Page 6 of Unmasking Her Shadow

I don’t stop her.

“Go end it, Ki, for fuck’s sake.”

I growl in frustration and put my obsession on my pillow and run after Sierra.

“Si,” I shout, stopping her from getting into her car. She crosses her arms, her nipples showing through the thin material. “It’s over.” My voice is void of any emotion.

“No shit,” she spits and slams her door shut, peeling out of our driveway. Well, that was easy.

Ryker is leaning back against my headboard with my laptop in his lap when I walk back into my bedroom. “We need to move,” I tell him. I check on Sam before closing the screen and taking it away from him.

“What do you mean we need to move?”

“Sam bought a house almost an hour away.”

“Fuck, Ki,” he grumbles, dragging his hands down his face. “You are insane. Like a literal fucking psycho.”

I smirk and flop down next to him. “You never asked where she moved to,” I nudge him and waggle my eyebrows.

“Enlighten me.”

“Close to home.”

He perks up. “I’m listening,” he replies, side-eyeing me.

He’s mentioned a few times recently how nice it would be if we could move closer to home again. His Grandma isn’t getting any younger, and he would tear himself apart if he wasn’t there for her in her final days. Which I hope is still a long time from now.

“There’s a house close to our old neighborhood up for sale and openings at the WRPD. We just have to be part-time SWAT officers. We could get in easily. Hell, they would probably beg us to transfer.”

“Does this house happen to be in the same neighborhood as your current obsession?”

I don’t like the way he says current as if I’ve done anything this dramatic before. She isn’t current…she’s forever. She also doesn’t know this yet. Baby steps.

“Close.”

“Let me guess…a street away?”

“Maybe,” I drawl out.

“Fuck it, let’s do it.”

I burst into laughter.

“You already did it, didn’t you?”

“Sure did. We have two weeks left here.”

He buries his face in his hands and shakes his head. “I’m only going along with it for my grandma, not because I approve of your nonsense.”

I cross my arms and glare at him. “I’m going to marry her one day. That is a promise.”

5

Sam

“What the hell, Xan?” I shriek, covering my mouth when my phone narrowly misses hitting him in the face. Which he would have deserved. Thankfully, I don’t hear a bang. My phone must have missed the doorframe and wall by a hair to land on the carpet. I spent an hour on the phone with him earlier letting him down easy, assuring him that this is all me and has nothing to do with him as a person. I like him as a person…or I did.

“How did you get in here?”