This guy wanted Shaw to know he was coming for her, and he wanted her to suffer. Cole and Shaw were banking on him wanting to tell her exactly why he’d been toying with her for so long. After everything she’d been through, she was finally ready to face her nightmare. By herself, for herself, afraid but refusing to back down until she’d prevailed.
And Cole would be right behind her to finish things once she’d gotten the answers she needed. Today, for the rest of her life if she let him, he’d keep the amazing woman who’d stolen his heart safe. He followed in Shaw’s footsteps, careful to stay far enough behind that the maniac after her would assume she was an easy target.
It would be the last mistake the bastard ever made.
Chapter Eighteen
Shaw made it to the mansion faster than she’d expected. She’d sprinted like a crazy woman through the woods, away from the safety of Cole’s touch and voice. And the short journey had been like running straight into the burning maw of hell.
Just a day ago, returning to the familiar hominess of the kitchen might have been a relief. But instead of feeling comforted, her mountain sanctuary seemed hollow now. This wasn’t her home, not without Cole there warming her, watching her, caring for her in that intense way of his.
She was alone again, even with him right behind her, tracking her movements. She was facing this final confrontation on her own, just as she had the first time.
She headed upstairs, keeping to the plan, moving toward the same place she always did when things became too much for her. She sidestepped the damage on the steps and didn’t stop running until she reached her room. She slammed the door behind her and collapsed onto the bed.
Her shoulders shaking, she buried her face into the softness of her grandmother’s pillows. Was her tormentor watching? Would he strike in person, the way they’d hoped, because she was alone and upset? Or would he stick to his pattern and use an accident to take another impersonal jab at her?
She pounded the pillows with her fist, her eyes watering for real. She wanted this to be over. She was exhausted and out of patience, with herself and Cole and that jackass Dawson and the U.S. Attorney, too. Cole’s honesty, belated as it was, had given her the chance to fight for herself. But the same question as always remained. What exactly, besides her freedom, was she fighting for?
Her empty life as a corporate CEO?
She’d obviously chosen to place her faith in the safety of work and business instead of fighting through the messiness of people and relationships and love. And where had that gotten her? Her corporation could go under if the feds didn’t get the evidence they needed to stop whoever was making a travesty out of her work. And then she’d have nothing. No one.
A soft, fluted sound caused her to turn over as Esmeralda crawled out from under the bed and hopped onto the mattress beside Shaw. Shaw pulled her close and buried her face in her companion’s soft fur.
“I still have you, don’t I, old girl?”
But would she also have the love of the man who’d agreed to be her partner now and maybe, just possibly, for the rest of their lives? Was that even possible now?
A creak shattered the night’s silence. A tread on the worn floorboards beyond her bedroom door. She tensed, fighting the urge to scramble over the bed and hide beneath it. Esme’s ears flattened back to her head. She hissed, her tail growing to three times its size. She darted back onto the floor and into the darkened closet. But Shaw was done with hiding. She wasn’t letting herself or Cole down this time. She sat up, smoothed her hair back from her face, and stared as the door slowly opened. It was time to see the truth.
“Hello, Shaw,” said the faceless man from her dream.
Except his face was actually a masculine, horribly disfigured reflection of her own, scarred nearly beyond recognition.
And the man’s smile…
It was a perfect replica of their father’s.
Shaw scampered across the bed after all, backing away from him. Her stomach rolled, even though she hadn’t eaten a thing that day. She wanted to scream, but that would have involved taking in oxygen. It was possible she’d never breathe again.
“Sebastian?” she croaked out.
“What’s the matter, sister?” asked the hairless monster stepping into her room, one leg dragging behind him. His voice was scarred, along with the rest of him, scratchy and nearly unrecognizable. But she had no doubt, as she watched him draw closer, that she was listening to her brother. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“No…”
It was as if her memories had been waiting for the sound of his voice to consume her, to sabotage her balance, to send her teetering into the vanity table beside her. Bottles of perfume crashed to the floor, their various scents escaping and merging in an unappealing muddle that quickly reached Shaw. An entire lifetime of thoughts and emotions and experiences closed in on her, accelerating and curling back on themselves like a black hole, an endless remembering that came so fast, so relentlessly, she felt her mind slipping again…