The first time I’d seen him outside the Cave, I’d assumed it was a coincidence. The second time had made me suspicious. This was confirmation.
I cut left without warning, slipping into a narrow side street between a pharmacy and a closed florist, my phone already in my hand as if I were checking messages. The front camera came up for half a second, long enough to sweep the space behind me.
The street behind me was empty, which meant nothing because Novak wasn’t an amateur and he’d be out of sight. I walked another ten paces and then stopped and turned sharply, expecting—hoping—to catch him mid-adjustment, to force the mistake, but there was nothing to catch.
No footsteps, no movement, no telltale trace of someone caught out.
I exhaled slowly, more irritated than relieved.
Of course, he wouldn’t be obvious. Novak didn’t do ‘obvious’, and the single reason I knew he was there at all was that my short stint in Army Intelligence had trained me to see things that weren’t obvious.
“Freak,” I snapped, and turned back toward the main road.
It happened again when I left the coffee shop with my chocolate-sprinkled donut and espresso, and by then it wasn’t even a question ofifNovak was following me; it was how long he’d been doing it without me noticing.
This time it was a car window that gave him away, the briefest distortion of shape where nothing should have been, a presence that didn’t match the flow of everything else around it. I changed direction twice, doubled back once, stepped into a convenience store and out again through a different exit, building a pattern that would shake anyone who wasn’t paying attention.
It didn’t shake him.
He stayed beyond the edge of visibility, but I knew he was there.
Doc’s pet psycho was watching and for some reason he’d decided I was his project.
Along with the staring he did whenever we were near each other, which had been more often recently since Doc was regularly using him for interrogation and wet work.
By the time I got back to my apartment building, I was done pretending this was anything other than deliberate.
I didn’t go straight in. I walked past the entrance, continued to the corner, crossed the street, and approached again from the opposite side, scanning windows, doorways, and shadows. Anyone less careful would have slipped and given me something to work with.
Novak didn’t.
“What the fuck are you doing, freak?” I asked, loud enough for anyone in the vicinity to hear.
I let myself in, took the stairs, then stood inside my room for a moment, leaving the door ajar. Laptop open, systems up, a quick sweep across my network, and cameras showing nothinghad been touched. No breaches, no anomalies, nothing digital to match the physical certainty I’d been carrying all day.
He walked inside, and I glanced over at him. Tall, solid, dressed in dark clothes that didn’t draw attention but didn’t make him disappear either. His posture was loose, but it wasn’t relaxed; it was contained, as if everything about him existed on a leash he held himself. He was the kind of man people stared at—tall, strong, inked skin disappearing under his sleeves, the suggestion of muscle and control in every line of him, the kind of dangerous that read as attraction from a distance. All I saw was a psychopath, a cleaner, a man who killed on command and stayed on the right side of the law because someone paid him to be there. I didn’t trust him. And there was no universe where that kind of bad-boy energy translated into anything that made me hard.
Nope. Not at all.
Except for the times it did.
Because for some fucked-up reason I found that asshole attractive.
“What the fuck?” I said, keeping my voice level.
“You didn’t shut your door,” Novak replied. His silver-grey gaze focused on me.
“Do you just follow me around for fun now,” I asked, “or is this a new hobby I should be concerned about?”
“Yes.”
I eyed him. “That’s not an answer.”
“It is,” he said calmly. “I go where you are.”
I huffed out a laugh, more incredulous than amused. “That’s called stalking.”
“No.”
