Searches placed over the last eight weeks, all clustered around late nights—times when he'd called her and she didn't answer.
I lean back in the chair, shoulders set, eyes on the river of data in front of me. My pulse doesn't spike. It sinks into the steady rhythm that carried me through war zones, interrogations, and extraction missions. A rhythm that has never marked good things for the man on the other end.
This isn't simple jealousy. This is obsession with a trail and timestamps attached. The kind that escalates if people don't intervene.
A man like Tom thinks blackmail works because he believes he's smarter than the person he's targeting. He thinks leverage is permanent. He thinks no one will notice the fingerprints he leaves on every page.
But leverage only works if the other side doesn't know what you did.
And I'm sitting here watching him dig his own grave, one digital breadcrumb at a time.
23
LENA
I'm halfway through editing a batch of photos when my phone vibrates beside my laptop. I've been staring at the same set of maternity shots for an hour, trying to fix the lighting around the mother's hair without blowing out the background. Freelance photography looks glamorous on Instagram, but the real job is hours of squinting at pixels and convincing yourself the color blue has eighteen moods.
The screen lights up with Gabe's name.
My stomach jumps before I can help it. For a second, I brace myself for more fallout, more tension, more town nonsense waiting to land on my head. But when I answer, his voice is steady.
"Are you free for a coffee?"
He doesn't sound stern or angry or like he's holding back something sharp. He's just Gabe, asking me a question.
I glance at the time. Jace is at Theo's house—one of his little buddies from preschool—and he won't be back untillate afternoon. His friend's mom texted earlier that they were building a fort out of couch cushions and refusing to let adults in without a password.
So technically, yes. I'm free.
"Yeah," I say, shutting my laptop. "Ten minutes."
"I'll meet you there."
He hangs up, just like that. I pack up my laptop, grab my keys, and head out before I talk myself into another spiral. The cafe is two blocks down, tucked between a florist and a hair salon. The moment I step inside, the smell of espresso and warm pastries hits me, and for a heartbeat I almost forget that everyone in this town has been acting like I committed a felony by having feelings.
Gabe is already there, sitting at a booth near the window. Black T-shirt, forearms on the table, calm expression masking something deeper. He stands when he sees me, that ridiculous gentlemanly thing he does even when it's not necessary.
"Hey," I say as I slide into the seat across from him.
He sits back down and studies my face carefully. I'm the first one to look away.
The waitress arrives, bright-eyed and way too excited to take our order. She gives Gabe a little smile like she's auditioning for something. Then she glances at me and her smile tightens. She asks if we want anything, and Gabe orders for both of us—black coffee for him, masala chai for me. She walks off, but not before glancing back twice.
I groan under my breath. "Why do people stare like I'm a circus act?"
"They don't stare at you," he says. "They stare at us."
"That's worse."
He folds his hands on the table. "Small towns talk because they're bored. They don't have enough drama of their own, so they adopt someone else's. It's not about truth. It's about entertainment."
I look out the window, watching a teenager walk her dog. "I hate it."
"I know. And I won't pretend it's fun, but you have to decide something." His voice stays calm. He's not pushing. He's giving me space to walk into whatever truth I need to reach. "Do you want to keep living by their rules, or yours?"
My throat tightens. "I didn't ask for any of this."
"No one ever does." He reaches for his cup as the waitress sets it down, then waits until she's gone before continuing. "But you're not powerless here. You get to choose how much room these people take up in your head. You get to choose whether their whispering changes anything about your life."
