BOUND BY HIS SHADOW

Between shadows

Grace hated walking home in silence.

Every sound—every footstep, every car door slamming, every burst of laughter drifting from a bar—echoed too loudly in her chest. The city was supposed to be noisy, alive, chaotic enough to drown out her thoughts. Tonight, it wasn’t. Tonight, it felt like the whole world was holding its breath, watching her.

She tugged her coat tighter, her eyes darting over her shoulder for the fifth time in as many minutes.

He was out there. She knew it.

Not Ethan—although he wasn’t far from her mind, either. No, the shadow that pressed against her wasn’t in a boardroom or behind a glass desk. It was on the streets, trailing her with footsteps she sometimes heard, sometimes only imagined.

Her stomach knotted. Why now? Why after years of silence was he back? She had buried that part of her life, thrown herself into scraping together a new one. And now, when she was already tangled in Ethan’s impossible orbit, the past decided to dig its claws into her again.

Her phone buzzed.

She almost dropped it. But it wasn’t a message from the stalker. It was Ethan.

Ethan: Get in the car waiting for you at the corner of 5th.

Her pulse kicked. She quickened her steps, half from nerves, half from a deep-rooted relief she refused to name. When she turned the corner, a sleek black car idled at the curb, its windows tinted.

Her chest tightened. Of course.

Of course he was watching her. He probably had been all day. The thought should have made her furious—should have stoked the same fire that burned every time Ethan tried to move her life like a chess piece.

Instead, what spilled through her was something she couldn’t admit: safety.

Still, she yanked the door open with a sharp jerk, sliding into the leather seat. Mason, Ethan’s security man, gave her a nod from the driver’s seat.

“Mr. Cole’s orders,” he said, pulling into traffic before she could demand answers.

Her fists clenched in her lap. Orders. Always orders. Always Ethan deciding what was best.

When the car glided to a stop outside Ethan’s building, Grace didn’t wait for Mason to open the door. She stormed into the lobby, heels striking hard against the marble floor.

By the time she reached his office, her nerves were strung tight as violin strings. She shoved the doors open without knocking.

Ethan was waiting for her, as if he had known exactly how long it would take her to climb the stairs. He stood by the window, city lights painting him in sharp edges, his gaze cool and unreadable.

“You had no right,” she snapped, not giving him a chance to speak. “You can’t just send people to collect me like—like property.”

His jaw ticked once. “You were being followed.”

Her breath stuttered. She tried to cover it with anger. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.” His voice was flat, steady, terrifying in its certainty. “And you know I do, Grace. Stop pretending otherwise.”

She hated that he was right. Hated that his words sliced through her denial and laid her fear bare in the open.

Her hands shook. “You can’t fix this. You can’t fix me. Stop trying to own my life.”

He crossed the room in two strides, towering over her until she had to tilt her chin to meet his eyes. “I don’t want to fix you,” he said, voice low, magnetic. “I want to keep you alive.”

Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

For a moment, there was only the city behind them and his shadow spilling over hers, wrapping around her like something she couldn’t shake.

And the worst part? A small, broken part of her didn’t want to shake it.