Run, Joey. Run.
The bastard won't stop moaning and crying.
The pain train smashes a hole through the walls of my heart and anger starts pouring out.
Run, Joey. Run.
Cash’s voice slams into my mind again, but my father’s crazy is too busy overtaking my own mouth. “You’re a thief, Pa!” I scream at him, my scrawny twelve-year-old body towering over his crumpled six-two. “You’re a dirty, bastardy thief! It was Cash’s twister to ride outta here, not yours, and you stole it from him! You stole it from him!”
Pa blinks twice, and then his chanting stops. That’s when I find I ain’t so angry anymore.
“My twister’s coming for you too now, boy.” His thin lips curl into a snarl. “Better hide from it while you still can.”
He lunges for my foot and I go down like a sack of shit. The back of my head smacks into the floor, and everything goes fuzzy.
“Stop, Pa!” Steel fingers close around my ankle, dragging me out onto the porch after him. He pulls so hard and fast, my T-shirt catches on the doorframe, ripping it up and leaving my belly exposed.
“Those damn voices,” I hear him muttering again, and with his other hand he reaches down for his shotgun.
Terror explodes in my veins—not the same fear that I keep locked away inside of myself, but one that’s real and present. Those holes in my heart are letting everything out.
Rocking sideways, I feel his grip on me loosen. Kicking out, I manage to drive him backward away from me and onto his knees.
Flying from the porch, I smack my hip on the broken railing at the bottom of the steps, and then I'm cannoning off the hood of his dirty Ford. The pain drags at me all over, but I don’t stop running. The open door of the barn is beckoning to me like Ma’s embrace. Don't think about Ma’s head.
Behind me, I can hear the clink clink as Pa reloads his shotgun with a couple of the loose shells from the porch floor.
“You can't hide from me, boy! I’m the motherfucking twister, remember?”
I hurl myself into the darkness, the sweet scent of straw blasting into my senses as his first shot splinters the wood next to me. Crying out Cash’s name, I lose my footing again, throwing myself down behind the same stack of bales we were sitting on earlier. My shaking fingers find his cigarette butt, and I hold it close to me like a talisman.
Don’t think about the red pool leaking out from underneath him.
Clink clink.
Pa’s in the doorway. He’s staggering around, drunk on something far worse than whiskey. He fires two more shots above my hiding place, blowing holes in the back wall and inviting the rest of the world into my horror.
I whimper into the floor.
Time stretches and sags.
Wax drips.
His footsteps shuffle closer.
“I can feel my twister turning on me now, Joey,” I hear him say with a chuckle, like he’s sharing one of Cash’s secrets. “You’ll serve the Devil from hereon in. You hear that, boy?”
I hear you, Pa. Over the course of my lifetime, I’ll serve two.
Angles and shapes don’t matter no more.
Nothing does.
A beat later, his final shot is sending us both to hell.
2
Joseph
Present
Bone splinters beneath my fists, tearing another grunt of satisfaction from my lips.
Bykov’s head snaps back and an arc of red stipples the front of my white T-shirt. I watch, indifferent, as he gurgles and chokes on his own retribution, and before the skinny Russian has another chance to beg for his life, I’m smashing into his left cheek and evening up the damage.
This fresh blow of pain knocks him out cold.
“Pussy.”
Shaking the ache out of my hand, I lift my gaze to find Dante’s. The tall Colombian is leaning up against the far wall, arms crossed, staring at me like I just pissed all over his fun time. He cocks one dark eyebrow, and I know what he’s thinking. Before he can say the words out loud, I’m drawing my Glock and firing a bullet into the unconscious man’s skull.
I don't want to hear it.
There’s a pause, and then he’s pushing off from the wall to join me.
“You making up your own orders now, Grayson?” He kicks the corpse off the chair. The dead Russian hits the polished parquet with a muffled thump. “You killed him too quick.”
Torture is a specialty of Dante’s. He’s former cartel, and they live and breathe for that shit. But I’m in no mood for it tonight. My anger is spent; my bare knuckles just imprinted it all over the corpse’s skin.
“Well?”
“Initiative,” I tell him coolly, holstering my weapon, doling out the word with the same measure of deference I always show him. As far as I’m concerned, Santiago’s earned it. I serve this devil and I’ve served him well, for close to twenty years now. From the frontlines of the Middle East and all through his reign in South America, to our latest endeavor: becoming the type of mercenaries where killing comes as naturally to us as fucking.
My words are sparser these days, my silence more crimson than golden. The holes in my heart got patched up with vengeance somewhere along the way, but the ache in my chest is still present. It’s still a melting reactor seeping poison into my system.
He considers me for a moment in that scary-ass way of his, and then he’s turning back to the disfigured corpse. “Take out the trash. I’ll meet you downstairs. New York is done. It’s clean. This war is over… I’ll call Rick Sanders, and tell him the good news.”
I nod, watching him own the hallway. Dante’s recent incarceration in a maximum-security facility hasn’t smoothed his edges. If anything, it has made them sharper. He’s more focused now. He has a family. Eve. Their first child is barely a few months old. His need to protect them floods his veins with the same potency as his bloodlust.
I snap my fingers at the three men hanging back. “Dump the body. Scrub this shit down.” I glance around the palatial monochrome New York apartment that set the scene for our latest slaughter. Since Dante slipped through the authorities’ fingers, we’ve been sweeping up the debris of a Russian sex trafficking empire. The war may be over like Dante said, but there’ll be re-runs and bonus scenes.
Still, it’s watch-and-wait season for us now. We’ll fly straight to Dante’s private island in the Pacific tonight until I return to the US next week.
For her.
Spun gold.
Her latest stay at Greens Therapy Center is coming to end. It’s one of the best private rehabs in Miami, all paid for on my dime of course. She switches up her addictions the same way she switches up the invisible lines between us—abruptly, and without warning. Last month, her drug of choice was Oxy, and now it’s alcohol. It’s the fucking narc progression. I see what’s coming next and it makes me want to pound my fists into that dead Russian's face all over again.
“We’re done, boss,” says a voice behind me.
I nod and signal for everyone to leave. The body is wrapped in a tarp, and the sour reek of cleaning chemicals is stinking up the apartment.
It’s time to get the hell out of here.
* * *
The journey to the private aircraft passes in silence. Dante is tapping out a thesis to his wife, Eve, on his phone, while my own reflections are loud enough to fill the SUV.
I’m thinking about life, and how freely I take it.
I’m thinking about loss, and how freely I grant it.
Reversing time is another currency I’d spend with the same impunity if I could. To see all those I couldn't save… To speak words I couldn’t say.
I drag my mind back to the first time I saw her: warm night. Busy nightclub. Crowded sidewalk.
I watched her unseen from the darkness: wicked jade eyes and a red dress that weaved her killer curves into an enticing trap. A woman with so much life and energy about her, I’d wanted to tap that pussy and drink my fill.
One glimpse was enough to have my
dick in flames.
One glimpse was enough to have me making her a promise. It’s one I’ll keep for the both of us until she learns to stop hating and dares enough to believe.
Nothing about us is simple. Nothing is straightforward. Its unrequited and unspoken, but it’s also chronic and pervasive, cementing our cracks with something other than hate.
My cellphone chimes. I check the message, erupt with a curse, and it’s enough to catch Dante’s attention.
“What is it?”
“I’m not going back to the island. I’ll drop you off and take the car.” I hand him my cell and watch him scan the message.
I know he won't stop me. Dante doesn't feel guilt, but he likes to swipe his bloody finger through mine every so often.
And there is so much guilt to feel over her.
3
Anna
“Come on, baby… You gonna take the hit, or what?”
I drop my face to the glass table like a good girl. Or am I a bad girl now? Whatever. The lines are so blurred these days, even I can't tell the difference.
The rolled up twenty grazes my nose as I slip and slide toward this new peccadillo like a foal on ice. The only alternative is a black hole where my life used to me. Rehab can’t reach me, I lost both my jobs after the no-shows, Mom’s dead, and my best friend, Eve, seems lost to her own devil these days.
When I discharged myself from Greens, there was only one destination: Another night in another club, of which the name escapes me.
I’m back in South Beach. I know that much. The rest isn’t worth remembering, not even a description of Mr. Faceless who just sold me a couple of grams of shut-the-hell-up-world. Tonight, I needed a new vice, and I didn’t have to look too deep inside myself to find one.
Cocaine.
For years, my shadow dealt it.
For years, he protected it.
And now here I am, on my knees and about to worship it.
“Come on, baby,” urges Faceless. “I wanna hit too.”
He’s such a sleaze—goading and slavering. Over me, or the coke? He’s the type of guy I would’ve sidestepped a year ago. And now? He’s just another plug to stop the deadness from pouring out of me.
Black hair. Black eyes. What was his name again? I don't even care.
My decision made, I snort fast—shooting sparks and fireworks into my skull. The twenty drops from my fingers, and I let out a moan as my head hits the back of the couch; legs splayed out like a debutante’s worst nightmare, inviting everyone. Inviting none.
“Feeling good now, sugar?”
I nod, watching Faceless through narrowed eyes as the last few months disappear in a swirl of bright colors and blinding lights.
Out of body.
Out of my goddamn mind.
“Here, have another,” he says, cold hands straightening me up before a stinging smack to my cheek jolts my senses awake. “Snort up, beautiful. Let’s get this party started.”
More fireworks. More hours cut adrift to another stupid, reckless decision. More fractures to my soul as I take a powder-white wrecking ball to the remains of the woman I used to be.
Bursts of euphoria filter through the deadness as I stumble after him into the night. A part of me knows how this scene will unfold. A part of me resigns myself to it, and when he pushes me up against a wall in a deserted alleyway, I almost feel my body sagging with relief.
This is what I know.
This is what they made me know.
This is all I’m good for.
That’s what they said to me.
When a second male voice joins the scene, I don’t even bother pushing him away.
“Bitch likes to double team.”
Cold hands close around my neck. Now they’re pinching at my breasts, snatching at something that will never be theirs to take, ripping at my black dress like animals.
“Yeah, baby... You know you like it rough.”
Do I?
I take it all without protest, my head floating up to that point in the sky where nothing can hurt me, even when I’m spun around and shoved so hard into the wall I’m left breathing in the grit and damp of the brickwork.
Why am I allowing this?
Because I’ve forgotten how to fight.
My legs are forced apart. My panties get ripped aside. I’m in a tunnel with a sliver of light at one end, but it’s fading fast to the cruel, cruel sound of zippers. I close my eyes and brace for the pain. I’m a traitor to myself, an ideal, to him—
There’s a noise behind us.
Joseph.
The air turns frigid and flat.
Grayson.
I sense his rage before he begins; before my rapists even realize that Death is here to collect. It’s there in the staccato beats between my sad acceptance and their messy grunts, and when he strikes it’s over in seconds.
The first man is ripped away from me while his fingers are still inside my ass. I wince, and then a dull thud is echoing around the alleyway.
I keep my head turned as Joseph continues. I’ve seen what he’s capable of. I see it every time I close my eyes.
There’s barely a sound when he kills the second, just the frantic scrabbling of dying feet against the asphalt as he uses his bare hands to sate the worst of it.
There’s another dull thump—a thicker, heavier one—as the body gets tossed aside, then finally he speaks.
“We’re leaving.”
His anger lingers, bright and hard. Lighting up the alleyway in suicide red. I hear the faint ringing of a connecting call before he’s issuing out coded instructions to his cleanup crew.
“Near the corner of Fairfax and Redmond. Double hit. Clock’s ticking.”
What must I look like to him, I wonder. Back turned, dress ruined, too much skin on display—
“You’re going back to rehab.” Hanging up, he swings his declaration at me.
No compromise.
No way.
I don't know what’s best for me anymore, but I know it’s not that. I’ve never felt more sterile than I do in those places. They’re guillotines for the soul.
“Did you hear what I said?”
I heard you.
“Here.”
A warm jacket gets thrown around my shoulders, the heady, intoxicating smell of him drugging my senses more than the coke. It’s too much. He’s too much.
“Stop, Grayson,” I say hoarsely, dragging his jacket from my body. “Just leave me alone... Just leave me alone.”
Shutting my eyes, I drive my forehead into the wall, the roughness scratching at my skin again as invisible creatures crawl from the brickwork and into my broken cracks. At the same time, I can feel him moving behind me, not touching—never touching—but my awareness of him, of the heat emanating from his body, tells of a prologue to a story I’m refusing to read.
“Never.” The deep vibration spills up from the center of his chest.
Never?
Very little falls from his mouth, and it’s always three sentences short of an explanation.
He plants one large hand above my head, sentencing me to his brand of intimacy, forcing the one thing that we never speak of from my lips.
“Do you want to fuck me too, Joseph?” Every word is stripped bare by the resignation in my voice. “Is that what makes you my shadow? If so, then do it. Take me now. Ruin every shred of decency left inside of me. There’s nothing you can do to this body that’ll make it feel any less empty or used.”
There’s a pause. “I don’t fuck broken.”
He delivers it angrily, viciously, like my words disgust him. Like I disgust him. I shut my eyes even tighter, his response bruising me far more than it should.
How did my life come to this? To this alleyway… To this sinner… To the black dress now torn across my shoulders… To a world of darkness… To the two would-be rapists lying dead at my feet.
“I don't fuck broken,” he repeats huskily, his breath skimming across my exposed neck, forcing me to imag
ine the shape and texture of his kiss. “When you come to me willingly, Anna, and you will come to me willingly one day, I want you whole. I want you compliant. I want those legs wide open, with all your pretty morals, regrets and pain lying next to your soaking-wet panties on the floor. And shall I tell you why, my Luna?” The breath catches in my throat. This is the most I’ve ever heard him speak. “I want the pleasure of breaking you all for myself.” He moves in even closer, until there’s barely a whisper and a prayer between us. “Your walls will crumble. Your tides will turn. When you scream and shatter and fall apart in my hands, it’ll be me who puts you back together again. You will meld only to me. You will see only me. You will want only me.”
“I hate you,” I whimper, tears of helpless rage smearing across my cheeks. Despite everything, I can feel a stirring between my thighs. It’s a spark that can’t catch. It’s a spark that’s drenched in pain and self-loathing... But it’s a spark, nonetheless.
“Perhaps.” He drops his hand and takes a step away from me, flaying me with cold air and solitude. “But hate crashes people together as hard as that other emotion… One night, Anna—”
“To fuck the shadow and never dance amongst the stars again,” I finish for him, tonelessly.
The air shifts again, blackens, and then I’m feeling his heat for the first time. Grabbing my arm, he spins me around to face him.
Just as quick, I wrench it away, clutching at the ripped seams of my dress to cover my exposed chest. “Get your hands off me!” I scream, because a touch from him hurts more than anyone’s.
He curses and lets go. The alleyway is sparsely lit with the headlights from passing cars. I see his huge silhouette before I see the man. The myth. The shadow. He hasn't changed much since we last met. He’s still six-foot-four of hard muscle and discordant sin. With steely eyes and a dirty blond buzz-cut to penetrate my surfaces more cleanly.
“First I’ll make you bleed, and then I’ll make you heal,” he repeats slowly.
Shadow Man: Grayson Duet: Book One Page 2