“More importantly? Luca’s obsessed with her. Full-on, puppy-dog, would-die-for-you kind of love. You threaten that? He’ll not just bend. He’ll break.”
I sit back, let it settle.
“If we press just right, he’ll have that hacker crack the U.S. Marshals’ database. Quietly. No trails. Just a digital fragment of a sealed file. A name, an address. Enough.”
The photo in his hand is crumpled now, fingers clenched so tight his knuckles are white.
He doesn’t say anything, not at first. Then he whispers, the sound broken and barely there.
“I finally have a chance.”
“Yeah.” I stand, knowing he needs to be alone right now. “Start planning what you’ll do when you find her.”
I turn and walk out without another word.
He won’t stop until he gets what he needs . He’ll tear the world apart to get to Elyna, and that works for me. Because while he’s neck-deep in obsession, he won’t see what I’m doing. What I’ve already done.
I waited two years after her divorce. Two fucking years of holding back while the need to destroy Adora chewed me alive. I was ready to take her the second the ink dried on the papers.
But Bones said no. Three years minimum.
Too soon. Too risky. Bowie might still be watching. Might still care. And if Adora disappeared too fast, the cop would come sniffing around. And we’d have a bigger shitshow with law enforcement than usual. Making a cop disappear is a fucking nightmare.
So I waited. Watched. Planned.
Years of pretending to be patient. Years of swallowing the dark.
Bones usually plays the long game. He likes the quiet strike. The kind that breaks a soul without warning. Shame he couldn’t apply that same cold logic to Elyna. She’s his Achilles heel. Always has been.
And I guess Adora’s mine. Because no matter how much he told me to wait, I didn’t.
He’ll find out eventually and he’ll lose his shit. But by then? What’s done is done.
The house is quiet when I walk in.
I won’t lie — I was a little on edge leaving Adora alone today. Spent half the day glued to my phone, checking the tracker, cycling through the camera feeds every ten minutes like a paranoid asshole.
But I needed to test her. See what she’d do with freedom. Would she run? Search for a way out?
I wanted her to pass, and she did.
She had a few laps around the pool this morning, then cleaned the entire fucking house top to bottom like she was exorcising demons.
It seems that, even though the dungeon failed, it definitely bent her enough to stop fighting me — for now at least.
I step into the living room and there she is. Face down, ass up. Passed out cold on the couch with a vacuum beside her like a goddamn forgotten teddy bear.
Where the hell did she even find that thing? I don’t remember buying one. I’ve had a cleaning service for years. Canceled them this month just to keep this whole twisted setup private.
I walk over and scoop her up carefully. She doesn’t wake, just mumbles something incoherent and nuzzles her face into my neck like she’s done it a thousand times before.
A sharp pang hits me out of nowhere, right in the fucking chest. So hard I almost stumble.The longing overwhelms me. It’s real and raw and unwelcome.
Fuck.
Double fuck.
I need to stay focused. Play the long game. Stick to the plan. This is about control. About payback.
