Page 99 of Shadow Waltz

I squeezed his hand, my own pulse thrumming. “I won't.”

He exhaled, and I felt him surrender some unseen weight. “The first scar I ever got was on my knee. I fell running from a foster father who used to watch me sleep. He called it a lesson. I called it surviving.”

He swallowed, fingers trembling. “But the ones that really matter, you can't see. Like… when Cass and I ran, I thought maybe hope was enough. I believed if I just wanted it bad enough, the world would give us a chance. Cass was the only one who ever tried to keep me safe. The night we were taken, I thought I could fight my way out, that I could save them. Instead, I watched them slip away. I never got to say goodbye. I've carried that every day. And every time I look at you, I wonder if I'm just repeating the same mistakes—trusting someone who could break me. But then you told me the truth, Luka. And you stayed.”

I brushed my thumb along his cheek, catching a tear before it could fall. “I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere.”

He nodded, fierce and fragile all at once. “I want to believe that. I want to believe that we could… burn it down. Together. That maybe we're more than what was done to us.”

His words stirred something old and painful in my chest. Without thinking, my hand moved to my ribs, feeling the raised tissue through my shirt—the scar that reminded me every day what happened when control slipped even for a moment.

“I have a scar too,” I said quietly, surprising myself with the admission. “From when I learned that mercy is a luxury I can't afford.”

Ash's eyes followed my hand, understanding immediately that this was something I'd never shared with anyone.

“Five years ago, there was a man named Ramon. He was skimming from shipments—not much, but theft is theft. Instead of making an example of him, I gave him a chance to make things right. I thought showing mercy demonstrated strength.”

I pulled my shirt up slightly, revealing the angry red tissue that wrapped around my ribs like a twisted rope. “Ramon took my mercy as weakness. Set up an ambush in a warehouse, thinking he could eliminate the problem at its source. The fire was supposed to kill me.”

Ash's fingers hovered over the scar, not quite touching. “But you survived.”

“Barely. Third-degree burns, weeks in a private medical facility, months of recovery.” I let my shirt fall back into place. “But Ramon learned the difference between mercy and weakness when I walked out of those flames and put three bullets in his chest.”

“That's when you learned not to trust.”

“That's when I learned that in this business, being reasonable often means being dead. That night taught me to choose fear over love, control over connection.” I cupped his face in myhands. “Until you. You make me want to try being reasonable again, and that terrifies me more than any fire ever could.”

A silence stretched between us, but it felt different now. Not the gulf of things unsaid, but the relief of finally being seen—scars and all.

Ash let out a shaky laugh. “You ever think it's fucked up, that we're here—after everything? That I'm lying in bed with the man who built the cage I was trapped in?”

I flinched at the truth of it, but Ash squeezed my hand tighter. “I don't want to run anymore. Not from you. Not from this.”

I closed my eyes, letting myself believe for a second in the possibility of healing, of change, of something more than mere survival.

Ash's voice, quiet and sure, cut through the hush. “You know, I used to think scars made me weak. Now I think they're the only proof I was ever here at all.”

I leaned in, resting my forehead against his. “Your scars are proof you survived, Ash. And that's all I've ever wanted for either of us.”

He smiled—a real one, for once. “Then maybe it's time we figure out how to live.”

For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to the heat of his skin, the strength of his grip, the steady promise in his eyes.

That's when my phone buzzed, the sharp vibration slicing through the silence, dragging me back to the present. The screen lit up with an emergency alert from building security—the kind of notification that meant immediate threats, requiring immediate response.

But even as I reached for the phone, I felt it: something had shifted. Ash knew about Ramon, about the scar that had taught me to choose control over connection. He'd seen my shame and I'd seen his pain. And neither of us had run.

Maybe that was how the healing started. Maybe that was how the story changed.

17

TAILORED SEDUCTION

ASH

I'd forgotten my own birthday until Luka mentioned it over morning coffee, the casual observation hitting me like cold water in the face. “Twenty-six today,” he said, not looking up from his tablet, as if remembering details about my life was the most natural thing in the world.

Twenty-six. The number felt strange in my mouth, foreign and unwieldy. When had I stopped counting? Somewhere between foster homes and street corners, between survival and the slow realization that marking another year alive wasn't celebration so much as grim accounting. Three years on the run before the auction, five years in the system before that—time had become something to endure rather than celebrate. The last person who'd remembered my birthday was Cass, eight years ago, with a stolen cupcake and a fierce hug that had tasted like hope and vanilla frosting.