Page 77 of Fractured Devotion
I nod slowly. “Of course.”
He lingers a second longer, his gaze too sharp. Then he walks off.
I close the monitor.
Harper’s gone, and she left behind a trail too calculated to be innocent. Someone is staging a trap using Celeste’s data.
I slide the tablet back into my bag, stand, and stretch like it’s just another morning.
But it’s not.
This is the first day of a new game.
And I’m done playing defense.
Chapter 26 – Kade - The Curve of Control
I stay close to the lab as the rest of the morning drips by in calculated silence, my eyes trained on any flicker of a shift—inside the clinic, inside her.
Celeste doesn’t speak to anyone more than necessary. She keeps her head down, focused and distracted in all the right ways. But her hands tremble slightly when she thinks no one’s watching. Her smile is short and strained. She’s unraveling, piece by beautiful piece, and no one else sees it.
No one but me.
And I can’t decide if I hate that or live for it.
I watch her through the reinforced glass lining the hallway, just a sliver of her profile visible as she types into the lab terminal. There’s a tension in her shoulders that didn’t exist a week ago. Not before the van. Not before the bar. Not before me.
I shouldn’t enjoy the power in that, but I do.
I walk in without knocking.
She doesn’t jump, but her eyes cut to me, sharp and assessing. “Need something?”
“Just checking in. You didn’t look alright this morning.”
“I’m fine,” she says.
“You’re not.”
She sets her pen down slowly. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
I walk closer, not stopping until I’m leaning a palm against the edge of her workstation and invading her space just enough to feel the ripple of tension between us.
“No,” I say. “You need someone honest.”
She stares at me. “And that’s you?”
I don’t blink. “It could be.”
There’s a beat of silence before she exhales and looks away. But not before I see it—the crack. The inch of space I’ve been carving open between us.
I lean down, closer. My voice is low. “Let me take you somewhere tonight. Just away from this place. One hour. No pressure.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Then, she eventually mutters, “Where?”
“You’ll see.”
Her lips twitch. It’s not quite a smile. But it’s not a no either.
