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Present
“The grounds are clear,” Roland says as he comes into the living room, the lower part of his black pants slightly damp with the late night frost. “Nobody around, the whole neighborhood’s quiet.” Roland is Joshua’s right-hand man, and he’s been my contact since I’ve been back. Joshua is following the tracks on foot with three men. The rest stayed behind.
“Thank you, Roland,” I reply, adjusting the shirt I have on. I’m underdressed, in just jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, but right now I have to be able to move quickly. On the other side of the living room, Kiersten sits on the sofa, huddled in the clothes I found for her, shivering with shock and worry. This is exactly why I didn't want to tell her.
“Do you have the footage?”
“Here,” Roland says, handing me a memory card. “I already looked, but there’s nothing identifiable.”
“Like before,” I muse, and Roland nods. “Understood.”
“I’ll go keep watch outside,” Roland says, making his exit. In the silence, I toy with the data card between my fingers and then slip it into the slot on my laptop.
“What did you mean, like before?” Kiersten asks. When I don’t answer, she repeats herself. “Gabriel. What did you mean when you told that man, like before?”
“There was another attempt to... frighten or message me,” I explain offhandedly as I pull up the data. While I wish I could have set up security cameras all over the neighborhood that fed directly to my computer, the best I could pull off was cameras that weren’t obtrusive and could be hidden around the neighborhood.
“What do you mean?” she presses, leaning forward. My Henley on her is baggy and makes her appear small and fragile. I know she’s anything but. She’s not naïve. But she’s mine to protect, and I wanted to fix this before ever speaking a word of it. “Gabriel,” she raises her voice, but her tone is one of a plea.
I relent. “They stuck a note under my windshield.”
She gasps, and I know there are a million questions running through her mind.
“I had both Roland and Joshua investigate,” I continue, advancing the video. There are four cameras, all of them synchronized to the same time stamp. “It was part of the reason I picked this property instead of another city central apartment. I thought by having one of my shell corps purchase this place, We’d have had privacy and security. Apparently not.”
I almost tell her about the men on the perimeter. How I deliberately asked for privacy tonight. How Joshua messaged first before advancing on the man in the hood after he snuck in on a motorbike from the back. He was closer and faster than the men on foot. All because I was naive enough to think that I’d taken enough precautions.
A brick through a window, though? Through the bedroom window, at that.How did he know? How could he have possibly fucking known?
The video starts, but it’s like what Roland described before. A man, average height, average build, wearing nondescript clothes and a hoodie. None of the angles catch a glimpse of his face, and I doubt that they’d be able to see anything even if they could. The man wore gloves, not like before.
I highly suspect his face is somehow also obscured.
“Jesus,” Kiersten whispers, looking over my shoulder. I hadn’t even realized she was there. “That’s all?” Her small hand lands on my shoulder, and I take a moment to cover hers with mine. She’s in only a Henley as she leans slightly over the armrest of the chair, the lit fireplace behind her cracking and hissing. The light casts shadows across her face, highlighting the concern. I want nothing more than to make it all go away so I could take her on this sofa, right here and now, and promise I’ll protect her. Time. I only need time.
With a heavy inhale, I turn back to the cameras.
“That’s all we had last time,” I admit, closing the video as the man runs into the night shadows.
“I just got chills,” she murmurs, and her arms cross in front of her as she holds herself. “A few days ago... I felt like someone was watching me,” she says almost as if to herself. “And then you showed up, and I figured it was only you.”
My blood turns cold at her admission. I call out for Roland, and in an instant, he appears.
“What do you need?” He’s far more casual than Joshua, yet also far more serious. Perhaps that’s because I’ve known Joshua for longer. He’s the only man on this fucked up Earth I can truly call my friend.
“Get me every bit of surveillance you have on Kiersten over the past two weeks,” I tell him. “I want a list. Every person she’s talked to, every person she’s been in contact with, everything.”
“You—”
“Someone’s stalking you,” I continue forcefully, looking Kiersten in the eyes. “And I’m going to find out who. There’s no way that I will let you be in danger, Kiersten. So until we find this asshole, you won’t go back to your home without me, not back to Club X without me. You’re not leaving my side.”
Kiersten stares at me, her eyes wide and full of shock. “Are you kidding?” she asks, anger brimming in her voice. “You want me to put my life on pause because—”
“Kiersten, I’m looking out for you,” I protest, stressing the very real potential threat.
Her voice is strong, yet it still shakes. “I’ve been on my own for years, and if—”
Standing up, the laptop falls to the sofa, and I grip her chin in my hand, meeting her gaze. “I refuse to lose you. I won’t let them hurt you.”
