Chapter 139
Chapter 139
-Logan-
Something woke me up at sunrise, and it wasn’t the sun.
༠:།
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It was Hailey tossing around next to me. Her breaths were coming in short little gasps that didn’t sound right. She was having another nightmare.
I rolled onto my side and looked at her. Her eyelids were fluttering. Her forehead was sweaty.
“…no,” she mumbled, still dead asleep. “…stop…”
I reached out and touched her shoulder. Her skin was clammy. “Ace,” I murmured. “You’re dreamin.”
She didn’t wake up, and she kept mumbling. “…not him… please…”
That shit carved a hole through me. I slid my arm under her and pulled her against my chest, tucking her head under my chin. She was trembling. I held onto her, trying to pull her out of whatever nightmare had its claws in her.
She went still for a few seconds. Her breathing evened out. I felt the tension leave her limbs and thought I’d done it.
Then her body went stiff again.
“…Anatoly…”
What the fuck?
Every muscle in my body locked up. That name. That fucking name, coming out of her in the dark. And it didn’t sound like fear. It sounded… familiar. Fucking intimate.
Her head tilted back. Her eyes were still squeezed shut. “…he’s watching…” she whispered. “…don’t… don’t look up, Logan…*
The words ricocheted in my skull. I immediately looked up at the ceiling. The hell was she talking about?
Then I remembered the other day, when she stopped dead in the middle of the living room, tilted her head back, and stared at the fucking ceiling as we were leaving the apartment.
A cold, sick feeling started in my gut.
The Shawn story was suddenly feeling a lot less plausible. Pathetic, really.
I’d wanted to believe it because the alternative was an even bigger stab in the back. But here was the blade. Between my ribs, Twisting.
I held her tighter. My jaw was clenched so hard my teeth ached. She was still murmuring, but I couldn’t make out the words anymore. Only the desperation.
I didn’t try to wake her up. I just held on, staring over the top of her head at the wall, listening to her dream about the man who wanted to destroy us.
The heat of her body felt like a lie. The comfort I usually felt with her was gone.
Her breathing finally evened out. She sunk into a quieter sleep. I waited another five minutes, counting each rise and fall of her ribs, making sure the nightmare had really ended.
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10:11 am D
Chapter 139
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Then, like disarming a bomb, I slid my arm out from under her. I held my breath as I eased my weight off the mattress. She sighed and rolled onto her side. Good.
I stood there for minute just watching her sleep. The trust in that unconscious movement – like a mockery.
turning her back to me – it fel
I slipped out of the bedroom and closed the door behind me. The sunrise was coming in around the edges of the curtains. I didn’t turn on a light.
I stopped exactly where she had stopped yesterday, right in the center of the living room. My own words came back to me. *You’re actin‘ fuckin weird, Hailey. What’s going on with you?*
I tilted my head back. The ceiling was dark. The rafters were just blacker lines in the blackness. I couldn’t see a damn thing.
I stepped onto the couch and it groaned under my weight. I reached up, and my fingers touched the cold, dusty metal of one of the beams. I swept my hand along it.
Nothing. Just knocked a bunch of dust off.
I walked across the couch to the next one. My heart was thudding in my ears.
This was insane. I was losing my goddamn mind. Chasing ghosts because my old lady had a bad dream.
But my fingers landed on something that wasn’t dust. Something smooth and round. Solid. Out of place.
I traced the shape of it with my fingertip. Sure enough.
The ice in my veins turned to fire. White–hot, blinding rage. So he *had* been in here. In my home. And worse, he’d been watching us. This whole time. And worse… Hailey knew.
She fucking knew.
My fingers closed around it. There was a faint *crack* as the adhesive came up. I pulled it down, and it sat in the palm of my hand. A tiny black eye staring up at me.
Ledger had shown me similar cameras once. Some top–of–the–line shit. And Jake had told him they weren’t in the budget.
The weight of it was negligible, but it felt like a lead ball.
I stepped off the couch and walked to the kitchen on autopilot. Opened a cupboard, pulled out a glass and filled it with tap
water.
I held the camera over it for a second, this little piece of sophisticated shit that had violated the last safe place I had. Then I dropped it in. It sank to the bottom.
It stared up at me from the bottom of the glass.
The thing was probably waterproof.
I yanked open the junk drawer and grabbed the duct tape. Tore a few strips off with my teeth and sealed the top of the glass No sound getting in or out now.
I stood there with my hands braced on the counter, head bowed, breathing hard. The rage was screaming in my chest, clawing to get out. I wanted to put my fist through the wall.
I wanted to shake her awake and scream questions at her until she gave me real answers. Ones that made sense.
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Chapter 139
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I turned and walked back to the bedroom. Grabbed my phone. My thumb hovered over Ledger’s contact while my eyes stayed fixed on her.
she used to trust me. What the hell had happened since then?
backed out of the room and hit call, putting the phone to my ear. It rang three times.
“Lo?” Ledger sounded rough, like I’d woken him up.
Come to my apartment,” I said, keeping my voice low. “And bring one of Viktor’s eggheads. Quietly.”
ended the call before he could reply. I stood guard over the glass on the counter and waited for the evidence of my own ›lindness to be taken away and picked apart.
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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.
