His arms tightened around her, drawing her closer, one hand cradling the back of her head. He held her as she cried, her tears soaking into his shirt, her body shaking against his. He made no attempt to shush her or stem the flow of her grief. He simply held her, solid and present, an anchor in the storm of her despair.
She didn’t know how long they stayed that way—her broken and weeping, him silent and steadfast. Time seemed to lose meaning, stretching and contracting with each shuddering breath. The bathwater continued to run, filling the tub to its brim before the automaticoverflow kicked in, maintaining the water level with a gentle gurgling sound.
Eventually, her sobs quieted, exhaustion claiming what remained of her strength. She sagged against him, drained and empty.
Still, Greyson said nothing. The silence between them had changed, though—no longer charged with anger and betrayal, but something almost like acceptance.
Finally, he shifted, his arms adjusting their hold on her but not letting go.
“I’m going to help you,” he said, his voice low and rough, as if the words were being dragged from somewhere deep inside him. “Let me help you into the bath. Let me help you get out of these clothes.”
It wasn’t forgiveness—not yet. It was a man showing that he still had a heart, that despite his own pain the good man she’d come to know still remained.
Greyson’shandstrembledashe reached for the scissors in the bathroom cabinet. Not from weakness—though his body still ached from captivity—but from the storm of emotions that raged beneath his skin.
Anger at his father, at the men who had done this to her. Guilt that twisted like a knife in his gut for how he’d treated her, for the words he’d spoken in cold fury. And something else, something that terrified him more than either of these—a desperate tenderness that threatened to shatter what remained of his carefully constructed walls.
She sat with her back facing him, small and broken, a shadow of the woman he’d first encountered, and every instinct in his body screamed to protect her, to heal her, to never let her be hurt again.
He sunkback to his knees, scissors in hand, her ruined clothes stuck to her body with dried blood and sweat. Her breathing was shallow, carefully controlled to minimize the pain.
“I’m going to cut these off,” he said, his voice gentler than he’d intended. “It’ll hurt less than trying to lift them over your head.”
She nodded once, a small, tight movement that revealed how much pain even that simple action caused her. Greyson swallowed hard, pushing down the rage that threatened to consume him at the sight of her suffering. Rage wouldn’t help her now. She needed steady hands, calm words, careful touch.
He began with her shirt, slipping the blade of the scissors under the hem and cutting upward in a slow, deliberate motion. The fabric parted easily, revealing inches of skin mottled with bruises—some fresh, some already beginning to heal. Blood pooled underneath her skin that threatened internal bleeding coming from somewhere in her abdomen. But it was what he saw beneath the injuries that forced the oxygen from his lungs.
Scars. Dozens of them. Old and silvered with time, crisscrossing her body in a chaotic pattern that spoke of years of violence. A knife wound just below her ribs, puckered and raised. A burn that covered her left side, the skin mottled and uneven. Bullet wounds. So many bullet wounds.
Her body was a battlefield, a record of survival written in scar tissue and damaged flesh.
Greyson’s fingers stilled on the scissors, his throat tightening. These were the evidence of a life lived in brutality, of pain endured and overcome time and again. How had he never noticed? How had he been so blind to the story her body told?
He’d seen some of the scars before, in that black, backless dress, but somehow, it hadn’t fully registered. Somehow this close, with nothingto cover her, he was forced to truly understand the violence that her body had seen.
He wanted to run his fingers across their ridges, let his lips trace the outlines of the tattoos inked between them.
“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the running water.
She was wrong. She was so fucking wrong.
He had never seen anything so heartbreaking, so beautiful and horrifying at once.
He continued cutting, removing her shirt piece by careful piece to avoid disturbing her injuries. The fabric had adhered to some of her wounds, and he had to wet it with a washcloth to prevent reopening them as he worked. She remained still throughout, only the occasional sharp intake of breath betraying the agony each movement caused her.
When her torso was completely bare, Greyson had to clench his jaw to keep from cursing aloud. The unnatural depression on her left side confirmed what he’d suspected—at least two breaks, possibly more. Precise injury, designed to cause maximum pain without endangering vital organs. His father’s men knew exactly what they were doing. How to hurt without killing. How to break without destroying.
He moved to her pants next, cutting from ankle to waist in two long lines that allowed the fabric to fall away without her having to stand. More bruises revealed themselves, more tattoos, more scars—a particularly vicious one that ran the length of her thigh, another that curved around her knee. The story of her life continuing down her legs, a narrative of pain and survival that made his own scars feel insignificant in comparison.
When he’d finished, she sat before him naked and shivering. Despite her injuries, despite the vulnerability of her position, she met his eyes and held his gaze with a dignity that made his chest ache. This was Shadera—the real Shadera, stripped of masks and defenses, of bravadoand pride. This was the woman who’d survived horrors he could only imagine, who’d been shaped by pain as he’d been, forged in the same cruel fire that had tempered his own soul.
They were mirror images, he realized. Both weapons crafted by others’ hands, both scarred by the roles they’d been forced to play. Both longing for something they could barely name—freedom, perhaps. Redemption. A chance to be more than what violence had made them.
“The water’s getting cold,” he said, the words inadequate against the magnitude of what he felt.
Shadera nodded, still watching him with that single, wary eye. She tried to stand, her legs trembling with the effort, and Greyson moved without hesitating, sliding one arm beneath her knees, the other supporting her back, lifting her with a care he hadn’t known he possessed.
Her body felt fragile against his chest despite the strength he knew it contained. He could feel her heartbeat, rapid and shallow, her skin cool beneath his touch. He lowered her gently into the water, supporting her head as she hissed at the initial contact with her injuries. Steam rose around them, fogging the mirrors, creating a world that existed only in this moment, separate from the horrors that awaited beyond the bathroom door.
