Page 49 of Fractured Devotion
I pull out the flash drive and slide it into a new casing. One that’s not labeled and not traceable. Then, I split the data across two drives, burying half in my secured off-network server, and the rest, I drop into a slim black envelope and seal it.
Tomorrow, Mara will find it in her lab kit with a note that says, “Open only if I disappear.”
I don’t trust easily.
But I trust the version of her who hesitates before lying.
Then I kill the lights.
And for the first time in days, I let the dark settle over me like a second skin.
Chapter 17 – Kade - Watcher in the Stillness
The night doesn’t start in the bakery. It starts in the driver’s seat of my car, parked two blocks away from her building, where I’ve been watching the top windows of Celeste’s apartment for nearly an hour and a half. The feed from her entryway shows nothing, while the clock on my dash glows with faint accusation—10:48 p.m., then 11:20 p.m., then 12:04 a.m. She’s never this late.
The static tension crawling across my shoulders doesn’t ease. She’s always precise. Even in chaos, she has rhythm. But tonight, she’s breaking her own pattern.
At 12:42 a.m., I finally tap into the nearest traffic node on the corner intersection. There’s only one feed I trust, buried beneath a blanket of civilian camera chatter. It takes thirty seconds to decrypt.
I rewind to just before ten, expecting to see her at the building’s entrance. But nothing. She doesn’t show.
My stomach tightens.
I scrub forward, frame by frame, until finally, there she is. Around 10:27 p.m., walking alone past her usual turn and continuing down the block. Her coat is pulled tight, her head low. She slips into a building I hadn’t accounted for: the bakery.
No cab, no escort. Just her, on foot, making an uncharacteristic detour.
She’s inside, alone, and no one follows. The resolution blurs too much to catch her expression, but I note how long she stays. Nearly an hour passes, and she still hasn’t come out. I rewind the feed twice to be sure. Nothing. She’s still inside.
My grip tightens on the edge of the tablet.
I shift in my seat and glance through the windshield. The van is still there, parked in the same spot across fromher building. It hasn’t moved all night. It has a black exterior, windows that are too dark, and a license plate blurred by dust that looks deliberate. The usual plate has been confirmed to be fake anyway. I made sure to check. Someone else is watching.
The possibility gnaws at me. Is that why she hasn’t gone home yet? Did she notice? Of course she did. Celeste doesn’t miss things like that. She observes better than most men breathe.
I watch the bakery’s entrance now instead. Eventually, the van drives off, slipping away as if the street were asleep.
Minutes later, she emerges with her coat tight around her, her movements stiff and purposeful. She doesn’t glance around, but her posture has shifted. She walks straight to her apartment.
Only after her door closes behind her do I leave the car.
After I leave the car, I cross the street on foot and settle into the corner booth of the bakery, where she lingered.
The waitress takes my order. Just coffee, my usual.
It’s just past midnight when I slip the tablet from the inside of my coat and power it on. The encrypted interface stabilizes in the dim light.
This place smells like yeast and pine-scented cleaner, a bitter combination that keeps my senses sharp. Outside, the moon bleeds pale through the fogged window, casting a thin glow across the outline of Celeste’s building.
The camera feed stutters before it resolves. Her living room appears first, dim and soft-lit by a dying lamp near the couch.
There she is, her shoulders stiff, moving on autopilot. She drops her bag on the coffee table, and then she disappears into the bedroom next. The camera there picks up her silhouette as she undresses in no hurry, her back turned to the lens.
She peels off her coat, then her blouse. Her hands pause at her bra clasp, her fingers still for a minute that stretches. Then she unhooks it, slow as sin, letting it fall to the bed in a whisper.
Then, she drags her legs, bare and smooth, and moves with the kind of unhurried grace that makes my blood burn.
She moves to the dresser, bends slightly, and pulls out a nearly translucent thin cotton shirt and a pair of shorts that wouldn’t pass for decency even in private. The shirt clings to her body immediately, her nipples peeking through the fabric as she tugs it down.
