Page 102 of Reckless

I swallow. “You knew this whole time?”

He doesn’t answer straightaway. His gaze slips to the phone before returning to me, and I’ve spent enough time around Ghost now to recognize that pause. He’s choosing his words carefully, stripping them back until only the facts remain.

“I knew messages were leaving the network,” he says quietly. “I didn’t know where they were ending.”

A knot tightens low in my stomach. “When did you find out?”

His nostrils flare. “Tonight.” His voice never rises. If anything, it gets calmer. “I finally traced the endpoint.”

I stare at him. “You’ve been investigating me?”

Something flickers across his face. Gone almost before I catch it. “I’ve been investigating the messages.” There’s no accusation in his voice or anger, and for some reason, that hurts more. “I spent weeks trying to prove they weren’t connected to you.” He looks down at the screen for a moment, his thumb resting against the edge of the phone before he lets out the quietest breath. “Every time I found another possibility…” his jaw shifts, “… I took it.”

I feel my chest tighten. Because I know exactly what he’s telling me. He wanted to be wrong.

“I kept telling myself somebody had cloned your phone, that the traffic was bouncing through another device. That I’d missed something.” He finally looks back at me, and the disappointment sitting quietly behind his eyes steals whatever air I had left. “I was running out of explanations.”

My fingers curl against my palms.

The lie I’ve spent weeks carrying suddenly feels impossibly heavy.

“There isn’t a version of this where I lie to you now,” I tell him honestly, my own voice barely sounds like mine. “There never was.”

He just watches me, waiting.

Giving me the space to choose.

My eyes drop to the table.

To his phone.

To the proof that I don’t have to keep carrying this alone anymore.

I move to the sofa and take a seat. “I got the first message ten weeks ago.” The words snag hard on the way out. “It came through while I was at work.” I pull in a slow breath that does absolutely nothing to steady me. “I thought it was spam until I opened it.”

Ghost doesn’t interrupt.

He doesn’t ask questions. He sits across from me, completely still, letting me find my own way through it.

“I remember reading it three times because I couldn’t quite make sense of what they were saying.” I let out a humorless laugh, shaking my head at the memory. “Then I realized they knew about the inquiry.” My throat tightens. “They knew things they shouldn’t have known.”

I can still remember exactly how cold I’d felt. Exactly how long I’d stood in the break room at work staring at my phone, convincing myself somebody was bluffing.

“They kept messaging after that.” I finally force myself to look at him again. “It wasn’t every day.” I wish it had been. “It was worse.” He waits. “They’d disappear for days, just long enough for me to start hoping they’d gone.” I blink hard, the memories coming back far more easily than I want them to. “Then another message would come.” My fingers tighten around each other until the pressure almost hurts. “The first one was vague. Just enough to let me know they knew what I was working on. They named the inquiry, giving me just enough to start panicking.” I shake my head. “I spent days convincing myself somebody was bluffing—”

“They weren’t,” he states, interrupting.

I softly shake my head. “No.” The word barely makes it out. “They knew too much.”

Ghost doesn’t interrupt again. He watches me, giving me the room to keep going.

“They started getting… more specific.” I look away from him, staring somewhere over his shoulder instead. “They stopped talking about the inquiry and started talking about the people in my life.” A muscle moves in his jaw. “One morning…” My throat tightens around the memory. “One day they sent me a photograph.” I swallow. “Your bike.”

For the first time since he walked into my apartment, something changes.

His shoulders pull a fraction tighter.

“I zoomed in because I thought…” I let out a shaky breath. “I don’t even know what I thought.” I laugh once, but there’s no humor in it. “I could see the scratch on the tank.” His eyes never leave mine.