Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Eleven
Consciousness arrived like an unwelcome guest, hammering at Shadera’s temples and setting fire to her throat.
She groaned, pressing her face deeper into the pillow as memories from the night before flooded back in jagged, whiskey soaked fragments.
The club, Jameson in Veyra uniform coming to free her.
Blood. Broken glass. Bodies. Greyson’s mouth on hers, his hands in her hair, on her throat, between her legs, the weight of him against her body on the kitchen counter.
Her fingers unconsciously rose to her lips, finding them tender and swollen.
“Fuck,” she whispered, the word scraping against her dry throat.
She forced herself to sit up, ignoring the protest from every muscle in her body. The room spun briefly before settling into focus. Morning light sliced through the gaps in the curtains, cutting across the bed in harsh lines and making the pounding between her ears pulse harder.
She dragged herself from bed, noting the bandage she’d wrapped around her thigh drunk and angry in the middle of the night.
The wound wasn’t deep, just a graze. It had stopped bleeding now, but the area around it was bruised and tender.
Another scar to add to her collection. Another mark left on her body by Greyson Serel.
It stung with every step she took as his T-shirt brushed the edges of it.
She really needed to get her own fucking clothes.
Greyson’s voice filtered down the hallway as she opened the door and she hesitated for one moment, taking a step back into the room. She didn’t want to face him. Not after—
No. She shook her head.
She needed coffee and would not let him take that away from her too.
Let him see her like this—bloodied, disheveled, unmasked in every sense. Let him see what they’d done to each other.
The living room looked worse in daylight.
Bullet holes punctured the walls, furniture lay overturned, glass shards glittered across the floor like malicious stars.
Blood had dried in dark patches on the floor, the white walls, the couch.
The bodies still lay where they fell, marinating in their own blood.
Her eyes roved over the room before they dragged up to look at Greyson.
He stood by the cracked window, blinds drawn against the morning light, tablet pressed to his ear.
He wore only sweatpants, his torso bare, revealing the full extent of the damage beneath the skull stretched across his back.
The fresh graze wound from her bullet curved around his side, angry and red against his skin.
Above it, his fathers bullet and the older one from the day they’d met was still healing, the skin puckered and pink.
His voice was low as he talked into the tablet and she took a step closer, trying to hear what he was saying, who he was speaking to.
He turned as her bare foot landed on a shard of glass, her hiss and the train of expletives that followed announcing her presence.
Their eyes met across the destroyed room, and for a moment, neither moved.
The phone call continued, his voice lowering further, but his eyes stayed on her. Watching. Studying.
Shadera felt exposed, vulnerable as the memory of his hands on her body, his mouth against her skin, swarmed her mind at the sight of him shirtless in front of her. The silence stretched between them, loaded and awkward until she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“You know,” she said, voice rough from sleep and liquor, “you really need to learn how to dodge. That’s twice now I’ve shot you. Pattern’s emerging.”
Greyson’s lips twitched, almost a smile.
“Just get here,” he said, then ended the call without waiting for a response and set the tablet on what remained of the coffee table. “Maybe you should learn to use your words like an adult instead of just shooting me.”
Shadera turned away to hide the smile threatening to break free, moving toward the kitchen. Coffee. She needed coffee to deal with whatever this was, needed distance from his bare skin and the memories it evoked.
The body that’d been on the kitchen floor last night was the only one moved, creating a path to the coffee machine that was miraculously untouched by the violence.
She poured a cup, black, strong enough to strip paint.
The first sip burned, perfect in its bitterness.
She moved to lift herself onto the island, then froze.
The island.
Images flashed—his hands on her throat, her legs around his waist, the desperate hunger of their kiss. Heat crawled up her neck, and she quickly moved away, leaning against the opposite counter instead, shaking the thoughts from her mind.
“About the bodies,” she said, needing to fill the silence with something, anything else.
Greyson sighed, running a hand through his hair. The gesture was unguarded, tired. “Callum’s coming with his men. They’ll handle it.”
“Handle it how?”
“The way he handles everything. Efficiently. Quietly.” He moved closer, stopping at the opposite end of the counter, maintaining distance but closing it enough that she could see the exhaustion in his eyes. “We should talk about last night.”
“No.”
“Shadera—”
“I was drunk.” The words came out too fast, too sharp. “Whatever happened, I’ve already forgotten it. Blackout. Complete memory loss. Medical marvel, really.”
He watched her, that intense gaze that seemed to see through every lie she’d ever told. “Is that right?”
“That’s right.” She met his stare. “And if you ever try to touch me again, I’ll kill you. Properly this time. No more grazes.”
The threat hung between them, hollow even to her own ears. She’d already shot him twice and it’d only seemed to turn him on. She wasn’t sure what that said about either of them.
Something shifted in his expression and Greyson’s lips curled into a knowing smirk. “Wasn’t the part of the night I was referring to, but I’m glad to see it’s so heavy on your mind.”
She opened her mouth to respond—to deny, to threaten, to do something—when a knock echoed through the apartment.
Three sharp raps. Measured. Deliberate.
Greyson’s demeanor changed instantly. The smile vanished, replaced by alertness. His hand went to the back of his waistband, drawing the gun tucked there. He moved toward the door with careful steps, keeping to the side, out of direct line of fire.
“Who is it?” he called, his voice neutral.
“It’s me,” Callum snapped. “Open the fucking door before someone sees me standing here like an idiot.”
Greyson’s shoulders relaxed. He peered through the peephole, then unlocked the door, keeping the gun partially hidden behind his leg as he pulled it open.
Callum stood in the doorway with a briefcase in hand, wearing an impeccable suit despite the early hour, not a cropped curl out of place, looking like he’d stepped from a magazine rather than arriving to clean up a massacre.
He walked into the apartment, removing his mask before looking up to see Shadera’s eyes pinned on him in surprise.
Right.
She didn’t know him well enough yet to understand that he didn’t give a single fuck about masking policies.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he said to Greyson, eyes still focused on Shadera as he took in her appearance. “Rough night?”
“You have no idea,” she muttered into her coffee.
Callum’s gaze swept the apartment again, taking in the blood, the bullet holes, the destroyed furniture. His eyebrows rose slightly. “Well, this is festive. Very avant-garde. Very ‘murder chic.’”
“Are your men with you?” Greyson asked, ignoring his commentary.
“Headed up. But first—” Callum’s eyes darted between them, noting something in their positioning, their careful distance, the tension that crackled in the air. “You two have that guilty look.”
“Cal—” Greyson started.
“I know, I know, there are much more important things to worry about than whatever sick fuck you two got up to in a room full of dead bodies.” He winked at Greyson. “But we’ll definitely be circling back to that later.”
“We didn’t—” Shadera began to protest.
Callum’s hand shot up as a chuckle slipped over his lips. “I’m not here to judge your murder foreplay.”
His men appeared at his back on the tail of his words, dragging a hooded Veyra officer through the doorway.
“Found him on Haven Tower’s roof,” Callum explained, watching as both Greyson and Shadera tensed. “Had quite the setup—long range audio equipment, visual surveillance, a sniper rifle, the works. All pointed at this apartment.”
The guilty looks intensified.
Oh, they’d definitely been up to something.
The air between them practically vibrated with it—that particular tension that came from fighting or fucking, and seeing these two, probably both. Callum filed the observation away for later torment.
“Where?” Greyson asked, his voice taking on that cold edge that Callum knew meant someone was about to have a very bad day.
“Weapons room,” Callum suggested. “It’s soundproof.” He turned to his men. “Start the cleanup. I want this place pristine in three hours.”
They nodded, releasing their captive into Callum’s grip before moving through the apartment, assessing the damage and beginning their work. Callum pulled the officer forward as he followed Greyson toward the hallway.
Shadera fell into step beside them, curious rather than disturbed. “Why did you bring him here instead of killing him?”
“Information,” Callum replied simply. “Dead men aren’t very helpful, but the living can be quite chatty with the right motivation.”
The officer’s whimpering escalated to sobbing as they dragged him down the hallway. “Please,” the officer gasped through the hood. “Please, I was just following orders. I have a family—”
“Shh,” Callum soothed, gently patting the man’s shoulder. “We’re not going to hurt you. Well, not badly. Not if you cooperate.”
The lie came easily. They always did.