Page 85 of The Shadows We Keep

This might not be the worst-case scenario. I figured we’d have to come in here guns blazing, but it has us walking right into the lion’s den, any element of surprise down the drain. The last long stretch of hallway meets dark mahogany double doors, the office.

One door pulls open, and a young man in guard gear fills the doorway. The light from the room beyond casts a shadow against his features in the hall.

“Mr. Greyson, he’ll see you now.”

My team stops in front of me blocking the way. I know James, he won’t want me to go in there alone, but it doesn’t look like I’ll have a choice.

I step up next to him and whisper, “Get your men out of here. Get them paid. I’ll take it from here.”

He goes to argue but I’m already heading for the office. I can hear her.

I step up to the guard, but he doesn’t move to let me through. His meaty hands snatch the gun from me, shoving it in the waistband of his pants. He pats me down roughly, not finding anything else since he refused to bend over all the way. My favorite blades remain strapped to my ankles when he finally lets me through.

The breath knocks from my lungs. She’s here, and she doesn’t look harmed. No, she’s sitting on the couch, legs tucked under her small frame, a blanket draped across her knees and a clear glass of amber liquid in her hand. She looks comfortable, safe even. Like she’s catching up with an old friend or cozying in to read one of her favorite horror books.

However, the moment my boots hit the hardwoods alerting her to someone’s presence, and her eyes swing to the door and they tell me a different story. They’re rimmed red and puffy, haunted by whatever she’s been through in the last twenty-four hours. Her skin is pale—more than usual—and that’s when I notice the slight tremor in her hand that’s gripping the glass, which tips the second our eyes lock.

Her body bounds from the couch and across the floors. She collides into my chest, her arms flinging around my shoulders. Mine automatically wrap around her, pulling her tightly into me, trying to fuse our beings into one, so we never have to face the possibility of being separated again. A small sigh escapes her lips as she clings to me and nuzzles into my chest.

“You came,” she whispers, but then her body stiffens, and she pulls back looking up into my heated gaze. “You shouldn’t have come.” She tries to pull away, but I tighten my grip refusing to let her go.

Freeing one of my hands from around her back, I snatch her chin roughly and tug her eyes back to mine.

“You may not have run this time, but I told you before, I willalwaysfind you.”

Her defiant nature runs wild, I can sense it before she does. She rips her chin from my fingertips and shoves with her entire strength against my chest, making us both stumble apart.

“You shouldn’t have come for me.” She steels her emotions, pushing them down deep, but I’m too attuned to her to miss the way her chin quivers slightly like she wants to cry before she locks it down.

My jaw tightens and I shove my hands deep in my pockets to hide the rage clenching through them. I close the short distance she’s tried to put between us, leaning down into her space. I catch her scent and my body instantly craves a deeper hit, like a smokers need for nicotine after a meal, but she’s trying to cut me off cold turkey.

My lips glide against her ear. I feel the small shiver she tries to still, but it’s futile.

“We can do this the easy way, sweetness. Or if you want to keep trying to push me away, I’ll kill every fucking person in this building and drag you out kicking and screaming. Your call.”

She stills next to me, the quick shift of her weight as she rubs her thighs together pulls a smirk from my composed muscles.

That’s what I thought.

“Oh, I hope I haven’t caused a lover quarrel,” the feminine lilt purrs sarcastically, as heels click against the floor toward us. That voice causes my entire body to ice over. Keira’s heat shifts away from me, but I’m cemented to the floor. I can’t follow like my heart yearns to because my logical brain wins this war.

Slender manicured fingers wrap around my bicep pulling me from the fog.

“Hey baby, did you miss me?”

My eyes slide from the giant diamond ring on the hand to the face of a ghost.

She’s alive?

THIRTY-SIX

KEIRA

See You Bleed – Ramsey

My entire world tilts on its axis and crashes down around me as I watch him take her in. I told myself I wouldn’t get between their reunion, but my heart is crumbling, and I don’t think there’s enough super glue on this planet to piece it back together. He was finally mine. His attention, his touch, his heart, it was mine and now that she’s back, I’m not confident it will stay that way.

He’s stiff. In shock. Much like I was when she walked into this office earlier with my long-lost father. I was reeling from the news of our connection, and he came in with the one-two punch. I went from having no family to speak of to two blood relatives standing in the same room. Finding out my late twin was alive should have been a monumental event for me. But the possibility of a tight-knit sisterhood was nothing more than a figment of my imagination for all those years. Because the only thought flooding my mind when she walked into the room was how it would affect my relationship with Harkin. Now she’s standing here with her hand on my man, even though it’s hard to miss the gaudy ring on her finger.

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