Page 28 of The Scout

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, chest heaving, my face flushed, my lips parted.

I had been caught. And the worst part? I didn’t feel humiliated. I felt like I’d just handed him the knife—and dared him to use it.

Was this my sexual awakening?

10

RYKER

Ralston ran like a man who had never been truly afraid before.

I watched him disappear down the street, one hand clutching his ribs, the other fumbling for his phone. His breath came in ragged gasps, his polished Citadel uniform torn and smeared with blood. He wasn’t used to this. To pain. To knowing someone bigger, stronger, darker had him marked.

He thought his name meant something. That the brass on his collar, the family money, the years of daddy’s protection made him untouchable.

He knew better now.

I should have let it end there. Should have walked the other way.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I turned back toward the hotel, my pulse still running high, my knuckles raw and aching.

Isabel was gone.

She had dropped the umbrella—Ralston’s umbrella—right there on the sidewalkbefore vanishing inside. She’d looked at me like she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. Like she had been afraid. But that wasn’t the part that stuck with me.

The part that stuck was what had been underneath the fear.

Something else.

Something she hadn’t figured out yet.

I took the side entrance into the hotel, moving quickly through the hallways, staying in the shadows. I didn’t need a front desk clerk asking why I was back. Didn’t need security footage capturing me too many times in one day.

She was upset. That much was obvious.

But I didn’t like not knowing. I didn’t like not seeing.

A quick scan of the lobby told me she hadn’t gone to the elevators. She wasn’t heading to the guest floors.

No. She had gone down the hallway leading to the back of the hotel. Where the staff went when they didn’t want to be seen.

I followed.

Her scent lingered faintly in the air—vanilla and something softer, something warm. Something I had no business noticing but fucking did anyway.

The staff bathrooms were tucked at the end of the hall, near the breakroom.

One door was closed.

I stepped closer, listening.

At first, nothing.

Then—the sound of running water.

She was inside.

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