Or maybe you’re rationalizing a situation that can get you killed.
Accidenti!Dammit!
8
SHADOWS IN THE SNOW
LUCIAN
Manhattan looks almost innocent wrapped up in snow. But I know better. Nothing in this city stays pure for long.
Excepther.
It’s Saturday and I’m still withher. Following from a distance.
She’s bundled in a pale blue coat that can’t hide the tired set of her shoulders. She’s been working overtime at the shelter. She works seven days a week. Crazy fucking woman.
It’s the holiday surge. More mouths, more stories, more quiet desperation she takes home with her and tucks into bed beside her.
I want to step out of the shadows and help her, hold her, share the burden—but I can’t. It’s not who I am. I don’t walk in the light.
Instead, I watch her from the shadows, like always.
But everything has changed.
She knows I’m there. And she lets me.
She doesn’t look over her shoulder. She doesn’t run.
It should bother me, the trust with which she’s letting me be her shadow—but it doesn’t. Instead, it makes me feel ten feet tall.
I stay outside her building well into the morning, just watching the shadows move in her apartment.
She can’t sleep. I can’t, either.
I bet if I were in her bed or she were in mine, we’d be fast asleep.
No. We wouldn’t. Not for a while. We’d fuck. Hard. Long.
I’m not a beauty sleep kind of person, but anything less than five hours and I’m cranky. So, I’mcrankyattending Gideon’s annual obligatory brotherhood breakfast.
It’s a board meeting with mimosas. Crystal, silver, and snowflake-themed napkin rings. Everything is curated down to the last cranberry garnish. It’s Kendra—not Gideon.
Adrian slides into the seat next to me, dressed like winter himself—charcoal wool coat, silver cufflinks, and dark eyes…sharper than usual.
Gideon was right. Something is up with him. I looked into it. Well, Logan did, since I’ve been too busy being obsessed with a target I don’t intend to kill.
So, we now know what’s up with Adrian.
“Gideon thinks you’re working out a lot,” I tell him as a greeting.
He grunts.
“And I hear that you’re spending a lot of time on the sixty-second floor.”
That’s where the guest quarters are—furnished luxury apartments for clients and executives who want to stay the night close to work. Adrian’s been spending quite a few nights there andnotwith his wife.
“Ask Logan to stop fucking tracking my ass,” Adrian snaps.
