Page 4 of Night of Shadows
I look at my daughter for another twenty seconds. I memorize her, the way I’ve been memorizing her for weeks, because that’s what a mother does when she’s been told that someone has put a hundred thousand dollars on her head and it’s personal.
I let out a sigh and then close her door gently, making my way back to the kitchen.
The galley kitchen is the reason I signed the lease. It has original 1948 green subway tile, with six chips along the bottom row, I couldn’t afford to replace—and wouldn’t if I could.
Afternoon light pools through the window over the sink, illuminating a basil plant I’ve had to replace four times; turns out I can keep a child alive, but herbs don't stand a chance. Between the white cabinets, original brass handles, and the cupped wood floor where Nora scuffs the finish running her circuits, it’s the first space that has ever truly belonged to me. After an adult life spent in borrowed rooms, this kitchen is mine, the way Nora is mine. I built this sanctuary from nothing, and there is nobody else to take the credit.
And I have a sick feeling I’m about to leave it.
I finally reach over and pick up my phone.
It’s the federal protective detail. The text is short.
ETA 8:00. Two operatives. Lead operative will introduce. Stand down acknowledgment requested.
I type back. Acknowledged.
I set the phone face down on the counter.
And then, because I’m the kind of woman who handles a threat by making tea, I heat up the kettle. Earl Grey. The good kind that Eileen sent from Galway last Christmas, which I’ve been rationing because once it’s gone, I’ll not have a cousin to send me more.
I pour the boiling water and watch the steam. I let the tea steep for the four minutes the box says, timing it exactly, because I’m a person who follows directions when I’m scared.
And while the tea steeps, I think about the gala.
? ? ?
It was August. Three years ago. A Boston charity gala for a children's hospital, hosted at the Greek consulate.
I went because I was twenty-eight and a third-year associate at a firm that needed someone to cover a partner who was throwing up oysters in a hotel bathroom. I went in a green dress my mother had picked out for my cousin's wedding two months earlier and had survived the wedding without alteration.
I went alone. I drank one and a half glasses of free champagne. I stood near a window with a view of the harbor and a clean line to the exit because the year before that I had been at a firm event where a senior associate put his hand on my back and asked me to come look at something on the second floor, and I had learned, in the way women learn, to always know where the exit was.
I saw him before he saw me.
He didn’t just look at me; he dismantled me from across the room. While the two men beside him chirped like frantic birds, Lex Konstantinos stood like a monolith of dark, tailored wool and quiet violence. When our eyes locked, the air in the consulate didn't just thin—it vanished.
Thirty seconds.In that time, I felt the pulse in my throat begin to throb, a rhythmic betrayal. I didn't just see the way his eyes darkened; I felt the physical pull of him, like a riptide beneath a calm surface.
When I finally crossed the floor, the heels of my shoes clicking against the marble sounded like a countdown. As I reached him, the scent hit me—sandalwood, expensive tobacco, and something cold, like steel.
"You’re a long way from the exit," he murmured. His voice was a low, melodic rasp that seemed to vibrate straight into my bones.
"I found something better to look at," I countered, my bravado thin but sharp.
He didn't smile. Instead, he leaned down, his breath grazing the shell of my ear, sending a violent shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.
"Careful,moro mou," he whispered, his Greek accent curling around the words like a velvet noose. "Once you stop looking for the exit, I stop letting you find it."
His hand found the small of my back—not a polite touch, but a claim. His palm was searingly hot through the thin silk of my green dress, his thumb tracing the dip of my spine with a slow, deliberate pressure that made my knees weak. I stared at the tiny scar at the corner of his mouth, and the urge to taste it was so sudden, so primal, it terrified me.
The cab ride was a blur of streetlights and heavy silence, the kind that happens right before a storm breaks. By the time the door to the penthouse clicked shut, the air was screaming.
He didn't rush. He was a man used to taking what he wanted, but he moved with the agonizing patience of a collector. He stripped his jacket off, his eyes never leaving mine, then his tie, revealing the column of a throat I wanted to bruise with my teeth.
"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice rougher now. He stepped into my space, his tall frame casting a shadow that swallowed me whole.
"Yes," I breathed.
