Page 179 of Fractured Devotion

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We will walk into the fire together.

The words are carved into me now, irreversible.

I close the terminal, my breath tight.

There is no running from her.

And I don’t want to.

I can’t stop what comes next.

But I can stand beside her when it all burns.

I sit in my apartment long after she’s gone, unable to shake the coil tightening in my chest. My skin still burns where she touched me, but it isn’t the bruises that keep me rooted here.

It’s the unease.

Something shifted, and I need to know when. Where. How.

I rise and move toward the back room, pressing my palm to the biometric lock on the hidden door. It clicks open, revealing the dim glow of my private surveillance hub.

Screens line the wall, feeds from every corner of the clinic and beyond, each one watching silently.

I sit, the chair creaking beneath me, and pull up the archive footage.

I start with her apartment.

She looks calm. Too calm.

She moves differently now. Measured and gentle, but not submissive. There’s a current running under her skin that wasn’t there before.

I watch her move around her space, making tea, sitting at her desk, and reading.

Then she retrieves something.

A box.

I freeze the frame, leaning closer.

Her fingers trail the edges of it with reverence, her face locked in a look I’ve never seen from her before—haunted and hungry all at once.

Where did it come from?

I rewind, scanning back through the footage.

There.

My stomach knots.

Alec.

Of course he’ll be involved in it.

Jealousy rips through me, fast and sharp.

Alec has always been the thorn under my skin when it comes to her. Too righteous. Too close.

I rewind further, watching her face the first time she brings in the box.

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