Page 87 of Always Watching

He waves as he walks out, and I’m half stunned into silence. The range of emotions he just went through made my head spin, and I don’t have the space to figure it out right now. My attention turns back to Ranen, who is still curled against my chest, breathing softly and unaware of anything that’s happening around him.

Something special.

Someone who really sees me.

He’s all of those things, and Dad was right. I have to do everything I can to make sure that I keep him safe.

“I love you.” I say it like a promise, and his fingers spasm on me like he hears me even in his sleep. He murmurs my name against the curve of my neck and I know…

I know that I’m going to spend the rest of my life loving him, killing for him, keeping him.

Ranen is everything I’ve ever wanted, the same negative space that I saw empty beside my dad earlier. He’s all my missing pieces, and I’ll do everything I can to make sure that he’s right here, in my arms, for the rest of our lives.

Making me feel whole.

Epilogue

Ranen - One Year Later

Oliver Moore, a localRed Hill man is still missing. One year ago, his home was found ransacked by his neighbors, and blood was found in his living room, suggesting an abduction. There seem to be connections between Moore’s abduction and the missing people around the Red Hill area. Authorities are working hard to find any persons of interest, but unfortunately, the trail for Oliver Moore, as well as the other missing individuals, has gone cold. There is a twenty-five thousand dollar reward for any information on Oliver Moore resulting in the arrest of a suspect in his case.

“You ready?” North asks, sticking his head around the doorjamb of our bedroom. “You go on in about five minutes. You don’t have anything set up.”

Smiling, I turn around and look at North, taking him in. He’s just as handsome now as he was the first time I saw him. His dark hair is a little longer at the top—probably because I love running my fingers through it while he’s inside me—and his blue-green eyes brighten when they land on me.

Those beautiful orbs shine when he takes me in, looking first at my mouth then my naked chest, and finally at the tiny shorts I have on. Lust brims in his eyes as he licks his bottom lip. I don’t have to look to know that his cock is rock-hard.

Wanting to give him a show, I turn my back to him and stretch my arms over my head, showing off my ass cheeks peeking out from the bottom of my shorts. “Just about. I’m looking at this news report.”

It’s not often I look up reports on Olly’s case, but I want to make sure that no one is looking at North for the deed.

North pretty much told me he’s the person responsible for all the abductions and murders in Red Hill, without actually saying it, and he made Olly’s disappearance look as if it’s the same modus operandi. I check up on the reports to make sure the police don’t have any information on North. They will never take him from me.

He walks into the room, wraps an arm around my waist, and rubs his hard dick against me. “Don’t worry, baby. They’ll never know what happened to him. They’ll never find the body.”

I shiver at his assured tone. North told me he and Wylder disposed of Olly, but nothow. Honestly, the less I know, the better.

Though he was batshit crazy and really hurt me, I miss some aspects of Olly. Before he got all psycho on me, he was all I had to depend on. He was there for me when my grandfather died and was my rock for so long. It’s hard to let that go.

But in that same vein, I’m not sorry he’s dead. Not after what he did to me. For over a year, he made my life a living hell. I looked over my shoulder for so long, expecting to be attacked and abducted at any point because someone was after me. My apartment felt unsafe and I thought I was going insane with how frightened I was. All because of Olly.

North told me it’s okay to miss the good parts of Olly—I’m sure that advice was because I was crying, not because he wants me to actually miss him—but he also wishes he could have killed him slowly because of the hell he put me through.

If that’s not the sweetest thing he’s said to me, I don’t know what is.

Smiling sadly as I stare at my tablet, I nod. “I know. But I want to make sure they have nothing on you. Atlas and Wylder as well.”

Over the past year, I’ve grown closer to Atlas. He comes over to our house a few times a week for dinner or after work to have a beer and unwind with North. He always shoots us secret smiles when I sit on North’s lap or when I’m curled under his arm as they talk. It’s nice to have his approval.

Wylder… I’m not so sure about him. Sure, he calls me kitty—even though North has threatened to kill him for it more times than I can count—but he still seems guarded. Like he’s afraid of letting anyone besides North and Atlas in. But he seems accepting of our relationship, which is all I really want. Wylder has come to visit and to help North and Atlas with some building projects, as well as… their family projects, then he leaves to go back to wherever it is he lives. He left pretty soon after I got out of the hospital, so I haven’t gotten the chance to know him better.

North’s soft lips on my neck make a shiver shoot down my spine, settling in my balls. “They won’t. No one’s coming to get me, and I’d kill anyone who tried to separate us.”

The truth of that statement is clear in Mr. Barlowe and Olly being in the ground—or wherever he put Olly’s body.

The morning after I was discharged, North and Wylder went to Olly’s house to rid it of any evidence of my visit. He said they were careful not to erase me completely, since we were friends and it would look odd if there weren’t pictures or anything ofme there. But they did toss out that creepy fucking bear with his name on the sweater, just as I tossed the one he sent to me. They also erased the paper trail of all the usernames. Olly had for my cam site. It blew my mind that he had over ten accounts so he could watch and threaten me when I blocked any of them. Whatever they did worked, because other than me being questioned about his disappearance, I wasn’t looked at as a suspect.

They also went through Mr. Barlowe’s apartment to make sure there was nothing that connected him to me outside of me being his tenant. To make his deception more legit, Olly sent Mr. Barlowe emails that were supposedly from me. Other than those bullshit emails, though, there was nothing. Some contact of Wylder’s also erased any trace of him being one of my subs. So we should be in the clear.

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