6. Shadow
Shadow
Cooking has always been my meditation.
Something about the rhythm of it—chopping vegetables, measuring spices, the sizzle of meat in a hot pan—quiets the noise in my head. The what-ifs and the should-haves and the endless loop of regrets that like to play on repeat when I’m not careful.
Right now, I need the quiet.
Because everything about this situation is loud.
I pull ingredients from the cabin’s surprisingly well-stocked pantry.
Chicken breasts from the freezer, thawed in cold water.
Fresh vegetables that Razor must have grabbed on his last supply run.
Rice. Garlic. Onions. The basics, but enough to make something that tastes like actual food instead of the gas station sandwiches and protein bars we usually survive on during runs.
Jade’s been in her room since lunch. Five hours of self-imposed isolation, probably trying to process everything that happened this morning. The phone call with her sister. The revelation about her son. Hawk’s promise to keep the kid safe.
The fact that she’s trapped here with three men she doesn’t know and has every reason not to trust.
I hear her moving around upstairs. Footsteps crossing from the bedroom to the bathroom and back. She’s pacing. Thinking. Planning, probably. Trying to figure out her next move.
Can’t blame her for that.
The chicken sizzles in the pan, and I adjust the heat, flipping each piece. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I check it one-handed, still watching the stove.
Text from Hawk: Perimeter clear. Back in 30.
Good. Means I have time to finish cooking before they get back. Time to maybe make Jade feel a little less like a prisoner and a little more like a person.
Not sure why that matters to me. Should just let Hawk handle it—he’s the one who made the call to grab her, he’s the one taking responsibility. But something about her gets under my skin in a way I wasn’t expecting.
Maybe it’s the fire in her eyes even when she’s terrified. Maybe it’s the way she refused to break even when we had her zip-tied and scared. Perhaps it’s knowing she’s got a four-year-old waiting for her and she’s trying to be strong for him even though she’s probably falling apart inside.
Or maybe it’s just that she reminds me too much of myself years ago, when I lost everything that mattered and had to figure out how to keep breathing anyway.
I hear her on the stairs. Slow, cautious footsteps. She appears in the doorway of the kitchen, one hand on the frame like she’s ready to bolt if needed.
She’s changed clothes. Must have found something in one of the dressers upstairs—an old flannel shirt that’s too big for her, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, hanging past her hips over her jeans. Hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Face scrubbed clean of yesterday’s makeup.
She looks younger like this. Vulnerable. But her eyes are still sharp, still assessing.
“Smells good,” she says carefully.
“Thanks. Figured we should eat actual food. Been a long day.”
“That’s an understatement.”
I smile. Can’t help it. There’s that fire again, even in the simple sarcasm.
She edges into the kitchen, keeping distance between us, but closer than she’s been since this morning. Progress.
I can feel her watching me as I work. Assessing. Trying to figure out my angle, what I want from her. Can’t blame her for that. Trust has to be earned, and we haven’t exactly earned it yet.
“You can sit,” I tell her, nodding toward the small kitchen table. “Or you can help. Your choice.”
She considers this for a long moment. I can see the wheels turning. Sitting means passively accepting her situation. Helping means participation. Neither option is great from her perspective.
“What needs doing?” she asks finally.
“Rice needs watching. Tends to burn if I’m distracted.”
It’s a lie. I never burn rice. Learned to cook it perfectly during my marriage—Angela was particular about her rice, said it had to be fluffy and separate, not sticky or mushy. I must have made rice a thousand times, adjusting the water level and the heat until I got it right every single time.
But giving Jade something to do, some sense of control, might help her feel less like a hostage.
She moves to the stove, standing on the opposite side from me, and picks up the wooden spoon. Stirs slowly, watching the grains dance in the boiling water.
“You cook a lot?” I ask, keeping my voice casual.
“When I can. When there’s time.” She doesn’t look at me, keeps her eyes on the rice. “Mason’s picky. Won’t eat half the things I make. But he’ll eat mac and cheese from a box, no problem.”
I smile. “Kids are like that. My son used to only eat chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs. Regular nuggets? Wouldn’t touch them. But dinosaurs? He’d eat a whole plate.”
“Mason’s the same with his sandwich bread. Has to be cut diagonally. If I cut it straight across, he acts like I’ve ruined his life.”
“Four-year-olds are dramatic.”
“Four-year-olds are exhausting.” But there’s warmth in her voice when she says it. Love.
We work in silence for a few minutes. Just the sounds of cooking—the sizzle of chicken, the bubble of rice, the scrape of her spoon against the pot. It’s almost comfortable. Almost normal.
Like we’re just two people making dinner together instead of captor and captive.
“Why are you being nice to me?” she asks suddenly, breaking the silence.
I glance at her. She’s still watching the rice, but her shoulders are rigid with tension.
“Because being an asshole won’t make this situation any better,” I say honestly.
“You kidnapped me. That’s pretty asshole behavior already.”
“Fair point.” I flip the chicken, checking the color. Golden brown, almost perfect. “But we’re not monsters, Jade. We’re just people who found ourselves in a bad situation. Same as you.”
“Except I didn’t choose to be here.”
“Neither did we, really. Not the way it happened.” I turn down the heat under the chicken.
“Last night was supposed to be a clean deal. In and out, everyone walks away happy. Then the Feds show up, the Ruthless Saints crash the party, and suddenly we’ve got a civilian witness in the middle of a shootout. ”
“So you grabbed me.”
“So Hawk made a split-second decision to keep you from getting killed.” I meet her eyes. “Would you rather he’d left you there?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Just stirs the rice, around and around, buying herself time to think.
“I don’t know,” she says finally. “Maybe getting arrested by the Feds would’ve been better than this.”
“You really believe that?”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.” Her voice cracks slightly. “Twenty-four hours ago, I had a plan. Grab Mason, disappear, start over somewhere my ex couldn’t find us. Now I’m cooking rice in a cabin in the woods with a man who kidnapped me, and I have no idea if I’ll ever see my son again.”
The raw pain in her voice hits me harder than I expect.
I turn off the heat under the chicken and move around the counter, closer to her but not crowding. “You will see him again. I promise you that.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“I don’t.” I lean against the counter, arms crossed, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible. “Look, I know you have no reason to trust us. I know this whole situation is fucked up beyond belief. But Hawk doesn’t make promises lightly. When he said he’d keep your kid safe, he meant it.”
“Why should I believe that?”
“Because Hawk has a son too. Had a son. Has,” I correct myself. “It’s complicated. But the point is, he knows what it’s like to fail a kid. He’s not going to let that happen to yours.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, absorbing this.
“Why didn’t you just let me go?” she asks finally.
“Because you saw our faces. You saw the deal. You can identify us.” I meet her eyes. “The Ruthless Saints—your ex’s people—they saw you too. They’d kill you for being a witness. So would our club, given the chance. Keeping you here keeps you breathing.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes to figure out a play that doesn’t end with you dead.”
The rice is done. We plate in silence and sit down to eat.
She follows me to the small dining table. We sit across from each other, and for a moment it’s almost normal, almost like we’re just two people sharing a meal instead of captor and captive.
She takes a bite. Her eyes widen slightly.
“This is actually good,” she says, and she sounds surprised.
“You were expecting what, burned meat and canned vegetables?”
“Something like that.”
“I’m a man of many talents.”
She almost smiles. Almost. “Apparently.”
We eat in silence for a few minutes. Awkward silence, but not hostile. That’s something.
“Tell me about Mason,” I say eventually.
She stiffens immediately. “Why?”
“Because he’s important to you. Because talking about him might make this whole situation feel a little less awful.” I set down my fork. “You don’t have to. But I’m asking.”
She studies me for a long moment. Then, slowly, she relaxes just slightly.
“He’s four,” she says. “Obsessed with dinosaurs. Has been since he could talk. He knows all their names—the scientific names, not just T-Rex and stegosaurus. Velociraptor, parasaurolophus, pachycephalosaurus. He rattles them off like it’s nothing.”
I can hear the love in her voice. The pride.
“He’s a smart kid,” I say.
“Too smart sometimes. Asks questions I don’t know how to answer.” She pushes rice around her plate. “Why is the sky blue? Where do people go when they die? Why doesn’t Daddy live with us?”
That last one hits different. I can see it in the way her jaw tightens.
“What do you tell him?”
“That some people aren’t meant to live together. That it doesn’t mean anyone did anything wrong. That he’s loved no matter what.” She looks up at me. “I don’t know if he believes me.”
“Kids are smarter than we give them credit for.”
“That’s what scares me.” Her voice drops. “He sees things. Understands things. I try to protect him from the ugly parts, but I can’t always. And I’m terrified that one day he’ll look at me and realize I’m the reason his life is complicated.”
I know that feeling. Know it intimately.