Rune - Portland - May 11
Iknocked once. Griffin opened the door. He'd been waiting.
His laptop glowed on the desk beside a half-empty water bottle. He'd draped his jacket over the chair. The bed showed no evidence of use—covers still tight, pillow undented.
"Come in," he said. The lock engaged behind me.
I crossed the room and stood by the window. Portland was waking up below: early joggers and a bus pulling away, people whose biggest concern was whether they'd remembered their travel mugs.
"You found something," I said.
"Yes."
"Tell me."
He angled the laptop toward me. Security camera logs filled the screen, with timestamps marked in yellow. "These are the security cameras. Adjusted at every stop since San Francisco. Both our floors, within hours of arrival."
I moved closer. The authorization requests looked professional, providing optimal coverage for high-profile guests.
"Requests filed through tour management," Griffin said. His jaw was tight. "Proper channels. Approved language."
I scanned the logs. San Francisco: three cameras repositioned the day Griffin arrived. Vancouver: four cameras adjusted the night of the hotel room breach. Portland: two cameras. Both focused on our doors.
My throat went dry. "It's him."
"I can't prove—"
"You don't need to." I looked up from the screen. "I know how Soo-jin works. This is his way of operating."
"Rune—"
"Yoon-jae." The correction came out sharper than I intended. I softened my voice. "When it's only us."
"Yoon-jae." He said it carefully, testing the weight of something precious. "If this is Soo-jin, we're not dealing with an external threat."
"No."
"This isn't obsession. This is about control." He moved closer without closing the distance entirely. "Shaping risk until harm becomes inevitable. Until removing me looks like the only responsible choice."
"He won't try to injure me." I paused. "He's trying to contain me and ultimately erase me. If he can't do that with you here—"
"Then I have to go." Griffin curled his hands into fists. "I'm not going."
"They'll try to make you."
"Let them."
I sat on the edge of his bed. Exhaustion pulled at me. "In Vancouver, when I fell asleep against you, I sensed I was safe for the first time in weeks." I looked up at Griffin. "I should have known that would be a problem. Soo-jin doesn't want me safe. He wants me manageable. They aren't the same thing."
I rubbed my hands on my thighs. "I'm sorry he's using you to punish me for—"
"Don't." He sat beside me and covered my hand with his. "This isn't about you being difficult. It's about his refusal to let you be a person instead of a product. He's okay with restricting himself, but he has no right to force that on anyone else."
The words broke something open inside me.
All this time, I'd believed Soo-jin ended us because exposure would destroy everything. I'd accepted that narrative, painful as it was.
I'd never considered that he ended it because controlling me mattered more than loving me ever had.
