Chapter 64
I wake up, already irritated. I’ve barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Harley. Not in some fantasy, and not even in some memory. But everywhere she’s never been but should be. In my kitchen, while we make dinner. On my phone’s screen, her video calling me so she can sass me about something stupid. In my bed, after hours of claiming every inch of her body.
It’s not rational, but then again, I stopped pretending to be rational about her somewhere between Sunday night and the moment I didn’t wa inside the bookstore on Tuesday
I pace, I brood, I snarl at anyone who comes within five feet of my office. Griffin calls it a personality. I call it survival. The morning bleeds by minute by agonizing minute, and still, I’ve received nothing useful from my security team. The latest report from them reads like a committee of particularly uninspired sloths wrote it–still no word on the threat, still tracing whispers, still looking into it‘
Now, I sit behind my desk, half–listening to Griffin rattle off details about tomorrow night’s gala I will not be attending–because I’m a stubborn. possessive bastard who pushed her away to protect her, and now I’m watching her slip out of my grasp. The irony is acidic.
“Boss,” Griffin’s voice slices through my thoughts. “You’re not listening. Again.”
“Because it doesn’t matter,” I snap at him. “None of it does if I don’t know who’s targeting me.”
He sighs like he’s had this conversation too many times. “Your paranoia is charming, sir. But maybe, just maybe, it’s not about you this time. Maybe someone just hates your decorating taste?”
1 ignore him and his feeble attempts to lighten my sumber mood and pull up the camera feed outside her bookstore to distract myself–the same damn street I’ve been watching for days now like a quintessential stalker.
She’s always there by 9 am, like clockwork. But today… She isn’t.
The shop’s still closed, and the lights are still off. There’s no sign of Harley or the older woman who w
works for her. My heart doesn’t beat often, but right now it thuds, once, sharp and hard.
“Where is she?” I mutter, zooming in. But there’s still nothing. No movement. No sign of life.
Griffin straightens, sensing the shift in my demeanor, as he too peers at the camera feed, asking. “Maybe she’s late?”
“She’s never this late. It’s almost 11 am.” I pull out my
Dak. Now,”
phone
ne and call Holland again. “I want camera access to the 1300 block between Fir and
“You’re tapping into residential feeds now? Griffin says as he arches an eyebrow. “Even for you, that’s a bit dramatic.”
“I’m not asking for a lecture,” I say as I hold the phone to my ear, waiting, barely breathing.
This time, it takes Holland ninety seconds before my second screen on the far wall flickers to life, and there she is from three angles.
She’s in front of her house, and Harley–my Harley–is standing outside with a stranger. With a man who’s crouched beside her car, and jacking it
- up.
Her flat tire from Wednesday.
As he works and she leans against the side of the car, he laughs, and she smiles. And the breath I suck in at the sight, is cold and jagged, my hands curling into fists that feel as heavy as granite.
Griffin props his ass on the corner of my desk, his back to me, looking at the same horror show I am as it unfolds, before saying, “You really need to stop doing this to yourself.”
I don’t answer him, because I’m focusing really hard not to break the screen in front of me by launching my crystal paperweight across the room
He says something, but I don’t catch it. All I can see is her slipping further away. The last time I touched her, she was in my arms while I devoured her. Now she’s smiling at the second man in as many days–one who probably uses hair gel unironically and calls women babe in texts.
She shouldn’t have to fix her own damn tire. Even if I’ve never done it in my entire life, I should’ve been the one. I would’ve tried. I would’ve Googled it. I would’ve ruined a $1,000 shirt for her while I got grease on my hands and swore creatively while she made fun of me. Because at least then, she’d be laughing at me, and not flirting with someone else.
