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CHAPTER 14

“Alice.”

Shadow woke to her father’s voice, the sound of her name cutting through the dense and heavy fog. It was low and hushed, almost hollow as it reached her ears, and though she couldn’t be sure, the unshakable man sounded as though he were afraid.

“Alice.”

She heard her name again as she fought against the pain. Her head pounded and ached to the point she thought it might actually split in two. The left side of her face throbbed to the beat of her heart, and the taste of blood was still present on the tip of her tongue.

“Shadow!”

Her father’s call came a bit louder as he switched to using the name she identified with most of all. Sensing the urgency in the man’s otherwise stoic and calm demeanor, Shadow forced her eyelids to open despite the harsh lighting shining down on them from up above.

“Dad?” she croaked, her throat and mouth desert dry from whatever drugs the assholes had used. “Where are w?—”

Shadow gasped before she could finish asking where they’d been taken, her lungs freezing mid-pull from the sudden and sharp pain in her right side. And…holy shit , did it hurt to breathe.

“Oh, thank God.” Her father’s relief was more than obvious.

Shadow looked around, taking in the small room where they were being held. Her blurred vision cleared a little more as she blinked, and soon their horrifying reality fully set in.

She and her father were each in their own chairs, positioned side-by-side in the middle of a small, and otherwise empty, room. Their hands had been duct taped to the arms of their chairs, and they were surrounded by nothing but bare, concrete walls.

“I don’t…understand.” She grunted between words, doing her best to ignore the fire burning beneath her ribs as she pulled and tugged in an effort to get her wrists free. “Not that I’m…complaining, mind you, but…why aren’t we…dead?”

Their situation was less than ideal, and they were most definitely on borrowed time. But at least they were both still breathing.

“I don’t know.” Her father shook his graying head. His left eye was bruised and slightly swollen, and a trickle of blood had dried against his bearded chin at one corner of his mouth.

The sight pissed her off as much as it broke her heart. No one got away with hurting her dad.

Not much you can do about it with your hands taped to a freaking chair.

A thought struck, and Shadow’s movements froze. Because she may not know how to get out of a situation such as this, but her father had spent years as an operative for MI6.

“Wait, didn’t they train you on how to escape situations like this back in the day?”

“They did.” He dipped his head in a nod.

“Then why haven’t you?—”

“I’ve been waiting.”

Waiting? “For what, an invitation?”

Her father didn’t respond with anything more than a smile.

Shadow opened her mouth to ask if perhaps the thugs who’d broken into the apartment caused some sort of internal brain bleed. But then she saw the gleaming in his eyes, and she knew.

“You have a plan.” Her heart thumped, sending a hefty dose of hope flourishing throughout her system.

“Yes, but I needed you to be awake for it to work.”

“What if they’d come back to kill us before I came to?”

“If they wanted us dead, they would have killed us in the apartment.”

The apartment.

“How did they even find us?”

“I have no idea. They must have followed you and Digger from the office.”

“That’s impossible.” Shadow started to shake her head but was stopped with a wince as pain shot like a knife through her skull. “Slade made sure we didn’t have a tail.”

“Well right now, the how doesn’t matter. Whoever it is will be coming back, most likely sooner, rather than later. And when they do, we need to be ready.”

“Tell me what I need to do.”

“We must maintain the element of surprise, which means we have to remain bound until the very last second. And you have to wait for me to make the call.”

“Done.” She didn’t so much as hesitate to agree. “Now hurry up and tell me the plan before the assholes come back.”

Over the next few minutes, her father did just that. And when the door to the room opened, Shadow was convinced she was ready.

But then she saw the face of the man who’d just entered the room, and just like that, she forgot all about the well-thought-out plan.

“You.”

Michael Stanton appeared in his typical black suit and matching tie. There was even a small pin of the American Flag attached to his lapel.

The sight of the man made her sick, and she began pulling against the tape holding her in place. “You son of a bitch! I swear to God, when I get loose, I’m going to fucking kill you!”

Her shouted warning echoed off the concrete walls, but Stanton simply threw his head back and laughed. The bastard laughed , and when Shadow looked over at her father, his only response was a slow shake of his head.

Not yet.

She could practically hear his thoughts as his eyes burned into hers with an insistent stare. He’d warned her the waiting would be the hardest part, but until now, she had no idea how true that really was.

“You have your mother’s spirit, I’ll give you that.” Stanton grinned. “And it appears you also inherited both her and your father’s do-gooder genes. I warned her, you know. Said those good intentions of hers would end up getting her killed. But like you…” He pulled a pistol from his jacket pocket and sighed. “She refused to listen.”

“What did she have on you?” her father asked the man who’d brutally his wife. “I mean, you’re going to kill us anyway, the least you could do is give us that.”

Stanton looked at her father and then to her before giving one of his shoulders a shrug. “You’re right. I am going to kill you.”

“Then what are you waiting for, Stanton?” Shadow popped off to the murdering SOB. “Why all the grandstanding? Are you really that hard-up? Let me guess. The missus just doesn’t do it for ya, anymore, is that it?”

The man chuckled again. “Damn, Alice. You really are the spitting image of your mother, aren’t you?”

“That’s the nicest thing a piece of shit like you could ever say. But hey, since you have such a captive audience, why not give us the goods before ending all the fun?” She made a show of her secured hands and shrugged. “Not like we’re going anywhere.”

He stared down at her with a look of both fury and intrigue. “All right, fine.” Stanton began pacing the space between them and the room’s only exit. “I suppose I have a few moments to spare before I have to leave for my next speaking event. So yeah, I’ll play. Why not?”

Why not, indeed?

Shadow forced her split lip into a smile, the move splitting apart a cut in her lip from earlier. A fresh drop of warm blood began to run down her chin, but she ignored it and focused on every word the murdering asshole spoke.

“I’m assuming you already know that your mother and I were wet work agents with the CIA back in the day,” Stanton began. “We were one of the few sets of partners who regularly worked together to take out high-value targets. Oh, they were all very bad people, of course. Your mother never would have done that kind of work otherwise. Amanda was truly a patriot. The woman was just and fair and had one of the biggest hearts I’d ever seen.”

“And yet, you had no qualms about putting a bullet into the back of her head while she slept.” Shadow glared. “So what kind of person does that make you?”

His blue eyes turned her way, and he momentarily halted his steps. “From where I’m currently standing?” Stanton arched a cocky brow. “I’d say I’m the kind of person who wins.”

“No matter the cost, right?” Her father somehow managed to keep his cool.

Given that Stanton had shot and killed the woman her father had called his soulmate, Shadow wasn’t sure how her father could remain so calm.

If someone killed Slade, she’d go all scorched earth on their ass. And they’d only shared one magical night together, followed by one glorious morning.

And then I yelled at him right before he left, and all he’d been doing was trying to protect me.

Guilt assaulted her in waves, but she pushed it back. With the silent vow to do whatever was needed to make things right between her and the man she loved, Shadow stared up at the man who’d destroyed her family when she was only six years old.

“So what was it?” She demanded to know. “Did my mom catch you stealing money from one of the men you two took out?”

Stanton’s cold smile gave her chills.

“I’m a lot of things, dear Alice. But I am no thief. What your mother had the unfortunate luck to discover wasn’t what I stole, but rather what I’d sold.”

“Intel,” her father guessed from the chair beside her. “You were a double agent.”

“Do you have any idea how much money our country’s enemies are willing to pay for classified information? I’ll give you a hint.” Stanton paused dramatically before lowering his voice to a hushed, “It’s a lot.”

“So you killed my mom because she found out you were a traitor?”

“Amanda left me no choice!” He lost his cool composure. “The bitch gave me an ultimatum. Either I turn in my notice and cut all ties with my buyers or she was going to turn me in.”

“Call my wife a bitch again, Stanton, and see what happens.”

The other man simply laughed. “Oh, Rafe. I have missed you, my friend.”

“I’m not your fucking friend.”

“So you sold government secrets, and Mom threatened to expose you. That’s it?”

“That’s not enough?” His blue glare swung her way. Stepping toward her, he stopped inches from where she sat. “My life would have been over, Alice. You were too young to understand that, but I’m sure you can see now that I did what I had to do.”

“The only thing I see is a pathetic man who couldn’t make it on his own, so he had to cheat his way to the top. Bet your wife and son have no idea, do they? Wonder what your kid would say if he found out his dad was nothing but a greedy, lying, traitorous murdering son of a?—”

Stanton’s hand flew toward her with such speed, Shadow didn’t have time to even try to brace herself for the blow. Pain erupted across the right side of her jaw when the back of his hand struck hard, sending a flash of tiny, white dots twinkling before her watering eyes.

“You bastard!” Her father finally showed some real anger toward their captor. “Touch her again, and I swear to God, I will?—”

“What?” Stanton turned his way, pulling a pistol from his suit pocket and keeping it at his side. “What exactly are you going to do to me, Rafe? You going to shoot me? Oh, wait. You can’t. In fact, you can’t do much of anything can you? Not for your daughter now. And not for your bitch of a wife back then.”

Forcing her way through the pain, Shadow looked to where her father remained seated. Her chest tightened with the pain she found swimming in his grief-stricken eyes, but her fists curled when his expression soon turned into stone.

Her father stared the other man down, looking about as lethal as she’d ever seen him. A beat later, he slid his calculated gaze in her direction. And then he uttered one simple word.

“Now.”

It was the only thing he needed to say. The very cue she’d been waiting for her father to give. And now that he had, Shadow began the planned countdown in her head.

Three…two…

Both she and her father went straight into action in a simultaneous move to break themselves free. Just as he’d explained before Stanton came into the room, Shadow gave both her arms a hard jerk as if to bring her fist straight up to her chest.

Despite her father’s reassurance, she was still taken by surprise when the duct tape ripped with efficient ease. Shadow jumped to her feet, more than ready to finally take on the man she’d been hunting, but her father had literally beat her to the punch.

Shocked by their unexpected escape from the bindings his men had presumably constructed, Stanton wasn’t ready for the meaty fist that had just slammed into his jaw. His head flew to the side, and he stumbled back a few steps from the force. He didn’t go all the way down, however, and recovered quickly from her father’s hard punch.

As the jerk started to raise his weapon, Shadow spun around and grabbed her chair. It was solid wood and heavy as hell, but she ignored the pain in her battered body and swung it toward him as hard as she could.

Stanton cried out as the chair’s legs struck him across the back. A shot rang out, the bullet going wild and slamming into the concrete wall to her left.

“Fucking bitch!”

He started to swing the barrel toward her with the clear intention of shooting her dead. Before he got the chance, her father grabbed for the gun.

The two men immediately became enthralled in a fight to the death. Shadow stood to the side, desperate to find a way to help. But her father and Stanton were both struggling to regain control of the weapon, and if she got in the middle, she might make matters worse.

Their bodies twisted this way and that as their hands and arms became intertwined. And when the gun blasted again, she thought for sure it was finally over.

Then the unthinkable happened, and her father stumbled back. He looked down at the place where Stanton’s bullet had struck.

No!

Shadow charged at Stanton, releasing an animalistic growl. She didn’t feel the pain in her ribs or the pounding in her head. She only felt a rage unlike any she’d ever known.

Her body slammed into his, and they both tumbled to the floor. The gun in Stanton’s hand went flying, sliding across the concrete past her injured father. Without missing a beat, Shadow turned and punched Stanton square in the jaw.

Once.

Twice.

On the third strike, she heard the crunching of bone.

And then, just because it felt too damn good not to, Shadow grabbed two fists of the man’s silver hair, and she slammed his head against the unforgiving wall.

His eyes rolled in the back of his head half a second before his entire body grew limp. With him incapacitated for the time being, she pushed herself up and ran to where her father still stood.

“Dad!” Her hands went to his wound as his strong legs gave out beneath him.

Thick, crimson blood oozed from the through her fingers. Her hands became covered with the stuff as tears fell freely from her eyes.

Behind her, Shadow sensed before she saw Stanton stirring back to life. She looked over to where the gun had come to a rest, but a quick calculation in her head said she’d never make it there in time.

“It’s okay, sweet girl.” Her father brought a trembling hand to the side of her face. His pain-riddled gaze held a moment of clarity long enough for him to tell her quietly, “You know…what …to do.”

His eyes lowered as if he were looking down, toward his belt. He was telling her without words to continue on with the plan.

But their original plan had been destroyed the second that bastard pulled his trigger. Her father wasn’t supposed to get shot. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to go down.

Plans change, princess. You can either adapt to those changes or die.

The words were her father’s from earlier, when he’d been explaining the plan, and she’d started in with the what-ifs. But in her head, it wasn’t his voice she was hearing. Instead, it was…

Slade’s.

If he were here, he’d be telling her the same thing, of that she was certain. And since he wasn’t here and her father was in no position to fight, it was up to her to finish what had been started.

Twenty-six years ago, Michael Stanton made a choice that led them here, to this very moment. He’d started this war long before she understood what that even meant.

He may have started it, but I’m damn well going to end it. Starting now.

Making a show of putting pressure on the wound in her father’s lower belly, Shadow hunched herself more so Stanton wouldn’t see the move she was making with her right hand.

She found the tiny button hidden behind the buckle of her father’s belt. The one he’d told her about shortly before the man who’d shot him entered the room.

Giving it a push, the button released the small blade that had been hidden within the belt’s thick leather strap. She palmed the weapon in her balled-up fist, but she didn’t make her move right away.

Instead, Shadow leaned up and pressed her lips to her father’s forehead. Tears fell from her eyes onto his paling skin below, and it took everything in her not to howl out in anguish.

“I love you, Dad,” she whispered softy.

Their eyes met, and she knew he knew. Her father loved her, too. There had never been a day she’d ever doubted that fact. And just as he’d spent his life protecting her, Shadow knew it was time to risk hers in order to save them both.

Shadow pushed herself to her feet, the small knife still concealed in her bloodied fist. She turned and faced the man who wanted her dead and then…

She smiled.