CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT #2
“You took my orders,” he says, voice low and controlled, edged with something darker underneath. “You knelt when I told you to. You obeyed without hesitation.”
His gaze holds mine, unblinking.
“And you didn’t fall apart because of the mask,” he continues, stepping in just enough that the space between us changes. “You fell apart because part of you wanted to.”
My heart slams against my ribs.
Shoomaker’s gaze drops to my mouth. “So you tell me, Starling…when you spread your legs for me—was that just for the mission?”
I open my mouth—no sound comes out.
He moves behind me before I can respond, his hand sliding around my waist, pulling me back flush against his chest. His breath is warm at my ear, steady, controlled.
“You tremble when I touch you,” he murmurs. “Not because you’re scared—but because you remember.”
His gaze doesn’t break from mine.
“Because you remember how I looked at you over coffee,” he continues, quieter now, each detail landing like it’s been carried a long time. “How I knew your order without asking—shaken espresso, four pumps white mocha, sweet cream cold foam.”
His jaw tightens slightly.
“The way your pulse would jump after self-defense class when you thought I wouldn’t notice,” he adds. “The way you’d glance at me in the car when you thought I was focused on the road—like you didn’t realize I was already aware of you.”
Another pause, heavier this time.
“And that little smile,” he says, voice softening just a fraction. “The one you tried to hide when you thought you were safe to let it slip.”
His eyes darken, not with anger—but certainty.
“You remember,” he says simply. “You remember how close we got, Starling.”
His fingers find the edge of my shirt and slide beneath it slowly, stroking the skin just above my hip. “Tell me it meant nothing,” he whispers. “Say the words, and I’ll stop.”
Silence stretches like a blade between us.
I don’t speak.
I can’t.
Because my body leans into his like it always does. Because his voice is branded into my spine. Because part of me does remember—and hates how much I still crave it.
He turns me slowly in his arms, one hand cupping the back of my neck, the other skimming the side of my thigh. His touch is hallowed and devastating all at once.
“If it’s just a role,” he says, voice velvet and razor, “then why are you still wearing me like I never left you in the first place?”
My breath hitches. “Because I don’t know how to take you off.”
His lips curl into something dark. Triumphant. “Good. Because the Warden’s role may end, Starling…” His mouth ghosts over mine, not kissing—just claiming the space. “But mine doesn’t.”
When he pulls back, his forehead presses to mine, our breath mingling. It isn’t sweet. It isn’t soft. It is earned. Scorched and ragged and real.
Shoomaker’s voice cuts through the silence, low and cold—like a weapon being chambered.
“Your father made a deal with some dangerous men, my little survivor.”
My blood turns to ice.
“To break you,” he continues, jaw tightening. “To sell you. And he profited from it.”
Everything in me stills. The room doesn’t move, but it feels like it tilts anyway. I don’t fall—I just go very, very still.
“He hasn’t done it yet,” I say quietly, forcing the words out through the shock. “I haven’t been sold. Not officially. He hasn’t received a single penny under my name.”
He stares at me.
Then my voice steadies—sharper now, cutting through the fear.
“And if I can fool you into thinking I was Daya,” I add, eyes locking onto his, “then why can’t we fool him into thinking his daughter died in that compound?”
Shoomaker’s lips twitch—not from humor, but from pain trying to look like it doesn’t care. “It could possibly work.”
I laugh. A bitter, broken thing that lodges in my throat like gravel.
“Is that why you stayed?” I ask quietly. “To be the one who undoes what he did?”
His eyes darken. “No,” he says. “I stayed because even when you were broken, you never stopped fighting. And if you had to go down, I wasn’t going to let it happen alone. I saved you once in your life, and I feel compelled to save you again.”
The silence between us turns heavy again—but not empty.
It is loaded. With memory. With fire. With all the things neither of us have the words for.
Then his fingers brush my wrist, tracing the scar hidden just beneath the edge of my sleeve. His voice is lower now. Barely a breath.
“He forgot one thing,” Shoomaker adds, stepping closer again, thumb sliding to the edge of my jaw, tilting my chin up.
“What’s that?” I ask, barely able to speak.
“You were never his to give away.”
His jaw tightens, just slightly—like the words land somewhere deeper than he intends to show. The silence stretches between us, heavy and controlled, before he finally exhales through his nose, still not looking away.