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“Fuck, Emma, I want to ruin you…”

The words break apart beneath a strangled cry. His hips lift from the bed, his cock pulses in his grasp, the tip flushed an angry red as thick ropes of come spatter across his abs and over the phone.

White flecks strike the lens before his hand eases into shorter strokes, drawing out every last drop, and the video ends on a long, ragged moan that leaves me staring at the frozen image of his trembling hand, slick and glistening, his body covered with evidence that he’d been thinking about me.

I close my eyes and picture his teeth catching lightly against my collarbone before his mouth traces every place I’m trying to keep hidden from him, and another shiver rolls through me because my body still isn’t satisfied.

The ache remains, already reaching for the next time he’ll touch me, and I wonder whether that’s simply the way I’m built, carrying desire beneath my skin until he wakes it again.

The screen throws pale light across the blankets and Kira’s music drifts down the hallway, reminding me she’s only a room away.

Without thinking, I scroll back through our conversation and read the last ten messages before replaying the trail of voice notes, each one revealing a little more than the last until it feels as though I’m looking through someone else’s phone at a version of myself who never even tries to hide what she wants.

My skin clings beneath the old tee shirt still bunched above my waist, and every nerve feels exposed as I rub my thighs together and wonder whether he’s already asleep or lying awake like I am, spent and sticky, replaying every message and every sound from tonight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Bane

MAY 30TH

I don’t hear Emma knock.

I only notice her when she stops in my doorway, her attention settling on the paperwork spread across my desk instead of me.

Property records overlap printed maps, Haven House donation receipts sit beside a legal pad covered with names and addresses, and Celeste’s notebook lies open where I left it after another dead-end search.

She walks in carrying two coffees, sets one beside my keyboard, and lets her eyes travel across the mess again. “I’ve never seen your office look like this.”

“It usually doesn’t.” I save another search that hasn’t given me anything useful and close the browser before turning my chair toward her. “I’ve been here since six.”

Her gaze rests on the notebook. “The parcels?”

I nod. “I spent yesterday going through storage boxes at home and found that.” I gesture toward the notebook. “It belonged to Celeste.”

Emma steps around the desk, stopping beside my chair instead of taking the seat opposite. She waits until I slide the notebook toward her before looking down at the open page.

“‘Apartment finally approved,’” she reads, her eyes moving to the next entry. “‘Doing much better. Christmas presents delivered.’” She looks at me. “Who are these people?”

“I think they came through Haven House.”

I tell her about the donation receipts, the notebook hidden beneath years of paperwork, and the names that fill every page.

By the time I explain why Nora Bell caught my attention, she’s turned back to the notebook and is reading through the entries again, taking her time instead of rushing to the next question.

“This covers years,” she says, tracing the page with her eyes. “Interview. Apartment. Scholarship. Promotion.” She glances at me before looking back down. “She kept following them.”

“I thought they were reminders.”

I pick up one of the donation receipts while Emma flips through another notebook, the faded Haven House letterhead catching my eye before I set it back on the desk.

“They start that way,” she says, comparing the latest page with the first. “After that they become milestones because every update continues the story from the one before.” She closes the notebook and rests her palm across the cover. “I don’t think Celeste ever expected anyone else to read this.”

“No.” I glance around the office before looking back at the notebooks spread between us. “She’d tell me she’d spent the weekend volunteering at Haven House, then we’d make dinner, watch a movie, and head to bed. I knew she cared about the women there, but I never realized she kept following their lives after they left.”

Emma opens the notebook again and studies another page, her fingertip moving beneath a line of neat handwriting. “I don’t think she was keeping records.”

I turn my chair toward her. “What do you think she was doing?”