Kieran sighs as he drops onto the couch. “Do you think she’s going to cause a problem?”
“Of course she’s a fucking problem.” Silas grimaces, disgust written all over his face. “Always has been. But she’s not Daniel.”
The air changes, the conversation shifting like gravity tilting beneath our feet.
“He’s getting too close,” I say, far more calmly than I should feel, but he gets brought up so often, I’m becoming desensitized to his name.
“He’s smart in the wrong ways,” Silas answers. “Rotates burner phones. Swaps between three cars that I’ve been able to track so far. Loops around her building before stopping to park and watch. But he avoids the smaller, easier to identify patterns.”
“Daniel is testing the perimeter,” Kieran murmurs.
“He’s testing us,” I point out, not that they need me to.
Silas zooms in on a grainy traffic clip of a black sedan. “He’s escalating without touching her. That tells me he wants the first touch to be significant.”
I grit my teeth. “Significant how?”
“He doesn’t see her as a person.” Silas looks at me as he answers, quirking a brow at my expression. “Possessive. He sees her as an extension of his identity.”
“And if she rejects that?” Kieran asks.
“He’ll take her,” Silas says. “Call it rescuing or saving her. Narcissists always wrap their violence in synonyms for love.”
“Not happening.” My stomach turns sour at the thought. “Not even close.”
Kieran stands and starts pacing. “We need to take the offensive.”
“Agreed,” Silas says. “I’m close to getting a plate number from the car he drove yesterday. Once I do? I’m done waiting. We fix this. Permanently.”
“And if he gets close again? Before we can fix it?” I counter, mostly because I need to know the worst-case scenario.
Kieran stops dead in tracks, glancing between me and Silas.
“Then we turn you two loose.” His voice drops, low and lethal. “And we help Si bury this piece of shit.”
No one disagrees.
Not even a little.
The camera blinks at me, a small red dot in the upper corner of my bedroom ceiling. Not intrusive or even obvious. Just… there, watching me like a quiet voyeur intent on not interrupting the scene.
It should make me feel weird, but instead, it makes me feel wanted and safe in a twisted way that I don’t have the energy to unpack tonight.
I open the HimLock app, thumb hovering just long enough to admit what I’m doing is probably crazy. Call me an addict. Obsessed… but I’m not pretending this is casual anymore.
I want them.
And I’ll have them…
As soon as Daniel is dead.
Maybe before.
The screen lights up beneath my fingers with a notification from one of my guys. It’s like he knew I was thinking about them and got tired of waiting for me to message.
Locke:
You look like sin tonight.
