Part 1
By the time I lifted Samantha into my arms, her lips were pale, one eye was swollen shut, and her mother’s signature ring had left a red crescent across her cheek.
“Gareth,” she whispered, barely conscious as her body trembled against mine. “Don’t let them take the house.”
For four years, I had convinced Samantha that I was merely a quiet logistics consultant who avoided conflict. That lie had shielded her from the part of my life governed by debts, borders, and men who lowered their voices whenever they uttered my real name: the Crimson Shadow.
Earlier that evening, Samantha’s mother, Rosalind Harrington, had summoned us to the family estate outside Anchorage. Samantha’s father had bequeathed her the mansion, forty acres, and a controlling stake in his winter-resort enterprise. Rosalind insisted it was a clerical error.
“Sign the transfer right now,” she ordered, sliding papers across the long dining table. “Your sister Valerie has children to raise, while you have a husband who carries heavy boxes for a living.”
Samantha pushed the papers right back. “Dad knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote this will.”
I was supposedly in Baltimore overnight for a business trip, a detail that led Rosalind to believe Samantha was completely defenseless. Valerie slapped her across the face first. Then Rosalind struck her with the heavy leather document folder while Samantha’s younger brother, Christopher, disabled the driveway camera. Together, the three of them dragged her through the service door and abandoned her beside the frozen greenhouse, assuming the brutal cold would force her to sign by morning.
What they didn’t realize was that I had placed a covert tracker in Samantha’s bracelet after a stranger followed her home two weeks earlier.
The marks behind the greenhouse revealed the entire story: two sets of boot prints encircling Samantha, drag marks crossing the frozen lawn, and a single bare footprint where she had attempted to stand. I wrapped her in my heavy coat, caught the sound of a car engine near the main house, and prioritized saving her life over immediate retribution.
At Providence Medical Center, I carried her through the emergency room doors as medical staff rushed to assist us with gurneys. My torn shirt shifted off my shoulder, revealing the dark crowned-wraith tattoo across my chest—the symbol known only to senior members of my organization.
Rosalind and Christopher were already standing at the front desk, calmly fabricating a story that Samantha had wandered outside after drinking too much wine. Christopher noticed the tattoo first, all color draining from his face as he grabbed his mother’s arm.
“That symbol on his chest,” he stammered. “Mom, that’s the Crimson Shadow.”
Rosalind stared at me as if a phantom had entered the hospital. I laid Samantha gently on the gurney, kissed her cold forehead, and turned to face them.
“Lock every single exit,” I said quietly to my operatives nearby. “No one leaves this floor until my wife wakes up.”
