Page 141 of Shadow Waltz

Reddick’s hands trembled. “Is that so wrong? Wanting to stop someone from dying the way he did?”

“Not if you actually see the person standing in front of you,” Ash answered quietly. “But you don’t. You see Rio’s ghost. You see what you wish you’d done, not who I am.”

I stepped forward, putting myself between Ash and the broken detective. “The difference between us, Reddick? I know what I am. I don’t pretend this is clean, or safe, or easy. I never lied to Ash about the cost.”

“You want to call me a monster?” My voice was cold. “Fine. But I never dressed up my desire as salvation. I never pretended love meant locking someone in a prettier cage.”

Reddick’s breath came in shudders. His voice was a whisper. “I would have—treated him like a human being.”

“Would you?” Ash’s voice was sharp. “Or would you have just made every decision for me, called it protection, and waited for me to be grateful?”

He couldn’t answer. I saw the realization land in his eyes, heavy as a death sentence.

“You loved him,” Ash said softly, “and you lost him. I’m sorry. But you don’t get to use me to rewrite that ending.”

The pain in Reddick’s face was a wound—open, bleeding, unfixable. For a moment, he just stood there, lost, weaponless and defeated.

Reddick’s hand jerked—a sudden, animal motion, panic overcoming calculation—and the world fractured.

The flash and thunder of the gunshot exploded before my brain caught up. I didn’t register the pain, because it wasn’t mine. Instead, there was Ash, halfway between me and Reddick, jerked backwards by invisible force, eyes wide and disbelieving. His shirt blossomed red.

The sound died, sucked out of the tunnel, and for a split second, time hung suspended—Ash’s mouth parting in a silent cry, my hand reaching too late, Reddick’s arm raised and shaking, the acrid stench of burnt powder fusing with the ancient city dust.

“No!” My voice tore through the aftermath, raw and ragged, echoing off the filthy tile.

Ash collapsed to one knee, hand pressed to his side, blood seeping fast and bright between his fingers. He blinked up at me, stunned, already pale.

Troy lunged forward, catching Ash’s shoulders, lowering him gently to the platform. Dmitri shouted for help, voice cracking, but in that moment, the world narrowed to the tunnel’s hellish red light, the weight of the gun in my palm, and the taste of metal in my mouth.

Reddick staggered backward, gun still in his fist, gaze fixed on Ash—not with victory, but horror. His chest heaved, face contorted by everything he’d never been able to say or save. “I—I didn’t mean—” He sounded more lost boy than federal agent. “He stepped—he?—”

It didn’t matter.

I saw red—rage, fear, love—indistinguishable, overwhelming. I crossed the space between us in a blur, slamming him back against a pillar so hard the concrete cracked. His pistol clattered to the floor. My own pressed to his chest,my finger curled so tight on the trigger it felt like it belonged to someone else.

Troy ripped Ash’s shirt open, frantically searching for the wound. “Pressure. We need to stop the bleeding. Dmitri—kit!”

Dmitri scrambled, hand shaking as he threw down his pack, yanking out gauze and tape. Ash’s eyes fluttered, trying to focus, but the light was going out behind them, pain and fear eating through the last defenses. He gasped, blood on his lips. “Luka?—”

I wanted to answer him, but all I could see was Reddick, cornered and unrepentant, trembling but refusing to drop his gaze.

“You did this,” I spat, voice shaking. “You did this to him. All your righteousness, all your rules, and you still couldn’t let go.”

Reddick tried to wrench free, pain twisting his features. “He was never safe. Not with you. You’re poison.”

A sob clawed up my throat, but I didn’t let it break. “No. With me, he was free. He chose me.” My voice cracked anyway, grief splitting me down the middle.

Reddick’s jaw clenched. “That’s not love. That’s captivity dressed up in a pretty story.”

“Better a hard truth than your lie,” I said, and pulled the trigger.

The shot felt like a full stop at the end of an endless sentence. Reddick’s eyes went wide, breath hitching, blood blooming across his chest. For a moment, he looked almost relieved. He sagged, weight sliding down the pillar, eyes never leaving Ash, searching for an answer he’d never understand.

“You’re a monster,” he whispered, barely audible.

I let him fall, body folding at my feet. “Maybe. But monsters love, too.”

The world blurred, my vision swimming. I dropped beside Ash, hands already sticky with his blood. Troy was pressinggauze into the wound, Dmitri working at Ash’s belt to cinch a makeshift tourniquet above the injury.