Chapter 9
9
VANESSA
V anessa didn’t speak as Hawke killed the headlights and pulled the truck into the shadowed edge of the driveway. The trees rustled outside the cabin like nothing had changed, like there wasn’t a predator circling closer with every passing day. Her fingers twisted in her lap. The echo of her release on the cross still lived under her skin, but reality was clawing its way back in.
She felt no fear. Not exactly. But her body hummed with adrenaline and the aftershocks of giving Hawke more than she intended. It was one thing to orgasm with him in the privacy of his cabin, but to do it restrained to a St. Andrew’s Cross on the dungeon floor was something else again. The significance of her surrender was far more than she wanted to admit.
He didn’t look at her when he cut the engine. “Upstairs. Shower if you need it. Lock the door behind you.”
That clipped voice meant business. She hesitated only long enough to see the hard set of his jaw before obeying. Hawke didn’t speak like that unless something needed doing or someone needed protecting.
She climbed the steps slowly, her pulse thick in her throat. The cabin was quiet, secure. Nothing looked out of place. But that note—the message left outside his door—had changed everything.
At the top of the stairs, she paused. Her hand hovered over the bedroom door. Then she opened it, stepped inside, and closed it behind her.
Her clothes hit the floor one by one. The sweater. The leggings. The soft lace and silk panties. She pulled her hair down, combed her fingers through the red waves, and walked to the bed.
He’d said to go upstairs, but he hadn’t specified which bedroom, and he had said nothing about behaving. A sly smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. So she waited for him naked, lying on her side in the center of his bed, her skin still marked from the cross, her thighs aching in the best possible way.
Let him find her like this. Let him see exactly what he did to her—and what she still wanted.
HAWKE
Downstairs, Hawke moved like a man who didn’t believe in loose ends. He stepped into the small side office behind the kitchen and keyed in a code that brought up his secure line. The screen lit with four feed windows—night-vision surveillance from the north ridge, south fence, front yard, and cabin perimeter.
“All teams check in,” he said, voice low.
Gavin’s reply came first. “North and east are clear. No movement past the outer edge.”
“Dawson’s got the drone sweep locked. Nothing on thermals,” came Jesse’s voice next.
“Driveway camera just pinged with a reflection—probably a fox,” Reed added. “No interference. No surveillance disruption.”
“Keep it that way.” Hawke’s tone sharpened. “Stay off the property. No footprints. No comms chatter. If he’s watching the cabin, he’s calculating my habits. Don’t give him anything to work with.”
“Copy that,” Gavin replied. “You want a night rotation on the outer perimeter?”
Hawke nodded even though they couldn’t see him. “Two men max. No lights, no noise. If you see Charles, I want eyes on his vehicle but no approach. We let him come to us.”
“Roger that.”
He ended the call, encrypted the logs, and shut the laptop. Every second he wasn’t watching Vanessa felt like an eternity. His gut said tonight had moved things forward. That scene at the club had provoked something. And if the bastard stalking her had any delusions of ownership left, Hawke had just burned them to the ground.
He moved upstairs like a shadow, barely making a sound. But the moment he opened the bedroom door, all thoughts of surveillance and strategy evaporated.
She was there—naked and waiting.
Her body stretched across his bed like a dare. Pale skin against dark sheets. Her hair spilled over the pillow like fire. She didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just looked at him with eyes that were equal parts challenge and invitation.
His body went hard in an instant.
She’d submitted to him at the club. Now she was offering something different.
He walked to the bed slowly, eyes never leaving hers. “You think I will not punish you for this?”
She raised one brow. “You going to tie me up and make me scream again?”
“I’m going to remind you who you belong to.”
He didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. Her body answered for her, back arching slightly, thighs shifting apart.
He stripped with deliberate ease—belt, shirt, jeans. No rush. No hesitation. His cock was already full and hard, standing thick against his abs.
She moaned softly, eyes locking on the proof of just how badly he wanted her.
He climbed onto the bed and moved over her, pinning her wrists gently to the mattress, his body caging hers.
“You think you’re in charge because you waited for me naked?” he murmured against her ear.
“No,” she whispered. “I just thought you’d want dessert.”
He growled, catching her bottom lip between his teeth and tugging until she gasped. “You’ll speak when I tell you.”
She trembled.
He lowered himself and sank into her without preamble, a single, powerful thrust that buried him to the hilt. She cried out, back arching as he filled her. He didn’t move. Just held her pinned and stretched beneath him, his cock twitching inside her.
“You’re mine, Vanessa.”
“Yes, Master” she whispered, already breaking apart beneath him.
He rocked into her hard. Deep. Slow and punishing. Every thrust sent a jolt through her, and she took all of it—fingers digging into the sheets, breath ragged, eyes glazed. She clung to him, to the sound of his voice, to the feel of his body driving her toward the edge.
She came with a strangled moan, her body pulsing around him, clenching tight.
Only then did he let go. He spilled inside her with a low curse, face buried in her neck, one hand tangled in her hair, the other splayed possessively over her hip.
They stayed that way until their breathing slowed… until the world crept back in… until her phone buzzed on the nightstand the following morning.
VANESSA
Vanessa sat up slowly, pushing hair out of her face as she reached for the device. The screen flashed with her publisher’s name.
Hawke rolled onto his side, eyes already narrowing. “That important?”
She answered on speaker. “Hey, Trina, what’s up?”
Her editor’s voice crackled through. “Vanessa—sorry to call so early—but I need to ask… did you authorize a preview release of Sins of the Flame ?”
Vanessa froze. “No. Of course not.”
“There’s a thread on Reddit. Private leak. Not the official ARC. It’s your manuscript, but… the ending is different.”
“Different how?”
Trina hesitated. “You need to see it. It’s—violent. Very personal. And it reads like you wrote it.”
Her blood iced over.
“I’ll email you the screenshots,” Trina said gently. “I’m so sorry.”
The call ended. Vanessa stared at the screen until the message notification popped up. Then she clicked. She stared down at the phone, hands trembling, stomach hollow.
“Vanessa?” Hawke sat up, voice sharp. “What is it?”
She looked at him, barely able to find the words.
“He’s in my head,” she whispered. “And now he’s trying to rewrite me.”
Vanessa stared at the words on her phone screen, bile rising in her throat. She recognized the syntax. The phrasing. Even the cadence. Whoever had written this had studied her—devoured her work, her voice, her patterns. But this wasn’t a fan fiction.
It was a warning.
She lowered the phone slowly, like if she moved too fast it would all be real. Hawke sat across from her, half-dressed, hands braced on his knees. He didn’t ask what was wrong again. He just waited—still, quiet, steady—like he always did when she was teetering on a cliff.
“He rewrote my ending,” she said finally, voice flat.
Hawke’s gaze sharpened. “What do you mean?”
“He took my private draft—the one I haven’t shared with anyone except Trina—and replaced the ending. Then uploaded it as a leak under my name. Same file style. Same formatting. It even has the same digital watermark embedded in my template.” She blinked, fingers tightening around the phone. “Except instead of the heroine walking away… she gets caught. Forced to submit. She loses everything.”
Hawke didn’t move. But she felt the shift in the room like the pressure drop before a storm.
“I think…” She swallowed, forcing the words out. “I think he’s not just watching me. I think he thinks he’s part of the story. Like I wrote him in, and now he’s rewriting the ending to match his fantasy.”
She stood, pulling on his shirt. She couldn’t sit still anymore. Couldn’t breathe in that bed with the fictional scene echoing in her head. “It’s not just a message anymore. It’s a script. And I’m supposed to follow it.”
Hawke was already on his feet. “Forward me the file. Now.”
She did, fingers fumbling with the touch screen. He caught her wrist gently and steadied her hand.
“I’ve got it,” he said. “You’re safe. We’re going to trace every byte of this bastard’s digital trail.”
“I don’t think he even wants to kill me,” she said, heart hammering. “I think he wants to write a new version of me. To control me. Like I’m some character he can mold into what he wants.”
Hawke’s jaw flexed, eyes going glacial. “Then he picked the wrong woman.”
A few minutes later, Hawke looped Reed in via a secure call. Hawke had connected the cabin’s system into the Spur’s secure uplink and uploaded the corrupted draft for analysis.
“Got the file,” Reed said through the speaker. “Hold up. There’s a mirrored signature in the footer. Someone duplicated your template, altering it with shell encoding.
Vanessa sat back down, hands folded tightly in her lap. “English, Reed.”
“It means they copied your manuscript and rewrote parts but used a cloned version of your document settings. Which means they’ve had access to your original files—either from the cloud or your hard drive.”
“I don’t use cloud backup,” Vanessa said. “Trina and I transfer via encrypted flash drive, hand-to-hand.”
“Then someone pulled it from your laptop,” Hawke said. “Which means the breach happened before you got the first letter.”
Vanessa felt her stomach twist. “There’s no way they guessed my passwords.”
“Maybe not,” Reed said. “But they could’ve installed a keystroke logger if they got into your house. Or remote access through a script hidden in an email attachment.”
Her mind raced. “A month ago, someone emailed me pretending to be a romance blogger. Offered to do an early spotlight for Sins of the Flame. Asked me to click a link to preview the promo art. I opened it, but nothing loaded.”
“Send me that email. Right now.”
She complied. Reed cursed on the other end. “That link was a phishing trap. The code embedded a remote access tool. He had real-time visibility of anything on your screen.”
Vanessa clutched the edge of the bed, bile rising again.
“I’m running a reverse trace now,” Reed continued. “Someone uploaded the file to a private subdomain routed through your publisher’s site, using a masked author backend login.” This guy’s good. Fake IP, VPN tunneling across three continents. But he made a mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?” Hawke asked, already opening a second laptop.
A prepaid debit card tied to a single-use email paid for the VPN service he used. Which would’ve been fine—except he used that card a second time. For a physical drop box rental outside Boulder. I’m pulling surveillance from the rental kiosk now.”
Vanessa’s eyes snapped to Hawke’s. “He picked up something? Or left something?”
“No idea yet,” Reed replied. “But there’s a security cam mounted inside the kiosk. If he paid in person or accessed the box physically, we’ve got a shot.”
She stood. “I want to see it.”
“Already on it. Scrubbing timestamps from the last thirty days. I’ll send a clip as soon as I have a visual.”
Hawke ended the call and turned to her. “Go pack a bag. Enough for three days. We’re not staying here tonight.”
“What?” Her voice pitched. “You think he’s going to show up?”
“I think he wants you scared and off balance. I’m not giving him that. You pack. I’ll prep the truck.”
Vanessa moved toward the dresser, heart hammering. “Where are we going?”
“The club.” His voice was all steel now. “We have safe rooms there for high-value clients. Very few people know they exist. They don’t even show up on the building plans. He won’t find us there.”
“And if he tries?” she asked.
He walked to her, caught her chin in his hand, and made her look up. “Then I put an end to this. Permanently.”
The words should have chilled her, but they didn’t. Not when spoken by Hawke. Not when his eyes told her he meant every word.
“Move fast,” he said. “We leave in fifteen.”
She didn’t ask questions. She packed.
Because she believed him.
And God help the man who thought he could write her ending for her.
Twenty minutes later, they were on the road. Hawke drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting possessively on her thigh. Her laptop was closed and tucked under the seat, her phone set to airplane mode. No GPS. No location history. No digital trail.
The countryside blurred past, dark and silent. Vanessa leaned her head against the window, thoughts spinning.
She wasn’t just scared. She was furious.
This wasn’t about books anymore. It was about power. About control. Someone out there thought they could twist her voice into submission, reframe her stories, and make her body the battleground for their delusions.
The message had been clear: You belong to me. They didn’t know who they were dealing with.
But now? Now she knew the truth. She belonged to herself, and she had Hawke. If she belonged to anyone other than herself… it was him.
A few minutes later, Hawke’s phone vibrated. He answered on speaker.
Reed’s voice came through, clipped and focused. “Got it.”
Vanessa sat upright. “What did you find?”
Someone accessed the drop box seven days ago. Male, early forties, average build, short-cropped hair, ball cap pulled low. Face mostly obscured, but he turns just enough on the way out to give us a partial side profile.”
Her blood went cold. “You get a still?”
“I’ll send it to Hawke now. But there’s more. The man used a key fob tied to a rental contract under the name Miles Brenner.”
Her breath froze. That name again.
“Same guy from the Houston panel,” Hawke said darkly. “Same build.”
“I matched his gait and shoulder angle with the security footage from the Iron Spur parking lot last month,” Reed continued. “It’s him.”
Vanessa clenched her fists. “He’s not hiding anymore.”
“No,” Hawke said. “He’s circling.”
Reed added one last detail. “And Vanessa? there was a second envelope in that drop box. Addressed to you. Still sealed. I’m getting it couriered to Gavin now.”
Her skin went hot and cold in waves. Another letter. Another chapter in whatever sick script this man was writing.
“I want to read it,” she said.
Hawke’s grip tightened on the wheel. “You will.”
And if Miles Brenner had written another scene… it would be his last.