Page 75 of Fractured Devotion
It’s a masked number.
I answer, already bracing myself. “Yes?”
“You’re late,” Rourke’s voice crackles through the line.
“I was handling something.”
“You’re going to the South Facility. Breach report just came in. Physical. Minor. But it needs cleaning up.”
I’m already grabbing my coat. “I’m on my way.”
He hangs up without another word.
The timing isn’t right. It never is. But I lock the door, take one last look at Celeste on the monitor—curled in bed, safe for now—and I leave.
This isn’t just about keeping her safe anymore.
It’s about keeping her mine.
The drive to the South Facility is long and dull, a winding stretch of nothingness lit by sparse streetlights and the occasional passing truck. I keep one hand on the wheel, the other loosely holding the tablet resting on the passenger seat. Every few minutes, I glance down at the live feed from her apartment.
She’s still sleeping.
Good.
The breach turns out to be exactly what Rourke said—physical, contained, and irritating. A storage room was pried open, and two pieces of restricted scanning tech were lifted. It was likely someone trying to build leverage, maybe sell it off-market. But it’s the way it was done that sticks with me.
It’s clean.
No prints and no camera tampering. It’s like a ghost walked in and out.
Sound familiar?
By the time I finish cleaning the trail, issuing memos, and rerouting security protocols to create plausible gaps in the timeline, it’s nearly 7:30 a.m. I scrub my hands in the tiny sink in the break room, staring at my reflection in the smeared mirror.
I look tired and unmoored. But not weak.
Weakness is trusting the wrong people. And telling Rourke would’ve been a weakness.
I make it back into town a little before eight. The streets are beginning to buzz, and the sky’s the color of old steel. As I pass the bakery, I glance up at her window. Her curtains are drawn now. Good. She’s learning.
I don’t go home.
Instead, I head to the clinic, just in case she shows up early.
Just in case I can see her first.
She arrives a few minutes past eight. I spot her through the glass entryway, her silhouette framed by the clinic’s sterile lights. She moves slower today, tight and coiled, like sleep didn’t do what it was supposed to.
I step out of the shadows near the end of the hallway, casual enough not to startle her. “Morning.”
She pauses, and her gaze flicks up to meet mine, guarded. “Kade.”
“You alright?”
She nods, then adds after a brief pause, “Didn’t sleep much.”
I offer a sympathetic smile. “Me neither.”
