"Not happening."
Two words, spoken with such ferocity she felt it seep into her bones.
"He's in The Syndicate?"
She nodded. "I think so. He addressed me by my real name."
He gazed at her for a long second. "Then you will have him at your mercy."
She never, ever wanted to see him again.
Dainn pressed a kiss to her neck, turning her around to face the monitor. "Full disclosure—I found your friend who ran away."
Lyla watched as he opened a folder, clicking on a photo. It blew up to show a beautiful girl, her eyes shining with happiness as she grinned at the camera. Lyla blinked, touching her hand to the face on the screen, remembering the girl who had left her behind. But she was happy.
"Where is she?" her voice cracked, her heart full for the little girl who had found a good life for herself.
A long pause in his reply made her turn her neck.
"She died. The bald man killed her."
Her hand dropped from the screen, her shoulders slumping. For the first time since the fire, she felt glad that he was already dead, because the coil of fury inside her made her want to murder him again. Fuck.
"She was adopted by a family, but originally she had been the daughter of the Shadow Port mafia boss." The information rolled over her as he brought up an image of Morana, the girl with the glasses. "Morana Vitalio was replaced by her."
Another photo came on, this one with Morana and a man holding her.
"That's your brother, Tristan," he told her, letting her soak their images.
"I saw them that night, you know," she whispered, her eyes scanning as another photo took its place. "The night I tried to…"
"I know. They were there that night following a lead. That's what I tapped into."
The photo changed, this time to include a young boy with the couple.
Her mouth parted, her eyes misting as she took in every single detail of his grown-up face. He was beautiful. So beautiful.
She wrapped her arms around herself as the photos changed, a slideshow of different shots of him, and Lyla took them all in, saving the precious visuals in her memory, her heart bursting with love and loss and happiness for him.
She burrowed into the solid body at her back, breathing though her mouth to control the flood of emotions inside her. He didn't know what he had given her, didn't know what he had done for her, for six years, day after day, night after night. For a man who said he didn't feel, he had raised a boy and sent him to his family, looked over him from afar while keeping her safe throughout. He had stayed with her when she'd been broken and given her all the tools she needed to gather the pieces. He had glued the pieces together and kissed her scars, making her belong in a way her heart had hungered for so deeply.
For a man who said he didn't feel, he sure loved her a fucking lot.
She turned her face to him, her heart in her eyes. "Thank you."
He said nothing, just held her, his eyes searching hers.
She pressed her lips to his and he took over, kissing her in the way she loved, in the way of claiming and owning and keeping.
And sitting in the arms of the devil she loved, not knowing what the future held for her, she felt hope. She felt safety. She felt love.
Whatever the future held, with him at her side, she would be okay.
They would be okay.
Him
The Shadow Man looked down at the woman sleeping on the bed.
A girl who had crashed into his life, a light glow in the dark, thrusting life into his cold, dead heart.
Now a woman who had beaten odds, every single day, and come out rising on the other side, with so much life inside her he wondered how a single being could contain it. It had been that life that had hooked him, the vitality that fed into his void, the absolute to his abyss.
She had told him once, a checklist of all that love was to her, and she had fit every single category for him, all except one.
He had never, not once, put the good of anyone else before his own selfish needs, had never thought he would. But oddly, as he watched her sleep, knowing the demons she fought and the cracks she counted within herself, he felt a compulsion to cover the cracks and seal them shut, until she was back on the road to her healing as she had been. He had seen how well she did when she focused on herself, when outside forces weren't pulling away at her, and he wanted her to find her way back to it.
And he knew what she needed to heal did not align with what he wanted, which was to keep her to himself and not share even a part of her with the world.
He traced her mouth with his thumb, and her lips parted in her sleep.