Vegas feels like home now. You?”
I hesitate. “A few years.”
“Do you like it?”
I think about the Strip, the noise, the constant attention, the flashing bulbs. Then about the quiet nights when it’s just me and my ghosts in the penthouse. “Sometimes,” I answer. “Other times… it feels like the city’s trying to eat me alive.”
“That feels accurate,” she replies with a knowing smile. “You’re being vague, though. Which is kind of annoying. You could tell me how old you are. I at least gave you a simple math problem.”
She’s twenty-eight. I did, in fact, catch onto her math problem. “There’s a reason I have to be careful, Willow. But I can give you that. I’m thirty.”
She smiles like she likes my answer. “What else can you give me?”
I take a breath, turning my eyes to the crowded sidewalk in front of us. “I don’t like red apples. Only green ones. Red is for liars. It’s the same for grapes.”
“That is ridiculous, and also weirdly specific,” she says with a huff of a laugh.
I shrug, feeling mighty pleased with myself for making her laugh.
“You asked. I also like my coffee either black or drowning in enough cream it’s a sin,” I confess.
“No in between. I can hold my breath for two and a half minutes. And I’ve broken twelve bones in my life. Half of them weren’t for fun.”
“And the other half were?” she questions, raising an eyebrow at me.
“You think learning everything I did on stage tonight didn’t come with a few trips to the ER?” I goad her. “But yes, they might have hurt like hell, but it was still fun.”
“Hmm,” she says, thinking about everything I just said.
“Well, it’s a start. But, I think you should know, I don’t just kill for fun.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is a part of it that I enjoy very much.
Yes, I know something is broken in me. But I don’t kill just anyone.
Only men who abuse power. The ones who corner women.
Who laugh when someone says no. Too many women have been taken advantage of by men who hold all the power, and too often, no one does anything about it. ”
Her voice doesn’t shake, but the pain under it is there, coiled tight. I can hear it even if she thinks she’s hiding it.
My chest tightens. I should be disturbed. Normal people would be. She’s just admitted that Travis Bell was not her first kill.
But all I feel is a raw kind of admiration. She’s brutal, yeah. But she’s not wrong. Literally everyone in the world has seen it. Women get taken advantage of all the time, and just about every crime documentary out there is about a man who got a little bit of power and used it for evil.
“I know, Willow,” I say simply.
I steal a glance at her. The body-hugging dress, the eyeliner sharp as a dagger, the click of her heels against the sidewalk. She looks like some avenging angel playing dress-up as a hot as sin human. And for reasons I can’t even untangle, I want to follow her straight into hell.
We’re halfway down the Strip, and I notice the shift within seconds of it happening. Her stride shortens, her lips pinch tight. She’s trying to hide it, but every step in those heels is murder.
“You’re limping,” I point out, lightening the conversation.
Willow scowls up at me in defiance. “I am not.”
“You are,” I counter, and before she can argue further, I stop dead, crouch, and tug at the laces of my shoes.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving you from blisters.” I pry my shoes off, yank off my socks, and stand barefoot on the Vegas concrete. The pavement is still warm from the day’s heat. I ball the socks up and shove them at her.
She blinks at me like I just offered her a severed hand. “I am not putting on your socks. That’s gross.”
“Would you rather grind your feet into hamburger meat and limp home bleeding?” I ask, dead serious. “They’re fresh, I promise. I put them on right before you barged into my changing room for the peep show. Put them on. I’ll carry your shoes.”
The look she gives me could kill a man faster than any dagger.
But I can see the gears turning in her head, the way she shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
Finally, her eyes soften. And like a damn miracle, she actually slips out of her heels and jams her feet into my socks, muttering curses under her breath.
I stuff my bare feet back into my shoes.
I would have given them to her, but with the size difference?
She wouldn’t make it five steps without tripping to her death.
Willow balances as she pulls one sock on and then the other, the crowd parting around us, giving amused glances. The socks swallow her ankles, hanging loose around her calves, but damn if it isn’t the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
When she stands again, she bursts into laughter. The sound shocks us both—it’s unguarded, sharp, alive.
“Oh, my hell,” she says between giggles. “I look insane!”
“Correction, you look comfortable,” I say, fixing her with a stare, even though I can’t help the unhinged grin on my face. I grab her shoes. “And it’s Vegas, Willow. That guy over there is wearing boxers, a showgirl bra, and cowboy boots. A little tarot witch in oversized socks just fits the bill.”
She laughs harder, which surprises me. I grin like a loon.
Every damn circumstance that we’ve been together is so insane, so unhinged, so weird, no wonder she can’t help but laugh.
And I can’t help but laugh, too. It’s all…
a lot. And it’s all exactly the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night, smiling up at the ceiling, replaying every ridiculous moment.
I can’t remember the last time someone laughed like this with me.
When she finally catches her breath, her smile lingers, softer now. “I haven’t laughed like this in years. Not since before…” She trails off, eyes shadowing. Then she clears her throat. “Not since a long time ago.”
There’s a story here. I know Willow has a backstory. I know there has to be trauma there. But she doesn’t expand, and I don’t push. She’ll share that story with me in time, if she wants to, if I make her feel safe to do so.
My voice feels rough in my throat. “This is the first time in years I haven’t felt like I’m hiding. So, thanks for that, Willow.”
Her eyes flick to me, sharp and searching. For a moment, the Strip blurs—the noise, the neon, all of it. It’s just her in my socks, me holding her shoes, and this raw, dangerous pull tightening between us.
I recognize something in Willow, and I think maybe she sees it in me, too. The gray zone. The hurt. The angst. The shaded past that most would run from. I see it there in her. But I don’t want to run. I don’t want to look away.
And the way she’s looking at me? I think she isn’t afraid of the dark either.
“You’re not what I ever would have expected, Saint Shade,” she says simply.
“I’d be a terrible magician if I were predictable,” I say with a smile.
Her house comes into view, tucked back from the street with string lights glowing faintly along the porch railing. Warm, lived-in, nothing like my penthouse mausoleum. For a split second, I let myself picture what it would be like to step inside, to belong to something like that.
Willow slows as we reach her bottom steps leading up to her front door.
The quiet between us is heavy, thick with the kind of tension you could cut with her daggers.
My pulse hammers in my throat. I want to kiss her.
Fuck, do I want to kiss her. I want to grab her by the waist and kiss her so hard and deep, she half does a backbend, and she feels it tomorrow.
It’s the kind of want that makes my whole body lean toward hers without my permission.
She looks up at me, her lips just barely parted.
I don’t miss it when her eyes slide down from mine to my lips.
Her gaze lingers there for a long moment, and she doesn’t have to say a word for me to know she’s thinking about kissing me, too.
The neon spill from the Strip paints her cheekbones in pink and blue. The air between us is molten.
My heart is thundering in my chest when I dip closer, close enough to smell her perfume under the smog and city grit. But then I see it. The flicker.
It’s not disinterest. It’s not rejection. It’s something different, something worse, because I don’t know how it can have anything to do with me. That’s shame in her eyes. That’s her shrinking inward. That’s fear grabbing her by the throat.
I stop. Pull back. Because forcing this, even a little, would make me the same as every man she’s killed.
Instead, I let my mouth curve into a grin and murmur, low and teasing, “I’ll see you soon, Dagger Kitten.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. I didn’t push. I didn’t ask for more. And I watch that shame morph into relief, for just a moment, before her eyes narrow. Sarcasm flicks up like her shield. “Thanks for the ticket to your show, Shade. You’re so subtle.”
I grin like the arrogant son of a bitch I am. Mission successful, heavy moment diffused. “Any night you want to watch me dangle half-naked from the ceiling, the ticket is yours.”
She literally rolls her eyes. “Whoever would have guessed Saint Shade is so full of himself?” she smirks. “But really, thank you. It actually was amazing.”
“Thank you,” I accept the compliment without firing back sarcasm. Because I do appreciate it. I love what I do, every second of it. So, to be complimented on something that I’ve worked so hard for, it means something to me.
“Night,” she says softly as she takes her shoes from me. She turns to her door and puts her hand on the doorknob.
“Night, Dagger Kitten,” I call to her as I watch her disappear inside.
I have to force myself to walk away. I can’t just stand outside her house all night, being the obvious stalker that I am. I can’t turn back, barge inside and kiss the fucking life out of her. I can’t wreck this fragile blackmail truce right from the beginning.
So, I force myself to head back down the sidewalk.
By the time I hit the end of her street, I’m grinning like an idiot. My chest feels lighter, stupidly hot, like she lit a fire under my ribs.
That night, I dream of her. Of her laughter in my socks. Of her body pressed against mine. Of blood and silk, knives and kisses. Violent. Sexy. Tender. All at once.
And when I wake, I know I’m a fucking goner.