Chapter 5 Silas
That’s more than enough information to find her ex, to see how close he got to her.
The idea of him touching her has me crawling out of my skin.
I pull the street cam footage in a two-block radius, my attention tracking the flow of people and cars in slow motion. I’m looking for a tail. A pattern. A shadow. Something that shouldn’t be there.
My first thought was that Daniel wouldn’t be on foot. It’s too sloppy… But my intuition revolts every time I glance at the picture.
No, he would follow her by car to her destination and wait. When he saw she left the hotel on foot, he got out to trail behind her. That means he was at the bar last night and watched her leave with Kieran.
As I piece it together, I know it to be true. I can feel it in my gut, that sense of being right about the wrong.
I tap faster, pulling security logs from the storefronts lining the downtown block around the hotel.
And that’s where I find him, caught in the corner of the cameras around Yang Laundromat.
A black sedan idles at the curb all night, the driver readjusting his position every so often to stay comfortable while he stalks his ex.
The image is too grainy to confirm his face, but the posture is familiar enough to turn my stomach.
It’s him.
“Got you,” I murmur, fast-forwarding until I see him get out of the car this morning.
He tails her, watching her cross the street, and then moves in behind her, close enough to reach out and attempt to catch a loose strand of her hair. When he misses, he falls back, putting distance between them.
My grip tightens around my coffee mug until the ceramic handle cracks, tipping the contents onto my notes. A thin stream of steaming liquid bleeds away from the mess I’ve made, curling the edges of the paper as it drips off the desktop.
I don’t move from my chair, eyes glued to the monitor until I witness the moment Daniel snaps his picture and smiles, leaving Eris to walk alone toward her apartment building.
“Did he touch her?” Jace asks from across the loft, voice tight, stretched thin with whatever he’s not saying. “Hurt her?”
I don’t look at him. “Not yet.”
“Don’t be cryptic,” he snaps. “She messaged. She’s probably fucking shaking after that bastard—”
“She’s alive,” I interrupt, turning to glance at the guys. “And she’s at Romily’s house instead of her own apartment.”
“But she’s not safe.” Kieran leans against the server rack, arms crossed, his biceps flexing as he opens and closes his fists.
He hasn’t settled since this morning, since she smiled on her way to meet her friend at the cafe. We all saw it. And we all knew it wouldn’t last.
Kieran isn’t the only one who’s wired from only a glimpse of Eris.
All three of us have a serious problem.
I stand and cross the living room into the kitchen, washing my hands and drying them on a towel. My movements are sharp. Controlled. Keeping me focused as I plot out my afternoon.
“Where are you going?” Jace demands as I turn to leave.
“To do what should’ve been done days ago.”
He steps in front of me, his hand out to stop me. “You’re not going after him alone.”
“Watch me.”
“He’s dangerous.”
I meet his eyes, unbothered by his protest. “So am I.”
Kieran doesn’t move, but his voice cuts cleanly across the loft. “We made a deal.”
“The deal was to protect her,” I snap. “Not sit around while he escalates.”
“She’s not ready to have a death on her conscience, especially if you’re killing someone on her behalf,” Jace argues quietly. “Not yet. Not even if you can hide a body in the Bay.”
A humorless noise leaves me. I can’t even call it a laugh, but it’s something close. “You think she doesn’t know what we are?”
“You,” he bites out, pointing at me. “Not us. We know what you will do, but she doesn’t.”
I take a step toward him, toward the door. “Then she’ll learn.”
A weighted silence folds over the room, dense but familiar. The truth already sits between us.
We want her.
We’re obsessed with her.
Kieran will protect her mind and body, even if he’s protecting it from herself.
Jace will make her laugh and beat a man within an inch of his life for crossing any line she draws.
But I am the one who will kill for her.
We know what we bring to the table. I just need to decide if I’m staying for dinner or solving her problems without her consent.
“She asked for our names,” Jace tells me when he sees my hesitation.
“And you gave them?” I ask, taking his bait to calm down.
He shakes his head. “Just our usernames. She already knew there were more of us, and she’s been picking us apart.”
“I noticed,” I say with a nod. “She’ll want our real names, too.”
“She deserves the truth.”
“She deserves peace.” I roll my neck, tension crackling down my spine as the adrenaline fades from my system. “Daniel took that from her. So now we take something from him.”
“What’s the plan?” Kieran asks, voice steady.
Finally, a real question.
I step back to the desk, catching the towel Jace throws my way. Once I’ve wiped up my spilled coffee, I drag a second monitor forward and open an untitled folder.
Photos. Logs. GPS pings. Daniel’s apartment blueprints. His office. His habits. The bar he lurks around on Sundays…
I’ve been tracking him since he popped up on Eris’s phone.
Just in case.
You never know when you’ll need to destroy someone’s will to live publicly… Not only is this public, but it’ll leave a digital footprint that will take years to disappear.
I motion for them to look at the monitor.
“Now,” I say, clicking through photos and files. “We move.”
The doorbell rings, making all three of us jump and glance at each other. It feels cartoonish, but really… None of us were expecting company or watching our own cameras.
We don’t move.
We’re practically holding our breath as I black out the screen we were looking at. I shift control to another monitor to view our cameras.
The doorbell rings again, and Kieran crosses the open living room to answer it.
I flick to the front door camera and see who our visitor is just as the door swings open. Hot, burning annoyance scrapes its nails down my spine.
That’s something we share.
She’s standing there.
Not the woman we all want to show up on our doorstep…
Not Eris.
Her.
The ghost we don’t name anymore.
She pushes her sunglasses off her eyes, resting the designer shades in her blonde hair.
And she gives us just enough to look like she thinks we’ll fall apart at the sight of her.
Nothing has changed in the last two years, the same curated smile and calculated softness she used to weaponize against Jace and Kieran.
The latter doesn’t let her in. He just leans against the door, more immovable than a brick wall.
“Why are you here?” Kieran asks.
She glances beyond the door, ignoring him. “Is Jace home?”
Beside me, Jace freezes, his jaw set so tight I feel I could thump him and watch it shatter. I step forward, staying in the shadows, keeping us both out of her sight while I study her behavior through the camera.
“Don’t,” I warn him in a whisper.
“I’m fine,” he lies.
“You’re not.”
Back at the door, she gives Kieran that amused little tilt of her head. “Can’t I visit old friends?”
Kieran snorts. “We’re not your friends.”
“Still sensitive, I see.” She smiles wider, but it’s brittle. “Holding onto the past, K?”
“I’m not holding onto anything,” he says evenly, his cheek rounding as he returns her smile with one of his own. “Except for my lines and standards. You crossed one, but you can’t reach the other.”
Jace steps past me and right into her view. Her expression lights up like a sparkler thrown onto gasoline.
“Jacey,” she purrs. “I was—”
“You need to leave,” he interrupts coldly.
“That’s not very welcoming.”
“We’re not welcoming,” he agrees, shaking his head. “And I’m seeing someone, so when you leave, don’t come back.”
Her mask slips a fraction, exposing a crack in her expensive veneer. It’s quick, but it’s there.
“I don’t believe you,” she whispers.
“I don’t care,” Jace replies, rubbing at his jaw like he’s trying to loosen the muscle. “Your belief doesn’t make it any less true.”
Her eyes flick between us… First, to Kieran, then back to Jace, and finally, she turns her attention to me as I step in behind them. She doesn’t smile at me; she never has. She knows I see her too clearly to fall for her games.
“Why are you here?” I ask again, repeating Kieran’s question.
She hesitates, her tongue running along her teeth as she lies. “Just curious.”
“Try again.” I raise an eyebrow, and she just glares at me, letting me see the festering hatred in her blazing eyes. “Or don’t.”
She doesn’t.
Kieran slams the door in her face, flipping the lock as obnoxiously as possible.
Jace stares at the wood grain like it’s saying something he doesn’t want to hear, a frown growing on his face. “She’ll come back.”
I smile, thin and sharp.
Kieran and Jace know very little of Crimson Bay… but their ex? She knows next to nothing.
Including how quickly she can disappear.
“Not if I see her first.”