Chapter 55
IVY
I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, my phone loose in my hand, the screen dimming and lighting again as I scroll without really seeing anything.
There’s still nothing new. Nothing from him. No messages. No missed calls. No follow-up. Just nothing. Too much nothing.
I should be relieved. It was unnerving receiving the anonymous messages. Not knowing when they would come through or what bizarre thing they would say.
They didn’t scare me—not that much. Because I knew he was locked up. Somehow able to ferry messages to me, but unable to follow through on his unhinged rantings.
But now… nothing.
That’s almost worse. Because at least when he was messaging me, I knew what he was up to. Not that I think he’s got the intellect to successfully break out of prison, although he would most certainly have the gumption to try.
My thumb stills against the screen. That’s the part that doesn’t make sense—he didn’t stop before. He didn’t give up. If anything, he got worse. More persistent. More present. And now… total silence. Like he was never there at all.
Unease moves through me—quiet but persistent—threading through the calm instead of breaking it. Because I know why. I don’t say it. I don’t even fully let myself think it. But it’s there. Sitting just beneath everything else.
He handled it.
Soren must have done something.
My grip tightens slightly around the phone. The words replay too easily. Too clean. Too final. I swallow, setting the phone down beside me like it’s suddenly heavier than it should be. I should feel worse. Scared. Panicked. Something.
Instead I feel…steady. That’s what’s wrong. That’s what doesn’t line up.
Footsteps.
I don’t look up right away. I don’t need to. I feel him before I see him.
“You’re quiet.” His voice is soft.
I lift my head slowly.
He’s watching me. Already reading something in my face I haven’t decided how to hide.
“It’s nothing,” I say. It comes out easier this time—less forced. That should bother me too, but it doesn’t.
He steps closer. His hand finds me first, settling at my waist like it belongs there.
My body reacts immediately. My breath softens, and the tension in my chest loosens. I don’t try to pull away this time. I don’t think about it at all.
“I told you. There’s nothing out there for you.” The words settle. “You’re not missing anything.”
My eyes flick up to his. I should argue. I should push back. I should say something about how that’s not true, how he doesn’t get to decide that. But I don’t. Because part of me understands. And that’s worse than anything else.
“Not anymore.”
My chest tightens. Just briefly—enough that I feel it before it fades again under the weight of his hand, the warmth of him, the way everything else goes quiet when he’s this close.
My fingers curl against his shirt. I don’t notice until the fabric shifts under my hand.
He notices. His hand tightens slightly at my waist. Not enough to hurt, just enough to hold. To keep me exactly where I am.
“What if I wanted to leave?” The question comes out softer than I expect. Not a challenge. Not really. More like testing the shape of it. Seeing if it’s real. If it still exists.
He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t even pretend to consider it. “You don’t.” The answer lands clean and immediate. Certain in a way that doesn’t leave space for argument.
My breath catches slightly. Because that shouldn’t feel like an answer. It shouldn’t feel like anything but control. And yet there’s something underneath it that settles instead of spikes. Like he’s stating something already decided.
“And no one’s coming to get you.”
That should break something. That should snap whatever fragile calm has been sitting under my skin this entire time. But it doesn’t. Not the way it should.
Something colder flickers—a small, sharp awareness of what that actually means. Of what he’s capable of. Of what he’s already done. And still, my body doesn’t pull away.
My forehead brushes lightly against his chest, my breath evening out in a way that feels too easy—too natural for something that should feel wrong.
I know what this is. I know what he is. I know what this means. And still I stay. Not because I have to. Not because I can’t leave. But because my body chooses him.
“Come here.”
I hesitate for half a second, but my body is already moving, following him down the hallway without asking where we’re going. That should bother me more than it does.
He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t need to.
At the end of the hall, he opens a door I’ve never seen before. Probably because it doesn’t even look like a door—just a regular wall panel. Unobtrusive. Discreet.
I pause in the doorway. For a moment, I don’t understand what I’m looking at. Then it clicks.
Screens.
Too many.
Light flickers across the walls—feeds, windows, data moving too fast to process. Code scrolling. Movement mapping. Systems layered over each other in a way that feels overwhelming just to look at. This isn’t normal.
A second office. This one, far more complex than the one I’ve already seen.
“What is this?” I step forward slowly, drawn in despite the way something tightens in my chest. It’s not just the number of screens. It’s what’s on them. Movement. Locations. Logs. Information. Too much of it.
Behind me, I feel him step closer. I don’t turn.
His presence settles in first, and then his hand—back at my waist, like it already belongs there. His breath tickling the hairs on the back of my neck.
My breath catches again. Even now, even here, my body reacts like nothing else matters, like the unease pressing in around me fades the second he touches me. That shouldn’t happen. My mind tries to pull back, to focus, but my body stays.
His thumb shifts slightly. “You don’t need to understand it.” His voice is low, close enough that I feel it more than I hear it. “You just need to trust me.”
Something tightens in my chest. Because that’s not normal.
None of this is.
I force myself to look properly this time, pushing past the pull of him. One of the screens shifts. A familiar number catches my eye. My stomach drops. I step closer before I can stop myself. That’s my phone number.
The messages. All of them. Not just the last few. Every attempt. Every timestamp.
My pulse spikes. “What is this?” This time, my voice is sharp.
He doesn’t answer.
I scan faster, catching details I missed before—location pings, movement tracking, time logs, a map. My breath stutters—my apartment. The places I’ve been. Marked. Tracked. Watched. The realization builds piece by piece, each one worse than the last.
He may as well have a giant cork board with red strings connecting everyone I’ve ever met in my life.
“You were going to see him.” The words land behind me, calm and certain. I turn sharply.
“I wasn’t—”
But it falters, because I don’t know that anymore. Because he says it like he’s already seen it happen.
“I saw you thinking about it.”
My chest tightens. I was never going to go to the prison, to confront him for sending the messages.
He’s correct the thought did cross my mind, but just as quickly I’d shoved it away.
I have a restraining order against him, which would be in violation if I did go, and replying would only have lured me into his web—just the way he intended.
And I didn’t bother blocking him, because I knew the messages would just start popping up from another account. He’s not the sharpest, but he’s resourceful as hell when he’s obsessed with something.
“That’s not—”
His hand presses at my waist. Grounding. Stopping. Re-centering me without asking.
And my body responds again, fluttering at his touch. Electricity zips low in my body. Even now. Even with everything in front of me. I hate it.
An icy cold chill settles deep in my gut, realization dawning on me that the messages have stopped and what that might mean. They were increasing in speed and intensity and threat level—and for the past few days, nothing.
“Soren, what did you do?” The question comes out quieter. Because I’m not asking if—I’m asking how far.
“I handled it.” Simple. Flat.
My stomach drops. “What does that mean?”
“He won’t contact you again.” There’s something final about the way he says it. No hesitation or room for interpretation.
Something cold slides down my spine. My gaze flicks back to the screens, to the proof of something far bigger than I understood a second ago. This isn’t just interference. This is control. “Is he… dead?”
“He’s… incapacitated. No longer has access to a cell phone. Neither does his contact on the outside who was helping to get the messages to you when needed.”
“Contact on the outside?”
He nods. “Yeah, some girl. One of those mega-fans who falls in love with ‘bad boys’ in prison and will do anything they ask. Sending commissary all the time, believing his lies. He told her and at least six other women that he’d marry them when he got out.
They all fell for it. Sending messages was just the latest thing to prove her love. ”
I swallow. “Is she—is she alive?”
“For now,” he shrugs. “It really depends what she chooses to do from now on. If she tries to fuck with you again, game over.” He pauses. “I think she’s pretty clear on that, though.”
My chest rises too fast. This is pure insanity. Soren was out there—what—hurting everyone who hurt me, without me even knowing? He just wasn’t going to mention it?
I should leave. The thought hits clean and sharp. I should walk out. Put distance between me and this, before I get pulled any deeper.
This man is dangerous.
Then his hand shifts slightly at my waist, and my body reacts again. Quieter now. Deeper.
My breath slows. The panic dulls just enough.
And that’s worse than anything else in this room. Because I can see it clearly now. He isn’t normal. He isn’t safe. He has reach. Control. Access to things he shouldn’t.
As if proving my point, he places a long object on the desk in front of me without ceremony. A small roll of something—linen, maybe, or conservation paper, the kind used to protect things worth preserving. Tied with a thin piece of twine.
I look at it. Then at him. "What is this?"
"Something that arrived this morning." He's already moving past it, refilling his own cup. Like it's nothing. Like he's already bored of it.
I pick it up. It's lighter than I expect. I pull the twine loose and unroll it slowly, and then I go very still.
At first it looks like leather, but it’s not. I know what it is. A piece of skin. Inked. I recognize the tattoo immediately—a particular design I'd spent years trying to forget, pressed flat and preserved like something from a museum. Something someone decided was worth keeping.
My stomach turns. And then, beneath that, something else. Something quieter and uglier that I don't immediately have a name for.
"Jake found him," Soren says, still not looking at me. "And then I did. It's handled. He won't be sending anything to anyone ever again." A pause. "Neither will she."
I stare at the thing in my hands. "You…took this from his body,” I say. “And then you… kept it? Prepared it for me like some death art?”
"I thought you might want it,” his mouth twists in some combination of a smirk and a scowl. “And it’s not death art—torture art, perhaps. He’s still alive—for now.”
I should put it down. I should say something about what this means, what he did. What kind of person does this and then hands it to someone right after their morning coffee?
Instead, I roll it back up carefully. Tie the twine. Set it down. "I don't want to put it on the wall," I say finally.
"I know,” he nods. “I don’t want to see a reminder of him every day. I’m glad you don’t, either.”
"But I don't mind having it locked away somewhere,” I add.
Because I don’t. There’s something unique about this gift. It sends a message—I don’t know exactly what. But there’s something protective about it. Comforting. And I can take it out and look at it whenever I need a reminder of how far Soren would go to make me feel safe.
He glances at me then. Just for a second. Something shifts in his expression, as if he’s seeing a new aspect of me for the first time. "I know that, too," he says.
And we stop talking about it.
Later, we’re sitting together, and I’m mulling over the day’s earlier events in my mind. What initially filled me with shock, and then a little excitement, is now tapping against my sternum in a quiet warning.
It doesn’t sit right that Soren went behind my back and took care of the anonymous messages.
I’m getting sick of him organizing my life without me being fully aware, as well-placed as it may be.
“I feel trapped,” I say, my voice low. I don’t know how to describe it.
His laugh is low and harsh. “Oh Ivy, this isn’t trapped. You’d know if I trapped you.”
The words slide cold down my spine, the curve of his mouth almost chilling in the circumstances.
And still, I don’t move. I don’t step away. I don’t leave.
Because his hand is still there.
Because my body is still responding.
Because the part of me that should be louder isn’t.
I think back to the screens for another second. Then my gaze drops. Not to the data.
To his hand. Resting at my waist like it belongs there.
Like I do.
And that might be the most dangerous part.