Chapter fifteen
I Could Show You
Thevodkahadseemedlike such a good idea three hours ago. Now, as black smoke billowed from the oven and something that might have once been steak sizzled angrily in a pan, Shadera was beginning to reconsider. The kitchen of Greyson’s apartment swam before her eyes, all gleaming surfaces and complicated appliances with holographic displays.
She grabbed the oven door, yanking it open. A wall of smoke hit her face, acrid and choking. Whatever she’d shoved in there—bread? She thought it had been bread—was now a blackened lump that might have been useful as a weapon but certainly wasn’t food anymore.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she hissed, stumbling backward over her own feet. The room tilted, reminding her that she’d finished most of the bottle. Good vodka, too. The kind they’d kill for back home.
Her stomach cramped with hunger. Days of barely eating had left her hollow, and the vodka only sharpened that emptiness. She grabbed the bottle from the counter and took another pull as smoke saturated the room. The burn was familiar, comforting. Unlike everything else in this glass prison.
The meat wasn’t cooking right. Parts were black, parts still raw. She turned the flame higher, reasoning that more heat meant faster cooking. The oil in the pan began to bubble. Then to smoke. Fire eruptedfrom the pan. Orange tongues licked upward, catching the oil she’d poured too liberally.
“Fuck.” The word came out slurred, frantic.
She spun toward the sink, her movements loose and uncoordinated, grabbing the first thing she found—a pitcher of water. The fire alarm started shrieking, the sound drilling into her skull. The flames were higher now, licking at the range hood. She raised the pitcher just as the front door exploded open.
Greyson stood in the entryway for a fraction of a second, taking in the scene—the inferno on his stove, the smoke pouring from his oven, and her standing in the middle of it all with a pitcher of water and what she imagined was a spectacularly guilty expression.
“Stop!” He moved faster than her drunk eyes could properly track, shoving her out of the way. “Not water on a grease fire, you fucking—”
The pitcher in her hand went flying as she fell backward, crashing to the floor as water rained down on her. The pitcher shattered as it met the ground beside her, sending shards of glass to her uncovered legs.
Shadera hissed as a piece of broken glass lodged itself into her calf and Greyson barked an order to whoever had entered the apartment with him. The man was already moving, throwing open every window he could reach and cracking the door to the living room balcony. Greyson had already tamed the fire, slamming the lid over the flames as the remaining black smoke billowed out of the now open airways.
Greyson turned to take a step toward her, his eyes hard. Glass crunched under his boots in the first second, and in the next he was slipping on the water slicked floor, plummeting toward her. She scrambled backward, but her drunken limbs didn’t move fast enough.
He caught himself before his body crushed hers, his bare palms meeting glass of either side of her head. A small, pained groan slipped through his clenched teeth as his mask reflected her face back ather—soot streaked, eyes wide with shock and vodka. She could feel his heart hammering through his chest where it pressed against hers.
“What the fuck were you doing?” The words came out arctic, each one perfectly placed to make her feel like a child being scolded.
Shadera’s throat worked as she swallowed. The proximity, his warm body pressed against her sent heat, and warning signals through her intoxicated nerve endings.
“I was hungry,” she answered, pushing onto her elbows. The movement closed the small distance between them. Greyson studied her, his eyes boring into hers, and for one single heartbeat they dropped to her lips before he shoved himself to his feet.
He didn’t offer her a hand to help her up, just strode to the stove and snatched the pan off its surface. She watched him from the ground as he made his way to the trash chute by the fridge, and shoved the pan down it. Shadera scoffed as she rolled to her side and pushed herself from the floor.
He’d probably never washed a dish in his fucking life.
“You nearly burned down my apartment because you were hungry?” Greyson’s voice was climbing now, incredulity breaking through the cold fury. “There’s a comms system for a reason. Chapman would have—”
“I don’t support slavery,” Shadera cut him off, gripping the corner of the island as the room swayed.
“Slavery?” Greyson snapped as his eyes locked back on to hers. “Chapman is—”
“I’m Callum.” His voice cut through the tension and both their heads turned toward him. He stood by the window, having shed his suit jacket at some point. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing forearms marked with tattoos and old scars Shadera’s trained eye recognized as defensive wounds.
He moved toward them casually, stopping just outside striking distance—a man who knew how to navigate violence without inviting it. His mask was copper and gold, more ornate than Greyson’s austere obsidian.
Callum inclined his head to the side. “Long-time friend of our brooding Executioner here.”
Greyson shot him an annoyed glance before taking a deep breath and letting his shoulders relax by a fraction. “He’s here to do some work on the locks.” He nodded toward the kitchen island.
Shadera followed his gaze, noting the surveillance scanner he had used her first night sitting on the edge. Understanding clicked into place. Not locks. The surveillance devices.
She studied Callum with new interest, her drunk mind working to categorize him. Heart elite, obviously, but something else too. The way he moved, the scars, the casual comfort with crises.
“What do you do?” she asked, hearing the slight slur in her words. “Murder people too?”
