Page 86 of Fractured Devotion
Another one comes immediately after.
Unknown ID:Stop. Or we’ll pull back.
There’s no traceable signature. It’s routed through anonymized layers that feel too familiar.
This is not Kade.
This is bigger.
I close the message, wipe the trace, and slip the tablet back inside my jacket. My breath is steady, but only because I force it to be.
Back in my office, I sit down and let the silence settle around me. I need to talk to Celeste. Tonight.
We need to set the plan in motion. Not tomorrow, not next week.
Because whoever’s watching knows we’re looking.
And next time, they won’t just send messages.
They’ll send something worse.
Chapter 29 – Kade - Control Protocol
Something in the air shifts when I return to the clinic. It’s not visible, not measurable, but it’s there. It’s a tightening, a heat under my skin like someone’s drawn a wire around my throat and is waiting to pull.
I park in the usual spot, third bay from the loading dock, and cut the engine. For a moment, I sit in silence, my hand resting on the gearshift as I watch the reflection of the fluorescent lights on the windshield. My jaw tenses.
Celeste hasn’t responded to my last message. I sent it before sunrise, something simple that says:Let me know when you get to the clinic.It’s nothing intrusive. Just enough to keep a thread between us.
But she’s quiet, which makes me itch.
By the time I make it through the east corridor and swipe into my private office, I’m already scanning the feeds. The monitor in the center of the array flickers to life, and I toggle through the angles—hallways, external entrances, and top-floor cams. Her office light is off, and there’s no movement.
But I already know where she is.
Because I saw it last night.
The moment she walked into her backup apartment, alone at first, the tension in her shoulders as she closed the door, and then, twenty minutes later, the knock.
Alec.
He showed up like he belonged there. Like he had every right to be let in.
I watched as she hesitated, then slid the chain off the lock and let him in.
They didn’t talk near the kitchen camera, but I caught their shadows crossing the wall in the bedroom cam. I watchedher curl tighter into herself as he spoke, watched the way he stepped forward once, too close, and watched her jaw clench and her hands clench tighter.
It was too far to hear words, but the body language was clear.
Secrets were shared. Dangerous ones.
He didn’t leave until this morning.
I didn’t sleep. I sat in front of the monitors, the hours blurring into each other, watching them pace, pause, and drift closer behind the weak glow of overhead lights. When she finally lay down, he joined her. Not on the couch and not across the room, but in her bed.
I froze.
He didn’t touch her, but he stayed too long, too close. I watched the way his body curled slightly, protectively, like he had some right to be her shelter. My fingers gripped the armrests so hard that my knuckles burned. Her head turned toward him, and her breathing slowed in sync with his. The sight of her folding herself into the safety of another man burrowed under my skin like glass.
