What faced her were the eyes of a stranger. Someone she didn’t recognize.
“Don’t understand what? That I’m saving you from yourself.” He dragged her across the stark concrete passageway from the elevator and a metal door, swiped an access card, then shoved her onto an empty, freezing rooftop, spreading his arms wide. “Your life has been a series of mistakes, Vanessa. One poor decision after another, and I’ve been there to watch them all.”
She wrapped her arms around herself to stave off the chill, but she feared this cold in her bones would never go away. “It was you the whole time.”
“Your unsung hero, your savior in the shadows making sure you didn’t screw everything up again? Yes, it was me.”
“You were in Portland.”
“I waseverywhereyou were,” he shouted. “Vancouver, Portland, San Francisco—when you visited your parents, and you never saw me. I took care of you, and you didn’t even know it.”
“But I thought you were in New York working.”
“Ha! I was fired from job after job once it became clear taking care of you was a full-time gig. Luckily, I have a passive income from social media, and the odd photoshoot. At least until you became unbearably needy.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your messes. Your inability to make good decisions, evidenced by the extremely poor one you made when you started hanging around Jordan Thompson.” A dark smile curled his lips even as his face hardened. “Really? A felon?”
“You followed me?” Her brain refused to process the information in the wretched cold.
He stalked toward her, slow and lethal, and their friendship flashed through her mind like snapshots. The young photographer she met at her very first photoshoot. He’d been an assistant, his first time in the big leagues, and he’d been so nervous he kept fumbling the camera. She’d approached him during the break, admitted she was new too, and they’d bonded over their shared nerves.
Dinner followed, and then they began to hang out regularly, and a friendship bloomed. When they added Nikki, the three of them lit up the New York scene, hyping each other up, creating viral videos. They’d been inseparable, but always platonic.
When her sex-tape scandal hit, Landon helped her sweep it off the internet, using what few hacking skills they’d cobbled together out of desperation. He held herwhile she cried. Made her a terrible tiramisu when she was at her lowest.
But when Kurt took over her life, everything changed. She lost touch with her friends, and with herself. Kurt had wormed his way into every corner of her life so gradually with his promises, gaslighting, and blackmailing that by the time she realized what was happening, it was too late.
Somehow, Landon had always been there. Text messages, phone calls, the perfect reel to cheer her up. She’d always wondered why his timing was impeccable. He’d always known exactly when she needed cheering up. She’d assumed he’d stopped talking about his revolving door of girlfriends and social life so she wouldn’t feel bad about her own crumbling reality.
Now she wondered if it had ever been a coincidence at all.
“How long?” she asked, her voice as shaky as her numbing limbs. “How long have you been following me?”
“You mean protecting you? Watching over you?” His laugh was almost hysterical. “From day one! I’ve had your back since day one.”
When he brushed a strand of wind-blown hair from her face, it was tender.
So at odds with the violence now roaring to life inside her.
“You helped me the very first day we met. You saved me from looking like a fool in front of my mentor, and I vowed then that I’d always take care of you.” His chuckle was soft. “Little did I know you’d require such close attention.”
“You invaded my privacy. You broke into my apartment!” A forceful shiver wracked her body. Fuck, it was freezing on this roof. What did he have planned for up here? Did hehave an escape plan for them or just him? Would he push her over the edge?
The fear that crawled up her spine was more chilling than the cold.
“I was coming to get you. To save you. To get you out of that hellhole, degenerate city, and help you start over the way you deserve!” His eyes grew bright and wild. “But you were becoming so attached. Every day there was something else tying you to that life. The only thing that made sense was your stupid attachment to that rabbit. I didn’t get it at first. A glorified rodent? It was so—” He waved his hand maniacally. “Beneath you. But then I saw how similar you were. Small, flighty, no sense of self-preservation.”
He traced a thumb along her jaw, and it took everything in her not to flinch.
Tears burned a path down the slope of her icy cheeks. Holding his gaze, she searched for any trace of the friend she once knew. The one who went wild on the dance floor with her. The one who took her out for late-night dim sum because they had no food in the fridge.
She couldn’t find him.
“I hate you.” She was shivering so violently that her words came out as barely a breath. Her voice shook with emotion.
Landon’s gaze shuttered and grew dark. “You don’t.”
