Page 54 of Shadow Waltz

“But Luka...” I hesitated, breath catching. “When this is over, we need to talk. I need to know what this really is—what I am to you. What you want from me.”

There was a long, electric silence. I could almost hear him breathing, imagining the look in his eyes.

When Luka finally spoke, his voice had a rough, honest edge I’d never heard before. “When this is over, Ash, you’ll have every answer you need.”

The line went dead, leaving me alone with Troy and the echo of a promise that might be the most dangerous thing Luka had ever offered me—the possibility of choice in a world where choice was the rarest luxury of all.

“He means it,” Troy said quietly, taking the phone from my nerveless fingers. “Whatever's happening between you two, it's real enough that he's willing to tear down everything he's built to protect it.”

I looked at Troy in the red emergency lighting, this man who'd been assigned to protect me by any means necessary, and felt something shift between us. The night had been brutal and terrifying, but it had also awakened something in me.

11

BURN THE CAGE

ASH

Iwoke to sunlight streaming through bulletproof glass and the weight of Troy's arm across my chest. The collar was still locked around my throat—it had been for three days now, a constant reminder that my choices had been reduced to how I handled captivity, not whether I was captive at all.

For a moment, caught between sleep and consciousness, I let myself pretend this was normal—waking up next to someone who'd chosen to stay rather than someone who'd been ordered to watch me. But reality crashed back like cold water when I remembered where we were, what had happened, and exactly how we'd ended up tangled together in thousand-dollar sheets.

Troy stirred beside me, and I felt him go rigid the moment awareness returned. His arm disappeared from my chest like he'd been burned, and when I turned to look at him, his expression had already shifted back to professional neutrality. The man who'd whispered my name like a prayer just hours agowas gone, replaced by the bodyguard who knew exactly how to compartmentalize pleasure and duty.

“Morning,” I said quietly, testing the waters.

“Morning,” Troy replied, his Southern accent more pronounced in the early light. He was already sitting up, scanning the room for threats with the methodical thoroughness that never seemed to turn off. “You sleep okay?”

The casual tone was expertly calibrated—friendly enough to maintain working rapport, distant enough to pretend his mouth hadn't been on my skin, that I hadn't fallen apart under his hands while breathing his name like a mantra. It should have stung, the easy way he could switch between intimate and professional, but I'd been used by enough people to recognize the difference between callousness and self-preservation.

“Like a baby,” I lied, because admitting that I'd slept better than I had in months would reveal too much about how much I'd needed what happened between us.

Troy nodded and stood, already reaching for the clothes he'd discarded with far more urgency the night before. In the morning light, I could see the scars that mapped his body—bullet wounds, knife marks, the kind of damage that came from a life lived in the spaces between legal and lethal.

“About last night,” Troy said, pulling on his shirt with movements that were deliberately casual. “You know that was just stress relief, right? Adrenaline crash, proximity, the kind of thing that happens when people are locked in together during crisis situations.”

There it was—the dismissal I'd been expecting, wrapped in psychological terminology that made it sound clinical rather than personal. Troy was covering his bases, making sure I understood that what had felt intimate and necessary was just another aspect of his job. Any means necessary, after all.

“Of course,” I agreed, because pushing for something he clearly didn't want to acknowledge would only make things awkward between us. “Just scratching an itch.”

Relief flickered across Troy's features, and I realized he'd been worried I might make this complicated. The irony wasn't lost on me—here I was, reassuring my bodyguard that I wouldn't develop feelings for him, when the real complication was the man who'd given him permission to fuck me in the first place.

The collar felt heavier this morning, the leather warm against my skin from sleep and body heat. I reached up to touch it reflexively, a habit I'd developed over the past few days, and felt the small click of the locking mechanism that meant it wasn't coming off anytime soon.

“Boss wants to see you,” Troy said, checking his watch with practiced efficiency. “Whenever you're ready.”

“Is that an order?”

Troy's grin was sharp and familiar, a glimpse of the man who'd made me come apart just hours ago. “With Luka, everything's a request until it becomes a demand. But I'd recommend sooner rather than later.”

I nodded and headed for the shower, hyperaware of Troy's eyes on me as I walked naked across the marble floor. The hot water felt like absolution, washing away the lingering scent of sex and sweat and the complicated emotions that came with waking up in someone's arms only to watch them pretend it had never happened.

The collar got wet in the shower—another reminder that it wasn't jewelry I could remove at will. The leather was treated to withstand water, designed for long-term wear whether I wanted it or not. Every time I forgot about it for a moment, the weight would remind me, the slight restriction when I turned my head too quickly, the way it caught the light in mirrors.

By the time I emerged, Troy had coffee waiting and was back to his position by the door, professional mask firmly in place. He watched me get dressed with the detached interest of someone cataloguing potential security concerns rather than admiring a body he'd explored thoroughly just hours before.

“You going to be okay with this?” Troy asked as I pulled on the expensive clothes that had replaced my street kid wardrobe. “The compartmentalization, I mean.”

“Are you?”