Chapter 22 #3
“Stop.” He was on his feet now too, something breaking inside him. “You think I want this? You think any part of me is excited about—” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. “I would die before I forced myself onto any woman. I would put a bullet in my own head before I became that kind of monster.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then she bolted for the kitchen sink, barely making it before her body rejected everything, violent heaves that shook her entire frame. Greyson stood frozen, turning away to look at the wall, to swallow the sickness that was rising in his body.
He didn’t turn back around until the sounds of retching were replaced with a cupboard opening, a cap being unscrewed. He watched her drag the bottle of vodka across the counter and lift it to her lips as she headed toward the balcony without a word.
She didn’t bother shutting the door behind her, but for a moment he waited, trying to control his own rapidly beating heart.
Eventually he followed her out, leaning against the railing and watching as she sat on the patio couch drinking from the bottle with her legs pulled underneath her.
“I shouldn’t have said that.” She didn’t look over at him.
A heavy sigh fell from his lips as he scrubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t blame you for thinking it. What the Heart is, who I am, gives you no reason to trust that I wouldn’t.”
He hated that truth, but it was the truth. She had no reason to believe he wouldn’t hurt her.
“You have given me a reason,” she said, finally glancing up at him, and he stilled.
“You stood up for me to your father when you didn’t have to, knowing it would only cause trouble.
You took a bullet to protect your sister.
” She paused, taking another drink. “I think you hate me, deeply, because of what I am—because of what happened to your brother. But if you wanted to hurt me, you would’ve done it already.
You would’ve done it knowing it would make your father proud, but you haven’t. ”
Greyson hesitated. Now wasn’t the time, but it might be the best opportunity he got. He took a step closer, pulling the bottle from her hand and taking a swig before handing it back.
“Do you know what happened to him? Do you know who killed Brooker?” He kept his voice cautious, calm.
“No.” She shook her head. The answer sounded honest. “I had no idea his death was at the hand of a Daggermouth until you said it.” She met his eyes from over the bottle. “I think you’re missing the bigger picture here.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“God, you’re dense.” She rolled her eyes. “No one in the Boundary or Cardinal has the kind of money needed to purchase a contract. “The hit on your brother, on you, came from inside the Heart.” Shadera lifted a brow and smirked at him. “He was dead long before a Daggermouth ever got to him.”
Greyson froze. He hadn’t even considered that fact. He’d been blinded by Jaeger’s signature on the contract, by his hatred for Daggermouths, that it hadn’t fully clicked that the only ones who could afford the hit, were the ones living outside the rings.
“Looks like your precious Heart has a snake in it,” Shadera said, snapping him from his spiral.
He took another step toward her, snatching the bottle from her hand, and took a long pull as he fell onto the couch beside her. She pulled away from him as their thighs brushed, watching him carefully from the corner of her eye.
Neither of them spoke for a long while as they passed the bottle back and forth, drowning their reality as it raced toward implosion. Greyson finally broke the silence.
“Would you tell me, if you did know who killed him?”
She finally turned to look at him. “No.”
Greyson couldn’t hold back the smile this time as the corners of his lips lifted. It was not the answer he wanted, but it made him trust her. She was honest, remained loyal even when it could get her killed, and he admired that.
A groan escaped his lips as he tilted his chin up toward the sky and rested his head on the back of the couch. There was still so much she needed to know.
“What?” she asked, pulling the vodka from his fingers and downing the liquid.
He turned his head to the side to look at her. “Do you want to know more about what happens after the ritual?”
She only nodded.
“Women who have taken the Vow are no longer seen as individuals to the Heart. You will technically become my property under Heart law.” He watched her teeth clench and her eyes pull shut as he continued.
“You will have no rights, no authority. You won’t be permitted to stand beside me or any man in public, only behind.
You’ll speak only when spoken to. Your body will belong to me legally, and any children .
. .” He couldn’t finish the sentence, revulsion closing his throat.
“I figured as much,” she whispered, leaning forward to rest her chin on her knees, her gaze returning to the city below.
Greyson watched her profile, noting how her arms tightened around her legs, the flutter of the pulse in her neck.
Something was breaking in her, something that all her training, all her hardship in the Boundary hadn’t managed to crack.
The realization sent a surge of protective rage through him so unexpected it left him momentarily breathless.
The Heart consumed, she’d said, and he was finally realizing the depth of that statement. Her identity was all she had, what kept her alive in the Boundary. She was giving up everything she was, to protect not just one person, but thousands.
In that suspended moment, watching as the lights from the city danced across her skin, Greyson recognized a truth.
There were aspects of her he was beginning to love.
Not romantically, not sexually, but something more fundamental—her resilience, her fury, her refusal to bend.
His whole life he’d bent for the Heart, his loyalty lying with no one and nothing, but her—she knew who she was and had no shame in that.
For one wild, insane second, he allowed himself to imagine taking her away from all this. Not just her—his mother too, Lira, Callum. Finding some way beyond the Heart’s reach, beyond New Found Haven itself.
The fantasy dissolved as quickly as it formed. There was no running from the Heart, from his father. There was no escape. No path that didn’t end in blood. The only way forward was compliance or resistance, and Greyson was done complying.
“We should go out,” he said suddenly as he stood, needing to offer something, anything.
Shadera turned to him, confusion breaking through her numbed expression. “What?”
“Out. Into the Heart. To the Entertainment District. You should see more than this apartment. Have something before—”
“Before I become your property,” she said dryly.
“Before we lose all our freedom,” he corrected softly. “We can go to Callum’s clubs. They’re safe from my father’s surveillance. You could drink yourself unconscious and I can check on Lira.”
Shadera studied him, suspicion warring with the curiosity in her expression. “Why would you offer that?”
Because I need to see you alive before they kill your spirit. Because I want to witness you uncaged while it’s still possible. Because I hate what I’m a part of, what I’m doing to you.
“Because,” he started instead, “the last time you were drunk here, you nearly burned the place down. I’d like to keep our home intact.”
Our home.
He hadn’t meant to say that. It was his home, not theirs.
A smile flickered across her lips, there and gone so quickly he couldn’t be sure he’d seen it at all. She considered the bottle in her hand, then set it aside.
“Fine,” she said, unfolding her legs from beneath her. “But I need to change first.”
She started to rise, wavering slightly as the alcohol hit her system. Greyson moved without thinking, his hand reaching out to steady her. His fingers closed around hers, the contact sending an unexpected jolt through his nervous system.
They froze like that, hand in hand, neither pulling away. Her skin was warm, calloused—marked with the scars of a life lived in violence. So different from the soft, pampered hands of Heart women. So real.
His thumb moved across her knuckles, tracing the edges of the numbers tattooed there. The contact shouldn’t have felt intimate. It was nothing, a moment of balance, of steadying. But his hand refused to release hers, and still, she did not pull away.
Between one heartbeat and the next his fingers were moving, tracing upward, following the lines of her tattoos, the ridges of her scars. Each mark a story, each scar a survival. His touch was light, giving her the opportunity to pull away—to push him away.
She didn’t.
His fingers reached her shoulder, paused on the ridge of an old wound—a bullet, maybe, or a knife. Then continued their path upward to the curve of her neck where her pulse hammered beneath his fingertips. Fast, but strong. Like her.
Greyson’s fingers flexed around her neck and Shadera’s eyes fluttered shut. Something dark and hungry unfurled in his chest at the sight, at the realization that she might share his preferences for rougher handling. For the edge of pain with pleasure.
His thumb pressed slightly against the hollow beneath her jaw, testing, and her breath caught audibly.
Not in fear—he knew fear intimately, could taste it on the air when present—but in something else.
Something that mirrored his own suppressed hunger.
He hardened against his will as her pulse responded to his touch despite everything between them.
“We should go.” He forced the words out, his voice rough with restraint.
For a moment, he thought she might lean into his touch, might acknowledge whatever current was flowing between them. Instead, her eyes snapped open as she jerked away.
She cleared her throat, eyes not meeting his.
“I’ll change.” The words were clipped and cold as she pushed past him, striding back inside and shutting the glass door behind her with more force than necessary.
Greyson’s feet remained rooted in place, his body humming with unwanted desire, with self-disgust, with confusion. He reached for the abandoned vodka bottle and took a long pull, letting the alcohol burn down his throat, hoping it might cauterize whatever wound had just been opened between them.