Page 48 of Undisputed Chaos
"Will you stay on the phone until I fall asleep?"
My heart swelled. "I'll stay all night if you want. I'll be here when you wake up."
"Promise?"
“Promise,” I said softly, reaching for the jade-handled blade on my coffee table. "Sweet dreams, angel. I've got you."
Her breathing deepened, slowed, until I knew she was asleep.
I listened to her breathe, guarding her dreams from eight miles away, already planning how to permanently close that distance.
"Mine," I whispered to the sleeping girl on the other end of the line. "All mine.”
CHAPTER TEN
Isla
Iwoke to the soft chirp of my phone alarm, still nestled in the cocoon of blankets where I'd tucked it while falling asleep to Adrian's voice last night.
For the fourth night in a row, we'd talked until my eyes grew heavy, his deep rumble lulling me into dreams that left me blushing in the morning light.
The man was addictive.
We talked until my eyelids went heavy; he made me laugh, then made my skin burn in the dark, and somehow always managed to slide into my dreams.
This morning, I woke to find the call still connected, his steady breathing on the other end. Sometimes he muted himself when he had practice, but always kept the call connected.
Proof he’d stayed with me, like he promised.
Stretching beneath my duvet, I smiled at the ceiling. This rhythm with Adrian had become my new normal, and I loved every second of it.
Video filming, painting, shared dinners over the phone, then hours talking until sleep took us. I'd never felt this kind of connection before, this constant awareness of another person existing in my orbit.
My orbit had shifted, though. A few days ago, the influencer world had gone literally crazy around me.
Bailey and Tracy, the friends I'd thought I could trust despite their recent behavior, had been exposed in a brutal scandal.
Their OnlyFans accounts, plastic surgery records, and even their real financial situations leaked across gossip sites like wildfire.
I remembered the shock of seeing those headlines, the grainy screenshots, the vicious comments that followed. The lives they'd built crumbled in hours.
I'd tried calling them, sending text after text, desperate to offer support or at least understand what happened. But my calls went straight to voicemail, and my messages remained unread, hanging in digital silence.
Since then, even my own followers had started asking questions. Comments appeared under my recent posts:
"Girl, what happened with Bailey and Tracy? Are you okay?"
"Is it true about the surgery? They preached about staying natural!”
"Are you still friends with them? Haven't seen you together lately..."
I couldn't answer. Not because I was protecting them, but because I genuinely didn't know what had happened or where we stood.I offered vague responses, heart emojis, and generic "Thanks for your concern" replies.
The whole situation left me feeling unsettled. People I'd thought I knew, however superficially, had vanished from my life without explanation.
Their absence felt less like loss and more like... relief. Which made me feel guilty, then confused, then oddly liberated.
I pushed those thoughts aside as the doorbell rang, startling me from my reverie.
