Chapter 123
Chapter 123
Logan-
The air in Talon’s office was thick enough to gnaw on, but I knew most of the tension was coming from me.
1 shouldered the door shut behind me.
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Talon stood behind the desk, resting his knuckles on the surface Ledger was in one of the chairs with his laptop balanced on his knees, fingers flying across the keyboard.
And Viktor was joining us this time. A silent mountain of a man in his snazzy suit, standing by the window like a statue. His presence alone rearranged the gravity in the room.
“Tell me you found something.” I growled, not bothering with greetings. My leg was throbbing, but it didn’t bother me anymore. The itch in my trigger finger was another story.
Ledger didn’t look up from his screen. “I found the hole. The one he slipped through.” He tapped a key, and a schematic of the clubhouse and surrounding area filled the screen. “Our camera coverage is tight. Real tight. Except for one blind spot.”
He zoomed in on the back alley. Red lines showed camera angles fanning out from their mounts. And there it was, a small, triangular wedge of darkness.
Right where my fire escape met the brick wall.
The exact spot where the graffiti was sprayed.
“A blind spot,” Talon repeated. “How the hell did you miss that?”
My guts were already twisting. I knew that blind spot… I’d known about it for years.
“It’s not Ledger’s fault,” I said. The words tasted like shit. All three of them looked at me, and I sank into the chair closest to the door. “It’s mine.”
The confession hung in the air. Ledger stopped typing. Talon’s eyes narrowed to slits. Viktor fully turned to face me.
“Explain,” Talon ordered.
I ran my hands through my hair. “Must’ve been… four, five years ago. Back when I first moved in here. I was out on the fire escape havin‘ a smoke. Could feel one of the cameras on me, starin‘ right at my back. Felt like Big Brother was watchin‘ me suck down a fuckin cigarette. It pissed me off.”
I gestured vaguely toward the alley. “So one night, I scaled the wall. Just gave the housing a twist. A couple inches to the left. Enough to give me some privacy. Then I forgot about it. Never thought…”
I trailed off.
The fucking irony of it. I’d created my own vulnerability out of petty rebellion. For the illusion of privacy.
And Anatoly had strolled right into it.
Ledger let out a low whistle. “Well, that explains the how. But it doesn’t explain the balls. Or the why.”
He tapped a few more keys. “See, this is what’s weird. Based on his profile, this guy is a ghost. I expected to find spliced feeds… loops. Some kind of digital magic to cover his tracks.
“But there’s nothing. The cameras are clean. It’s like… he wanted us to see him. Or at least, he didn’t give a shit if we did. Which, I guess, is pretty on brand for him, now that I say it out loud.”
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Chapter 129
He pulled up the footage from the two cameras that covered the alley. The time stamp read 2:47 AM.
The grainy black–and–white video showed the empty alley. The two figures came into view.
Both hooded, both in all black.
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They hopped over the back fence and strolled up the alley like they owned the goddamn place. Like it was another day at
the office.
My blood ran cold. This was last night. Hailey and I had been in bed, wrapped around each other, maybe two hours into REM sleep. And these two fuckwads were right outside our goddamn window.
They walked straight into the blind spot of my own dumbass creation and disappeared from view.
The footage showed an empty alley for two minutes and fourteen seconds. Two minutes and fourteen seconds where they could have been doing anything. Spray–painting their taunt. Peering through the window. Planting a bug. Just standing there, watching.
Then, they reappeared, walked back the way they came. Just as casually as they’d arrived.
They never looked up at the cameras. Never broke stride.
I was seeing red. The edges of my vision were pulsing. My fists clenched so hard my knuckles cracked.
They were right there.
While we were sleeping. Defenseless.
Hailey, with her head on my chest, completely unaware that death was taking a leisurely stroll past our bedroom.
“They were right the fuck there,” I heard myself say. My voice sounded far away. “Two minutes. What’d they do for two minutes?”
Nobody had an answer. It just hung there, poisoning the air.
Round and round in circles.
The taunt wasn’t just spray paint on my wall. It was a blade lodged between my ribs. Twisting itself. Round and fucking round.
The room felt like it was shrinking. The air in my lungs turned to mud.
Those two minutes on the tape played on a loop behind my eyes A silent film of every nightmare I’d ever had about failing
her.
Two minutes was long enough for two men to do a lot of nefarious shit.
They had undoubtedly climbed the fire escape. I usually kept the window locked, but it was an old building. Old windows. They could’ve easily gotten in.
What if they had?
My skin crawled with the sensation of being watched. Every instinct screamed at me to move… to act… to put my body between Hailey and the entire fucking world.
my
The urge to storm out of that office almost won. I needed to see her. I needed to touch her, feel her skin under hands. Verify that she was still whole. Still breathing.
Still untouched by the filth that had seeped into our sanctuary.
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Chapter 123
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I started pacing. Each step sent a jolt through my thigh, and Analy’s words echoed in my head. A blunt instrument.
Right now, I felt too blunt to even swing properly.
I couldn’t shake the image of Hailey out there in the main room sitting at the bar, maybe laughing at something Ruby said.
Now I knew beyond doubt that the danger wasn’t just “out there It’d been *right here*. It’d stood in the dark and measured us for our graves.
Nowhere was safe. Not the clubhouse. Not our bed. The fucking walls felt like they were whispering secrets to the enemy.
And I was responsible for this. My childish arrogance. The guilt was a live wire crackling behind my
I promised her safety. I promised her a fortress. And I’d left the back door wide open.
ribs.
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Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
