INHERITANCE OF SHADOW SERIES
SEALED IN SHADOW
He thought it was over until the politician he exposed kept campaigning, bankrolled by a trade in missing children.
George thought it was finished, and he’d given the authorities enough to bury a corrupt politician. Maxwell’s running one campaign in daylight and another in the dark, because children are still going missing and the money behind it knows how to hide. Walking away isn’t an option, even when George allowed himself to believe he can finally live a normal life with the only woman who ever truly saw him, not the mask, not the performance, the real him.
Then he turns on the news and the man who should be behind bars is still smiling, still campaigning.
And there’s something else George hasn’t fully faced. Adel’s not a kid anymore. She’s grown into something sharper, something far more capable and dangerous than he ever was, and if he keeps trying to carry the world alone, he may realise too late that the ally he needs is right beside him.
The traits they share, her knowledge of what he tried to shield her from and what his absence shaped her to become could be the very thing that finally brings it all down once and for all.
Book Three of the Inheritance of Shadows series.
Outlined → Drafting next.
George Merrick
I didn't expect to still be here. For a while it looked like the cancer had made the final decision for me and I'd made my peace with that. Somehow it didn't. Somehow I am still breathing.
If you asked me how I got through it, I'd say it was Natalia. The version of her I carried with me throughout the dark time in Africa when I couldn't risk being anywhere near the real Nat. That quiet, steady voice that’s managed to steady me ever since I met her. I held onto that when everything else slipped. I don’t know how, but I think it saved me.
Once it became clear I wasn't going to die, the next part was simple. If I’m alive, this is where I have to be. With her. With Adel. I couldn't stay away, not unless she asked me to. So I came home. As long as Natalia wants me here, here is where I'll stay.
Adel's grown up. I see it. She’s always walked into a room like she owns it, but now, its different. She's still as chaotic as ever, still firing off jokes at my expense whenever she gets the chance. I don't even mind being the target, I know it comes from a good place. That's how she shows she love. I understand that language and I love that kid more than she realises, and she's still freaking hilarious. I worry about her though, the same way her mum does. Everything she does, she does at full power. The Gym, MMA, work, college, the boat. She won’t do anything she can’t master. I admire it. When she decides she’s going to learn something, she just does it. No hesitation. No half measures. I'm good at a small number of things and I stay in those lanes, but Adel seems capable of anything she decides is worth her time. She collects skills the way I collect information. That constant drive is familiar. It’s who we are, both of us, just pointed in different directions.
I wanted, briefly, to believe I could come back and live a simple life. Quiet. Normal. Then I found out it's not over. The trafficking ring I thought I'd tore apart still has one head left, and he's not forgotten me.
Now the choice is very clear. If I walk away and try to pretend it's finished, I'm not just betraying the children still in danger and I'm putting Nat and Adel at risk. He knows who I am. If he finds out I'm alive, he'll come for me. For them. That's a risk I can't accept, so, there are only two options. I leave, disappear from their lives and hope distance keeps them safe. Or I finish this properly and remove the threat. If ending it means thousands of children are safer and the two people I love most can live without being in danger, then I know what I have to do.
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.” Then, if there is anything left of me, maybe I can come home and finally live that happy life to a ripe old age with my two favorite people.
Natalia Saavedra Valencia
Having George home feels a little bit like breathing properly for the first time in years. I still have my shops, my routine, my lists on the fridge, but now there is his coat on the back of a chair and his mug in the sink, and something in the apartment has settled.
I still trust him. People think he is unreadable because he keeps his face flat, but his eyes give him away every time. I can see what he is thinking before he opens his mouth. He doesn't realise how much he shows. Fear, guilt, that stubborn determination that has dragged him through things most other men wouldn’t have survived. It is all there, if you know how to look.
I know he hurt Adel when he left. He hurt both of us, but I can handle it. I'm used to patching myself up and carrying on but Adel is different. She feels everything at full volume, all at once. When he went, she didn't cry she just added more things to her day until there was no space left to feel. Gym, professional fighting, sailing, work, charity, climbing, any excuse to keep moving so no feelings could catch her up.
He did something beautiful for her, bringing her father’s boat back for her eighteenth birthday. I still don’t know how he did it and I know he won't admit it was him. Watching her sail again, seeing that pure joy on her face, but it's also another place for her to disappear into. Another way to outrun what she does not want to sit with. That’s the thing with my girl. She does too much, always has, but it helps her regulate. I just have to watch for the inevitable crash comes.
I ask her to take a class or two a week because I want her to have choices later, something solid to stand on if her body is tired or the fights have to stop. She's clever, but she doesn't always see when she is burning herself out. Punching her way through a problem can't be the answer every time, no matter how satisfying she says it is. The world doesn't need her more dangerous, not when she already struggles to see the line when she’s angry, and she’d tear everything and anyone down if she thought it was the right thing to do.
Now George is back, I hope she can settle a little. I know she's built for movement, that her brain and body run at a million miles an hour, but maybe now she'll not feel like she has to carry everything alone. Maybe she’ll remember it is not just her against the world.
I hope he can rest too. He's carried so much for so long that he doesn't know how to put things down. He deserves a quiet morning, a safe kitchen, laughter that’s not edged with fear. He deserves to feel loved. I don’t want to lose him again. There’ll always be a place for him here, in this home and in my heart.
Whatever comes for us next, it will not just be him standing there on his own. It will be all of us. Me, Adel, and George. Our pack. And if anything tries to come between us, it will have to deal with the three of us together.
Adel Saavedra Valencia
So, here is the thing. I know why George left. He didn’t walk out because he was bored of us or wanted a new life in the sun. He went to hunt down people who hurt kids, properly hurt them, and he did it because someone had to. I get that. I even agree with it.
It still broke my mum to pieces. And it hurt me too, not that I would ever say that to his face. For over a year after he left the cops were harassing us. They’d follow us, tap our phones and would knock on our door and ask the same dam questions and make my Mum relive it over and over.
Then we were told he was dead. Case closed. Move on. Sure. Right.
Now he is back, and nobody can know. Secret resurrection. Classic George. I don’t mind keeping it quiet. I know what he did out there and how many kids will grow up with a life because of it. Part of me hopes I can live up to that someday, because he sacrificed everything for what was right. But, there’s this whole other part of me that’s still angry he broke mum’s heart in the process. Both things can be true at once, right?
What he doesn’t seem to have noticed is that I’m not sixteen anymore. It’s been three years. I’m not the jumpy little kid hanging off a climbing wall. Okay, I still move at a hundred per cent or not at all, that has not changed, but I’ve levelled up. I found the gym, swapped gymnastics for MMA, picked up shifts behind the counter, kept climbing, took a couple of college courses because Mum insisted, and I continue to help her run the shops. I don’t have an off switch, so I turned it into work, training, and to be the best at what interests me, and dam anything that doesn’t.
And then there’s my boat. He sorted that. I don’t know how, and I know he’ll never admit it was him, but somehow he got my dad’s old boat back, only it is not really my dad’s any more. It is better. He spent money on it, and I’ve made my own upgrades. I’ve taken her out around the Isle of Wight whenever Mum lets me, mostly solo sails because mum’s not got any sea legs and I don’t trust anyone else on my deck. I pretend it’s just for fun, but really I want George to see it and think, “Yeah. She did right.” I don’t know why his opinion matters this much, but it does, just don’t tell him.
What I want now is simple. I want Mum and George to have a shot at being happy, properly happy, not just surviving. They both spent enough years being broken by other people’s choices. If anyone tries to get between them this time, they’ll have me to deal with.
