Page 6 of Bound By Valor

“God! I’m not lonely, Mom. I like living by myself. Honestly. Drop it. I know you think what happened still bothers me. It doesn’t. I promise.” I winced internally as the massive lies slipped out of me.

“Okay, honey. Just…take care of yourself, okay?”

“Yeah, Mom. I’ll talk to you later, okay? Bye now.”

As I hung up, the weight of their constant worry pressed down on me. Two years, and yet the shadow of the past still loomed large. I wanted to forget, but even more than that, I wished my friends and familycould erase it from their memory too.

Since Adriano, I hadn’t let anyone else in. The idea of being close to another man, potentially as cruel as he had been, made my skin crawl. I couldn’t stomach the thought of surrendering control to someone else again. Adriano and I had been together for only seven months, but the final month was lost to me. The bits and pieces I did remember, only served as the testament to my naivety. How stupid I had been, to think love was supposed to feel like that.

Suddenly, the image of Zarek infiltrated my thoughts. A shiver ran down my spine, but not from fear. His sharply defined features—the angular face, the stern jawline—somehow brought a mix of intimidation and intrigue that I hadn’t felt in a long time.

???

“So, he’s dead, huh?” Ally’s question jolted me back into our ongoing conversation about Adriano. There I was, sitting with her at this patio restaurant a few days later, my gaze darting around nervously, almost instinctively scanning for that untraceable watchfulness I felt.

“Yep, dead and gone. Guess that rules out worrying about his parole in seven years,” I mumbled, poking at my eggs benedict without much appetite.

“Well, I’m just glad to have my friend back... Well, almost back. You seem a million miles away these days.” Ally’s voice was tinged with a mix of concern and curiosity.

I met her eyes briefly as she tilted her wine glass against the sunlight, casting a warm glow on her face. “What do you mean? I’m right here, Allison.”

That drew a small laugh from her. “Ooh, full name basis, huh? You know you only do that when you’re on edge. What’s up?”

I couldn’t help but smile, albeit faintly. “It’s just… something happened a few days ago. It’s been stuck in my head.”

Her expression shifted from playful to keen in an instant. “You met someone, didn’t you?”

“Fuck no!” I blurted out, a bit too loudly.

Her grin widened, mischief twinkling in her eyes. “You did!” She pointed at me accusingly, her voice crescendoing to a dramatic wail. “And he’s handsome, isn’t he?”

I sighed, my slight twitch giving me away. “Ally, please, lower your voice. We’re not alone here.”

She leaned forward, her voice hushed but filled with excitement. “Spill it then. How did you meet Mr. Mystery?”

Wincing at the thought of explaining the potentially illegal circumstances of our meeting, I chose my words carefully. “Let’s just say I helped him. And now, I think he might be watching over me. Might be him, you know?”

Her eyes widened in alarm. “Girl, no! You helped some random guy and now he’s stalking you?”

If you think about it like that? Well…

Trying to brush off her concern—and my own—I managed a weak laugh. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid? It’s nothing.”

But Ally wasn’t convinced and kept probing. “Describe him to me, then. What does he look like?”

Begrudgingly, I let slip about his striking appearance, maybe even mentioned something abouta ‘Greek god’, which only fueled her curiosity.

As brunch stretched into late afternoon, we wrapped up, still chatting animatedly. Before parting ways, I half-jokingly, half-seriously made her promise not to mention my potential ‘stalker’ situation to my parents. “They’re in Hawaii, Ally. They don’t need this kind of stress.”

She agreed, but I could tell her mind was racing with the romantic possibilities. Meanwhile, I couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on me as I walked away, the sensation oddly comforting yet unnerving.

FOUR

Leora

After another grueling day at work, my feet dragged me back to my apartment. Work had been brutal this past week, with back-to-back consultations and the relentless buzzing of my phone with notifications that I was too spent to check. I even skipped gym today, wanting to rest instead of spending an hour punching my dread away. But all that seemed like a reprieve compared to the scene that greeted me as I unlocked my door and pushed it open.

Panic gripped me. The place was trashed. My eyes darted around the disarray—the books tossed from their shelves, some lying face down, their spines cracked.

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