Chapter 5 Mara
Mara
The hotel room feels different when I return from meeting Chase Callahan.
I pause at the doorway, holding the warm key card in my hand, every instinct inside me screaming warnings I can't quite understand.
The room looks the same, cream leather furniture placed just right, floor-to-ceiling windows showing off Manhattan, and abstract art picked by a committee. But something has changed.
It starts with the air. The temperature greeting me isn't the cool setting I left behind, that uncomfortable chill I keep because it stops me from sleeping too deeply, trusting too easily, or dying quietly.
Instead, warmth wraps around me. It's exactly the temperature I like, though I've never told anyone.
My hand shakes as I let go of the door handle. I lock everything, deadbolt, chain, electronic seal, then lean against the heavy door and listen. The silence seems to be waiting, as if the room's been holding its breath for me to come back.
"Paranoia," I whisper to the pricey emptiness, but even that word feels empty.
Years of running make threat assessment automatic, as natural as breathing.
Hypervigilance isn't a choice now, it's a survival skill sharpened by too many close calls and nights waking to footsteps that shouldn't be there.
But this isn't paranoia. It's awareness.
I go through my security checks quickly and efficiently.
The single hair across the bathroom door frame is still there.
Good. The light dusting of powder on the marble table shows no signs of disturbance.
Better. The book on the nightstand is exactly where I left it, spine aligned just so.
Everything is as I left it. So why do I feel like a stranger in my own safe space?
In the small kitchen area, I pour myself a glass of water.
The cold crystal tumbler feels icy against my hand.
I look at my reflection in the shiny fridge door.
It shows someone who appears calm and in control.
But my eyes tell a different story. They're wide and alert, with pupils large from adrenaline I can't explain.
The meeting with Chase went better than I thought it would. He had every reason to be suspicious of Connor being beaten up by Emilio on our date and what role I might have played. It's only natural for a man who survives by being cautious. But he desperately needs what I'm offering. For now.
I settle on the cream leather sofa, balancing my laptop on my knees, and try to focus on the Rosetti's banking records that one of my Zurich contacts gave me.
These are numbers that represent millions in hidden money, accounts that could fund small wars.
This work demands my full attention. If I want to extricate myself from this mess, I need leverage.
But I lose focus as soon as I catch a scent. At first, it's so faint I think I'm imagining it, a trick of the mind caused by stress and lack of sleep. But as I sit still, the smell becomes stronger.
Jasmine.
It's not the usual hotel air freshener or commercial perfume, but something distinct and real. It's the kind that grows in Mediterranean gardens, where old women carefully tend to ancient vines. Where pale flowers bloom in the morning sun and release their fragrance into the warm air…
My blood runs cold.
I know this scent well, in ways that go beyond memory. My body reacts before my mind can, my pulse racing as my instincts flood me with a surge of fight-or-flight chemicals.
His grandmother's garden. The last morning before everything went to hell.
I woke up early in his arms, pulled from sleep by the sunlight and sweet scents coming through the open windows.
Jasmine was in full bloom, with its old vines releasing their daily fragrance.
I carefully slipped out of bed, trying not to wake him, enjoying how sleep softened his usually sharp features.
I walked through the marble halls, still cool from the night.
The garden was empty except for the morning light and a sense of possibility.
I picked a single bloom, studying its delicate petals that seemed too fragile to last but somehow did.
When I returned to place it on his nightstand, his gray eyes watched me with an unfamiliar look. Something raw and full of wonder.
"You smell of jasmine," he murmured, his voice rough from sleep and something more. "It suits you."
I curled up against his chest, feeling safe, loved, and at home. That was the last time I felt safe.
Now, sitting in this sterile hotel room with my heart racing, I look around the space with new eyes, searching for a scent that shouldn't be there.
There.
On the glass coffee table.
A single jasmine bloom lies next to my laptop as if it appeared from a memory. Its white petals are soft like butterfly wings, with a yellow center bright like captured sunlight. It's fresh enough that morning dew still clings to it, catching the light and creating tiny rainbows.
My hands tremble as I reach for it, then pause. Evidence. Don't mess up the scene.
Under the flower is something that takes my breath away.
Hotel stationery. Cream paper with the Grand Metropolitan's watermark. And on it, handwriting I'd recognize even in my sleep, even if I were blind, among a thousand similar scripts because it's etched in my memory forever.
Mara.
Just my name. And below it, in that same neat writing:
You always loved jasmine in the morning.
I stare at the note until the words blur, until my vision fades at the edges, until I have to remind myself to breathe.
Someone has been here. In my room. My safe place.
Not just anyone. Him. The realization hits hard. Not a random intruder or hotel staff with poor boundaries. Him. The man I've been avoiding for years, the predator whose presence I've felt like a weight on my skin across continents.
Emilio Rosetti has been in this room.
He's touched these surfaces and arranged this flower with the same care he once used for everything important.
He's written my name in handwriting that used to appear on notes hidden in my clothes, sweet messages I found when love seemed endless.
The flower is placed exactly where I would have put it.
It's not dramatically positioned or hidden like a secret; it's just there.
Natural. Like the room was incomplete without this one detail, this reminder from a past I've tried so hard to forget.
The full extent of the violation sinks into me.
He's been here. While I was dealing with Connor Callahan, playing dangerous games with people who kill out of disappointment, he was here.
In my space. Among my things. Learning my new habits the way he once learned my body, with complete attention and endless patience.
But it's more than just violation. That's what makes my hands shake and my vision blur.
It's the care. The precision. The way he remembered something I’d forgotten about myself—that I used to pick jasmine because the scent made mornings feel like promises instead of threats.
That I'd leave single blooms on his nightstand.
This isn't just breaking and entering. This is curating. This is someone who knows me so well he can turn invasion into homecoming, surveillance into courtship.
I step back from the coffee table, my heart pounding so loudly I can hear it. My hands shake as I turn on the phone's camera to capture the evidence.
There is a flower, a note, a scent that shouldn't be here. It's a reminder that I'm not invisible and never have been. Every move I've made, every identity I've taken on. None of it matters to someone who sees me so clearly that years apart feel like minutes.
For the next two hours, I conduct the most thorough security check of my life. I inspect every surface, check every electronic device, and search every possible hiding place for cameras, microphones, or tracking devices.
I find nothing, no surveillance equipment, no signs of forced entry. The only proof of someone being here is my growing certainty and the flower that fills the room with memories.
It's a level of intrusion only possible with professional skills or family money, making restraining orders useless against someone who doesn't follow the law.
As night falls and Manhattan lights up like a sea of stars, I circle the jasmine flower as if it were dangerous. I don't touch it, barely breathe, fearing any small disturbance could lead to something worse.
When I finally get into bed, door locked, phone charged, escape routes memorized, the scent lingers.
It drifts through the expensive sheets, filling my dreams with images of Mediterranean gardens and gray eyes that see everything without judging, remembering details that turn hunting into a form of worship.
I dream of mornings filled with promises. Of hands that instinctively know how to explore skin without needing permission. Of a love so complete it defies legal boundaries and common sense.
When I wake to the warm light of late morning, my first thought isn't about Chase Callahan or the increasingly complex web of lies I'm spinning.
It's fear. Pure, deep fear that someone thinks I'm worth this kind of attention.
Worth the risk of being exposed. Worth the careful planning needed to get past top-notch security and leave gifts that feel more like threats than anything else.
The realization hits with awful clarity. This is how it begins, not with violence or open force, but with gifts. With attention so intense it makes being alone feel like being deserted. With someone who sees you so clearly that being invisible becomes a lie and giving in starts to feel unavoidable.
I sit up in my wrinkled pajamas and look at the jasmine bloom, still there in the morning light.
It's proof that Emilio Rosetti has found me again, been here, and left his mark on my safe space in ways that go beyond simple intrusion.
The sensible thing would be to pack up right away and run, like I've been doing, always staying one step ahead of the predator whose attention feels both threatening and promising.
But as I watch the late morning sun highlight the delicate petals, I realize something important has changed. It's not just my location or security measures, but my understanding of what I'm truly running from. Not him.
It's the part of me that might want to be found. And that scares me more than any direct threat.
I slide out of bed and walk slowly to the coffee table.
The jasmine is starting to show signs of aging, petals a bit less firm, color turning from pure white to cream.
I pick up the flower and study it one last time.
Then, with movements driven by both anger and fear, I crush it between my fingers.
The fragile petals crumble, releasing one last burst of that powerful scent before turning to dust in my hand.
I go to the window and let the pieces scatter into the wind, watching them vanish into the vastness of Manhattan.