Cell tower pings, late-night calls, bank withdrawals… And the restraining order he violated two years ago in another town. All of it reads like a confession typed in real time.
He’s predictable and weak. But he’s still a threat.
The air in the loft hums with low static, the kind that comes from too many running monitors and too little sleep. The living room smells like Kieran’s forgotten ramen and the faint trace of Jace’s soap. I’m restless as they hover behind me.
“You put cameras in her hallway without telling us?”
Kieran’s voice cuts through the noise in my head. He’s calm, but his question is threaded with steel. He only sounds like that when something matters.
I don’t look up. “We needed eyes on the building.”
“You could have told us.” Jace’s footsteps drag him closer behind me, then away. He crosses the room diagonally as he paces, arms folded so tightly I can see the muscles twitch in his reflection. “I could have installed them with more proficiency.”
“You climbed into her bed,” I answer, tone flat. “Why would I send you to her apartment so soon after? You’re not sleeping as it is. We’re all a bunch of insomniacs.”
Kieran’s laptop snaps shut, the sound too loud in the silence. “He’s right.”
Jace pauses pacing for a heartbeat, shaking his head. “I didn’t think?—”
“You didn’t think,” I interrupt, agreeing but trying to keep my voice gentle. “You acted. Like you always do.”
“And what the fuck have you been doing, Silas?” Jace fires back, brittle with guilt. “You’ve been digging into her ex like you’re planning a goddamn hit while?—”
“I am.”
That stops him. Stops both of them.
They don’t disagree with me, though they do watch me with guarded intrigue. Kieran and Jace are transplants in CrimsonBay, moving into town after we met in college and began planning for the business we now run. I wasn’t born here, but I spent enough time with my mother’s parents to know how dangerous the city is.
That side of my heritage thrives here.
The camera feed updates, dragging me from my thoughts. Eris is still outside her door, phone clutched in her hand like she’s waiting for a signal that it’s safe to go inside. Kieran is glued to the monitor, so I turn my attention to a new file on my laptop.
I click through the pages of Daniel’s GPS trail. Two blocks from her office. Three from her apartment. Less than one… The man’s radius is shrinking by the day.
I turn the laptop toward them. “You want to keep pretending this is innocent, then be my guest. But while you two spiral over your feelings, I’m trying to make sure he doesn’t touch her again.”
Kieran opens his mouth, then wisely closes it. His restraint is the loudest thing in the room.
Jace rubs the back of his neck, eyes bloodshot, movements twitchy. He hasn’t slept since he left her bed. His guilt is written in every flicker of emotion on his face. It’s not that I want him to feel that way… I just need him to be the brilliant smartass I know he is, not the one who only thinks with his dick.
“I put eyes on her door,” I say evenly, pointing at the wall of monitors. “You fucked her. If you’ll step back and observe, I’m the only one preparing for what happens next.”
Thick silence stretches, charging the air with the words we’re all trying to avoid saying. This could end in a fight… Or it could end with us planning how to win over the woman of our collective dreams.
Kieran exhales harshly. “We weren’t supposed to cross the line.”
It’s a struggle to stop the roll of my eyes. “We crossed it the moment she typed her name.”
“She’s going to figure it out,” Jace mutters, sinking onto the couch like his legs just can’t hold him up anymore. “She’s smart.”
“She already has suspicions,” I say. “But she’s not ready to let go.”
He drags his hand down his face. “She still doesn’t know it’s us.”
“She’s starting to suspect that it’s someone,” I amend. “The AI isn’t clean anymore, and we’re bleeding into each other. When she’s really ready to stop playing games, she’ll look into the app and find us all too quickly.”
I glance at the monitor again. Eris tilts her head toward her phone, the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth. Not fear. Trust. The kind of trust people give right before they fall. Her thumbs fly over the screen as she types a text to someone.
