Chapter 36 Sadie
SADIE
The soft click of the penthouse door announces Landon’s return. I don’t look up from my laptop, continuing to compile the evidence I’ve spent the afternoon gathering. Since the Hunt ended, we’ve slipped into a strange rhythm—not fully domestic, not entirely captive. A limbo between the two.
“Show me what you found.” Landon shrugs off his jacket, draping it over the back of a chair before pouring himself a whiskey.
“I traced the backdoor signature.” I spin my laptop to face him. “It’s Greg Hollins—your head of cybersecurity.”
Landon’s expression doesn’t change, but I’ve learned to read the shifts in his body language. The slight tensing of his shoulders. The way his fingers tighten around his glass.
“He used a variation of his standard coding pattern. Clever enough to fool most people, but...” I shrug. “Not me.”
“Show me.” Landon sits beside me, close enough that our thighs touch. These casual points of contact no longer startle me like they once did.
I walk him through the evidence—the timestamp anomalies, the specific encryption methods, the digital fingerprints Hollins left behind, thinking no one would recognize them.
“He’s been feeding information to Orlov for at least three months,” I conclude. “Every shipment route, security protocol, distribution point.”
“So before he even approached us to make a deal.” Landon’s eyes flash with rage as he pulls out his phone, dials Xavier, and puts it on speaker. “It’s Hollins,” he says without preamble.
“You’re certain?” Xavier’s voice is cold.
“Sadie found his signature in the code. It’s irrefutable.”
“We will handle it.” The call ends.
The silence stretches between us as Landon sets down his phone. I close my laptop, suddenly needing to fill the quiet.
“What will happen to him?” I ask, though I already suspect the answer.
Landon meets my eyes directly. “He will die.”
A chill runs through me despite the warmth of the apartment. “Have you...” I pause, the question catching in my throat. “Have you killed people before?”
Landon’s look is incredulous, one eyebrow raising as if I’ve asked whether water is wet or if the sky is blue.
“What do you think?” Landon responds.
I look away, studying Ravenwood Hollow’s skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s easier to have this conversation without meeting his gaze.
“I assume you have.” My voice comes out steadier than I expect. “Probably more than once.”
“You assume right.”
The casual way he confirms killing people sends a chill down my spine. I knew already, of course—at least on some level. The Blackwood empire isn’t built on charity work and community service. However, hearing him acknowledge it so easily makes it real in a way it wasn’t before.
I glance back at him. “Do you enjoy it?” The question slips out before I can stop it.
Landon’s expression goes blank, as if someone flipped a switch and turned off all emotion. It’s the most unsettling thing about him—this ability to empty himself of any human emotion when discussing the darkest things.
“I do what needs to be done,” he says simply.
Not a denial. Not quite an admission. Just a statement of fact that reveals nothing about what he feels when he takes a life. If he feels anything at all.
The thought crystallizes in my mind.
Landon Blackwood is probably a psychopath. Not in the casual, everyday sense people throw around, but clinically—someone fundamentally incapable of empathy or remorse. A person who views others as pieces on a chessboard, obstacles to be removed, or tools to be used.
And I’m living with him. Sleeping with him. Helping him.
What does that make me?
Landon sets his glass down with a decisive click. “That’s enough work for tonight. Let’s order takeout and watch TV.”
I blink at him, caught off guard by the abrupt change in topic—from murder to dinner plans in the span of seconds.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing, just...” I close my laptop. “That’s very... normal.”
He shrugs. “Even monsters eat dinner, little butterfly.” There’s that nickname again, the one he started using after the Hunt. “What are you in the mood for?” He pulls out his phone, already scrolling through delivery options.
I study him. In the weeks I’ve been here, our evenings have followed a predictable pattern. We either work—separately or together on his security issues—or we fuck. Sometimes both. But never this domestic middle ground of takeout and television like a regular couple.
“Thai? Italian? That new fusion place on 52nd?” He looks up from his phone, waiting for my answer.
“Thai is fine,” I reply.
As he places the order, I puzzle over this shift. Is it a new tactic—lulling me into false security before striking harder than carving his initials into my skin? Or is he, against all odds, reaching for normalcy?
“I thought we could watch that medical drama you like,” he says, setting his phone down. “The one you used to watch every night before bed.”
The fact that he knows my nightly routine isn’t surprising—he’s been watching me through cameras long before the Hunt—but the fact that he’s acknowledging it so casually, without using it as leverage, feels strange.
“Why?” I ask.
“Why what?”
“Why takeout and TV? That’s not...” I gesture vaguely between us, “what we do.”
Landon stares at me for a long moment, his steel-blue eyes unreadable. Finally, he leans back, maintaining that calculating distance that always makes me feel like I’m being observed under a microscope.
“Does everything need to have an ulterior motive?”
“With you? Yes.”
A smile curves his lips, not reaching his eyes.
“Fair enough.” He takes another sip of whiskey, and I notice how his throat works as he swallows.
It’s strange how familiar his body has become to me—every scar, every tattoo, every muscle, and every movement.
I’ve mapped him with my hands and mouth as thoroughly as he’s mapped me.
“Maybe I want a different pace tonight,” he says finally.
“Different how?”
He shrugs. “We’ve established I can take whatever I want from you.” His gaze travels over me. “I’ve proven that repeatedly.”
My cheeks heat at the memory of all the ways he’s claimed me over the past few weeks.
“But maybe I want to see what it’s like when you’re not afraid of me. When you’re not fighting me.” His voice drops. “Just for one night.”
I narrow my eyes. “So this is an experiment.”
“Everything with you is an experiment, little butterfly.” He reaches out, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re the most fascinating specimen I’ve ever studied.”
“I’m not a lab rat, Landon.”
“No.” His fingers linger. “You’re far more valuable.”
The intensity in his eyes makes me look away. It’s easier to handle Landon when he’s being cruel—at least then I know where I stand. This gentler version feels more dangerous, like quicksand disguised as solid ground.
Landon grabs the remote and turns on the TV, flipping through channels until he finds my medical drama. Without warning, he wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me against him.
I stiffen. This feels wrong—too normal, too couple-like. This isn’t what we are. We’re hunter and hunted. Captor and captive. Monster and... whatever I’ve become.
“Relax,” he murmurs against my hair. “I’m not going to hurt you. Not tonight.”
The not tonight hangs between us, a reminder that this reprieve is temporary.
I exhale and let myself sink into him just a little. His body is warm and solid, his expensive cologne mingling with the natural scent of his skin.
On screen, doctors rush a patient through hospital corridors while dramatic music swells. I’ve seen this episode before, but Landon watches with apparent interest, occasionally asking questions about character backgrounds.
“She’s sleeping with the chief of surgery,” I explain when he seems confused by a lingering glance between characters. “It’s been a whole subplot for three seasons.”
The doorbell rings, and Landon untangles himself from me with surprising reluctance. “Food’s here.”
I watch him walk to the door and notice how graceful he is. Even in this mundane moment, he moves like a stalking beast.
He returns with bags of fragrant Thai food, sets them on the coffee table, and pulls out containers and chopsticks. No plates, no pretense of formality. Just containers passed between us as we eat directly from them.
“Try this,” he says, holding out a piece of ginger chicken with his chopsticks.
I hesitate, then lean forward and take the food from his chopsticks. The casual intimacy of the gesture feels more invasive than some of the explicit things we’ve done.
We eat in silence, the TV providing background noise. My body gradually relaxes.
I glance down at the pad Thai in my container, then back at Landon. A shift stirs in me—a dangerous curiosity about how far this normal night can go. I twirl some noodles around my chopsticks, lifting them toward him.
“Try mine,” I request.
Landon’s eyes lock with mine, something unreadable flickering in their steel-blue depths. He leans forward, his gaze never leaving my face as he takes the food from my chopsticks. His lips close around the noodles, and I feel a flush creeping up my neck.
It’s such a simple thing—sharing food—yet it feels more intimate than many of our physical encounters. Those were about power, about Landon taking what he wanted. This is different. Mutual. Tender.
I watch his throat as he swallows, and an unwelcome heat pools low in my belly. The air between us thickens, charged with an electric heat.
Landon passes me a water glass, his fingers brushing mine. The brief contact sends an electric current through me. He’s had me, possessed me, broken me open—and still, this casual brush of his hand is the most perilous of all
We continue eating, the silence punctuated only by the TV and the occasional sound of chopsticks against containers. Our eyes meet, and each time it feels like a challenge.
I expect him to make a move, to use this manufactured intimacy as a prelude to sex. That’s our pattern—any vulnerability quickly turns physical, preventing deeper connection. But Landon simply continues eating, his posture relaxed yet alert.
The tension builds until I can barely breathe, my skin hypersensitive, aware of every inch of space between us. It’s maddening—this waiting for a move that never comes.