Shadow Warrior (Shadow Riders 4)

“Because he’s seriously ill. He isn’t going to stop, and no one will ever catch him. You won’t. The cops won’t. He can find his way into someone’s home and live in their attic and they never know he’s there. He watches them. He watches me. He knows everything I say and do. If he knew I was talking to you about him—” She broke off, shuddering. “He does horrible things, and no one knows it was him.”

“You know.”

She nodded, wishing she could control the tremors running through her body. “I’m not really a coward, but he makes me feel like one.” She didn’t want Vittorio to think she was a weakling, although she was letting him take over her life. She told herself she didn’t have many choices, she certainly couldn’t go back to her apartment until Haydon was found—and she knew he wouldn’t be. She was never going to be safe again, but then she hadn’t been for years.

“I met him in one of the homes I was sent to. I’m not very big, so it was easy for other kids to push me around.” She didn’t know if she prefaced her story with that because she was ashamed she hadn’t been able to fight back or that she wanted him to understand how grateful she’d been, at first, to Haydon.

He nodded, those dark brilliant blue eyes fixed on her. His thumb stroked tender caresses along her inner wrist, right over her pulse, soothing her. There was something innately gentle about him and that got to her. He radiated calm, his energy peaceful, surrounding her in a cocoon of tranquility. He made her feel safe, wrapped up in their world together, even though she knew neither one of them was.

“Grace, keep looking at me and breathe. Once you tell me, Haydon is my problem, not yours anymore. You’ve been carrying him far too long on your own.”

Grace studied his face. Trusting him was huge. She didn’t trust anyone, certainly not with what she knew about Haydon. A part of her wanted to protect Vittorio, but another part wanted to share the burden of her knowledge.

If she admitted the truth to herself, she also wanted to please Vittorio, see that look on his face when those blue eyes lit up. She wanted to give him back something when he’d already given her so much by seeing her through the gunshot wound when so many others would have left her alone. If she’d been alone, she would have been vulnerable, and Haydon would have struck. She was terrified Vittorio really would try to hunt Haydon, and that would be such a mistake. He had to know the truth.

Vittorio didn’t say another word, not prompting her one way or the other. He was patient, still stroking her wrist with the pad of his thumb, that movement hypnotic, his gaze spellbinding. She made up her mind and just blurted the truth right out.

“Haydon Phillips is a monster, one so terrifying and so invincible, no one will ever be able to stop him.” She’d stated it out loud. Giving the actual fact to another human being was freeing. She felt as if she’d been breathing shallowly for a lifetime, but now she could take a deep breath and fill her lungs to capacity.

Vittorio, to her astonishment, leaned in and brushed a kiss on her temple. “He’s not going to be able to ever hurt you again, Grace.”

“Do you believe me?” she challenged. Most people looked at Haydon and saw an addict, someone weak. He was thin and looked used up. He was so much more.

“You know him better than anyone else. I’ve done some investigating and it appears that since that first foster home the two of you have been tied together in one form or another. So, yes, if you say the man is a monster, I’m inclined to believe that he is.”

Relief swept through her. The first time she’d tried to tell the cops, they’d quietly investigated Haydon and come back stating there was no evidence whatsoever and he didn’t come across in the least bit violent. After they left, she’d had to face Haydon’s wrath. She’d never tried to convince anyone again.

“He terrifies you.” Vittorio stated it as a fact.

“Because I know what he does, and worse, he knows I know.”

Again, he waited. He didn’t try to hurry her. If he felt impatient, it didn’t show on his face, nor could she feel it in the energy surrounding her. She only felt as if he had woven some kind of a safe cocoon around her. That made it easier to share the things she knew about Haydon.

“When I first got to the foster home, Haydon already was there. The couple, Owen and Becca Mueller, had a son, Dwayne. He was a horrible boy and would shove our plates off the table when his parents weren’t looking, although they knew it was him. Immediately we were beaten for it and forced to clean up the mess with his mother or father kicking and punching us. He would do nasty things, like pee in our beds, and that would earn us a trip to the ‘punishment’ room.”