Page 27 of Peripheral Vision

Steam burns through my ears as I watch him take what is mine. Touch what is mine. As she lets him in, willingly. The rope of control I’ve been keeping around her slowly starts to fray. What does she not understand about the wordsyou’re mine?How could I have possibly been more clear? Does she really need me to spell it out for her? They’ve been out here for hours now, enjoying each other's company. Laughing, all cozy, andsocomfortable and content in a way that has me gritting my teeth. It twists in my chest, like a knife digging into flesh, ripping into the sinew there. The way he’s close to her, holding her, shoving his tongue down her throat like she belongs to him. But she doesn’t. She’smine.She doesn’t need all of that, and I intend to show her. She needs to be controlled, not to have the control. She needs someone who is rough. Someone who doesn’t ask, doesn’t wait for consent, because her body—her very soul—has already given everything to him.

I can be that person for her. I will push her and pull her, be tender when necessary, but mostly harsh. I can make her feeleverything—every damn inch of pleasure and every bit of pain—she thinks she knows what it means to surrender, but she doesn’t. Thislittle act of hers, this little bit of freedom, where she thinks she is letting go of her reins a little bit, is the exact opposite of what she needs. She’s always craved structure… routine. That much was obvious when she was younger. I intend to show her that she still needs that, but not from herself. I’ll shape her in a way she doesn’t even know is possible, mold her into something that’sminein every sense of the word. She can continue pretending that the softness and the tenderness he’s offering her is something she wants, but it’s just a lie she tells herself to feel safe. She may not know it yet, but she wants to be owned.

She will soon realize that the only thing that matters is my touch. My voice. My commands. I plan to bring her to the edge of the cliff, and I expect her to jump when I do. And when I get my hands on her for this transgression… there will be no room, no doubt of who she belongs to. She will feel me for days. She will be so sore that every movement will bring that sexy little blush right back to her porcelain skin.

My fists clench and unclench several times as I watch them… the way their hands wander over each other’s body, getting close to their most… intimate parts. I fear what I might do if I walk over there now, but the pull is undeniable. The anger mixing with jealousy, and the primal urge to claim. They don’t even notice me, which is once again a problem. The air around me thickens, every part of me wanting to lash out, drag them apart, rip him limb from fucking limb. But I stay rooted in place, knowing that my reward will be so much sweeter as I punish her. I’m not wearing my mask tonight, so I don’t want to get too close to where they might see me, otherwise that would ruin the surprise. Instead, I think I’ll move my timeline up. After all, Nathan and I have more than enough time while we try to figure out who we’re looking for. Or whoever we can get the closest to.

We have more than just our primary contact digging into the information Ezra provided us. So far, the only lead we have regarding a possible location, specific to who’s running the show, is somewhere between here and Georgia. There are a lot of smaller hotspotsas well, located closer to us. But we’re pretty sure that they’re just for running products and people through before they hit their main locations, if they haven’t been purchased already. If they wanted to make it difficult to be found, they succeeded. Each thread we threaten to pull risks them finding out how much we’ve focused on hunting them down. Patience and precision are going to be our friends. It’s only unfortunate that the innocent are going to continue to be the ones that pay the price.

However, the smaller hotspots nearby are still tempting… easy to reach and surveil. But we know they’re meant to distract us, keep local law enforcement, the ones that haven’t been flipped or bought off, running around in circles. It’s clear that The Wraith’s MO is honed in calculated chaos. Infuriating, but a game I’m not too shy to play… just like the game I’m playing with Dylan. My thoughts refocus on my next steps for her, and I decide that I’ll let her continue this little adventure of hers, let her explore her feelings for who I've now learned is Callum. And just when it gets to the point she thinks he’s the one for her… I’m going to ride in like a shadow at dusk—swallowing every trace of light she thought she had left.

Because Callum? He’s a chapter. Something that, if not written right, she will put the whole book down or skip over entirely. But me? I’m the whole story. Her beginning and end. I’m the plot. I’ll be the center of all of her problems, but I’ll also make sure that I’m the solution. And when she finally closes the book, when I fit all the pieces of the puzzle in place to ensure that she does, I'll be waiting. She won’t have a choice. She never did.

Ever since thatnight watching Dylan and Callum at the market, I’ve been particularly irritable. When she isn’t in class or studying, she’s spending all of her time with him, even though they worktogether at the bar. Every minute she spends with him is a minute she doesn’t spend with me. Every minute she spends with him is one that leads closer to him claiming her body before I do. Not a fucking chance. It’s the end of the week now and while Nathan and I haven’t made much progress, we’ve got the beginnings of a plan forming. One that I’ve invited him to spend talking through in what’s become my new home away from home—Sins and Sons.

He leans back in the booth, his hands behind his head. “Where’d you find this place? In fact, why are we on campus? Do you have something you want to tell me, Fletch?”

I smirk, swirling my beer as I lean back, mirroring his casual pose. If I told him what I was really doing here, I would no doubt be in for a lecture and never-ending shit. “Relax, Nathan. No hidden agendas. I stumbled across it the other night after we took Ezra to our shed. They make decent drinks, and can’t complain about the music, although sometimes it’s a little too… young in taste, just like the crowd. But they’re mostly harmless. Thought it would be a good spot to hash out our plan without too many prying eyes.” But mine keep wandering to Dylan. She isn’t just working behind the bar, it turns out. She also delivers drinks to tables… which could prove to be problematic if she comes our way.

Nathan raises an eyebrow, unconvinced. Which probably means I need to do better at keeping my gaze from straying too often—but I can’t help it, she calls to me like a damn moth to a flame. Helpless and willing to burn just to be near her. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re so interested in a place crawling with college kids. Unless… you’re trying to relive your glory days. Didn’t peg you for a frat boy.”

“That would’ve been funny if you didn’t know that I never went to college,” I deadpan.

He laughs, shaking his head. “Alright, alright. What do we have so far?”

I grab my phone, pulling up the notes app where we’ve been piecing together our strategy. “Okay, so Ezra mentioned that they operate under shell companies that look legit, right? To keep theirnoses clean? Turns out, they’re not perfect. I managed to find a few breadcrumbs to follow through the money they’re funneling.”

Nathan leans forward, his eyes narrowing in focus. “Go on.”

“Generally, they make whatlooklike legit payments to other shell companies, but someone slipped up recently. One of their companies, Nightfall Freight Solutions, made a payment to a company that doesn’t exist. I’m sure they thought it would fly under the radar since most of the time, every payment they make looks legit, and because it happened to be a small amount. I was thinking that if we can get someone on the inside—someone close enough to those operations to monitor their communications—we might have a shot at this.”

Nathan lets out a low whistle. “And who do you suggest for that role?”

I shrug, feigning indifference. “I reached out to a buddy of mine that I served with, he’s ex-military now too. He runs logistics for a company up north. He happens to owe me a favor, and he’s been working on narrowing down a location for Nightfall, to see if we can infiltrate it. So far, we know it’s in northern Georgia, an abandoned factory or the like. Quite a few shipments in and out late at night. My guess? It's where the bigger auctions happen.”

His jaw tightens, his hands gripping the edge of the table. “And you’re positive this connects back to the trafficking ring?”

I nod. “That's all we have to go on.”

Nathan exhales sharply, his mind already working ahead. “Alright. But I’m gonna need another drink before we discuss this any further. Want anything?” He stands, his gaze snagging on Dylan where she’s serving drinks a few tables away. He lets out a low whistle, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. She laughs lightly with the customers there, unaware of the attention she’s drawing, before she turns and heads back to the bar. “Hell, maybe we should start hanging out here more often if they’ve got staff who look like that. Think I got a shot?

My expression darkens, jaw clenching in frustration. I watch Dylan disappear back behind the bar, then lock my gaze on Nathanin quiet fury. I take a slow sip from the beer I’ve been nursing since we got here. I need to handle this carefully. She’s already too busy to notice my presence and I prefer to keep it that way—but I won’t be able to if Nathan tries to hit on her. He doesn’t notice my rising rage because he keeps talking. “Yeah, I think I can work my magic on her. Once she hears the word surgeon, I think I could have her climbing me like a tree.”

I let the words hang in the air for a second before speaking, my voice cold. “You don’t.”

“And how would you know?” Nathan pans his gaze to me, but I don’t answer because I don’t want to tell him what I’ve really been up to when I’ve been spending time here. “Oh, I understand it now. You’ve already called dibs, haven’t you? I knew you were lying to me about why you chose this place. But I gotta warn you, man. If you don’t take your shot, I’ll take it for you.”

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” I warn, before I have a chance to think about what I’m saying. He said no distractions, and I’m doing a piss poor job at proving that I don’t have one.

Nathan hesitates, his bravado fading. He knows when to drop something. “Got it, damn. When was the last time you got laid?” he asks, walking to the bar to get us more to drink.

Too long, I say in my head, but not much longer now. While I trust Nathan to back off, I still eye him as he approaches the bar, making sure he doesn’t steal any more of the laughs that Dylan has already spent on others. We might be partners, hell, even friends, but I’d cut his eardrums out and keep them if it meant getting those laughs back. He returns several minutes later, having steered clear of Dylan and instead ordering drinks from the other woman working behind the bar. Good—it’s really hard to have to find someone new to work with.

“So, we narrow down our location, then what happens after that?” he asks.

I glance at the wall, thinking for a moment. “Intel. We need eyes on that factory, and not just the ones my buddy has through hiscomputer. We need to see who is coming and going, what kind of security we might be up against. If this is the headquarters… I imagine we won’t make anything work without a fight of some sort, and we have to make sure that we don’t lose The Wraith in the process. We can get a few more details on the shipments, what they’re being used for, but we will have to go in covert. Might as well make as little noise as possible until we need to start being loud, because the silence won’t last and there will likely be people getting caught in the crossfire that we don’t want to. Once we have the layout, the players, and their patterns, then we can decide how to move.”

He takes a deep breath. “When you say we…”

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