Page 137 of Power of Shadow

A trickle of cold sweat runs down between my shoulder blades.

Ryker’s confused gaze jumps between Aiden and me. The latter adds with a smile, “Are you going to tell him, Shadow? Or should I do it?”

The question is like a light bulb suddenly illuminating something important in my head.

I exhale loudly. I still can’t take my eyes off James. It’s impossible.

Zoe...

“I have a job to do.” I finally utter the words. I finally confess the truth.

Ryker stiffens, giving me a suspicious look. “You don’t anymore. Your job was Charles, after all.”

“Charles was never Shadow’s job. James was,” Aiden, my... employer… answers for me.

Fuck.

I had no direct contact with him, but now it’s clear. Only he, Alex, and I knew the truth.

“Ryker—” I start, but the words get stuck in my throat.

His shout is like a bear’s roar. “You lied to me!”

“I didn’t lie!” I say with a slight panic in my voice. “I never told you exactly who my target was. I never said it was Charles. You drew those conclusions!”

“And you never corrected them!”

He’s right. I never did.

“And I know it’s a poor excuse. Silence is also a lie.”

At the beginning of our relationship, I knew I couldn’t trust him. He was the son of my enemy, my target. Then we formed an alliance, and everything got mixed up. I wanted to trust him, but I doubted my judgment. And now it’s too late.

“Ash, you can’t do this,” Ryker pleads in a hushed voice. “I’ll never get Aisling back if you kill him now. Baby—”

His pleading gaze and tone of voice do something indefinable to my heart. Everything inside me is turned upside down. “I know, and I’m sorry. I lost my father, I lost my mother because of him. I can’t lose my sister!”

“I fucking hate him too, Ash. I lost my mother too, and I can’t lose Aisling as well.”

My hand starts to shake. For a moment, I ask myself what the hell I’m doing here. It’s too hard with all these feelings clouding my judgment.

“Why the fuck is she even after me?!” James moves to his desk, and I react instinctively by pulling the trigger.

The loud shot echoes off the walls of James’s office.

Chapter 32

Ryker

In that one second, absolutely everything freezes. One shot, one bullet, one target.

BAM!

“No!” Ash screams. She cannot hide her terror in that one cry.

Pain shoots through my arm when I step in the bullet’s path. The hot bullet tears through my muscle and exits sideways. My arm is burning, but the bone is intact. I’m alive. I take one unsteady step back from the impact, but I’m fine.

My father’s the last person in the world I would take a bullet for. Irony of fate, isn’t it? Because that’s exactly what happens.