He nods. "He leaves everything lying around. His dating profiles, his old emails, the recycled passwords. And then there are the things he didn't try to hide at all."
My hand curls around my cup. "Like what?"
He swipes on his phone, then shows me a screen filled with messages—Tom messaging a girl who is definitely still in high school.
My stomach drops. "Gabe…"
"It gets worse," he says. "He searched you, your dad, your ex, and the school’s directory. He paid for a background check on you. He looked up addresses, employer histories, all of it. He tried to track down your emergency contacts."
A slow wave of dizziness moves through me.
"He did this while we were talking?" I ask.
"He did it in the last eight weeks." Gabe's voice is quiet and stern. "He knew where you lived before you ever told him. He used his work login for half of it. He used his personal card for therest. He's incredibly stupid, or he thinks you're too scared to do anything about it."
My throat tightens, but not the way it did last night. This is different. This is the kind of anger that has weight to it.
"What do we do?" I ask.
Gabe leans back. "Depends. Do you want him scared, or ruined?"
I blink at him. "Gabe."
He lifts his notepad again and flips to a fresh page. "People like Tom think fear is currency. They think if they control the story, they control you. So either we take the story back, or we put something bigger in front of him."
I rub my thumb along the edge of my cup. "I want him to stop. I want him out of my life. And I want him away from my kid."
"Then we'll do that," he says. "But I'm not sending a warning. He won't listen to warnings."
"So, what's the plan?"
Gabe taps the paper. "Two of the women on this list want to talk. They didn't give details yet, but one said she'd be ‘happy to help if it involved shutting him up.' Her words."
My eyebrows rise. "You talked to them?"
"I sent a polite message," he says, shrugging. "I know how to ask questions without sounding like a creep."
"So… what exactly are we doing?"
"We're setting him up," Gabe says simply. "You won't have to see him. You won't talk to him again. But he's going to walk himself off his own cliff."
"That's vague."
"It has to be until I finish checking a few things. But it involves him thinking he has an upper hand. Men like him always walk toward the bait if you make them think they're the ones holding it."
I lean back. "You're scaring me a little."
"You shouldn't be," he says. "I don't lose sleep over people like him."
I look at the list again. All these names. All these women. And then me.
"You really did all this for me?" The words slip out before I can stop them.
He watches me for a long moment. "I told you. You're not alone in this."
My throat feels tight for a new reason now. Something warm. Something steady. I run a finger down the list.
"What do you need me to do?"
