Chapter 37 Sera
SERA
The buzz of my phone drags me out of the warm cocoon of sheets and Liev’s body heat. I squint at the screen before answering.
“Finn, it’s six a.m.”
“What’s your point?”
Next to me, Liev groans and buries his face deeper into the pillow.
“You do sleep, right?” I mutter. “You’re not secretly a vampire?”
“Do you want to know what I found, or do you want to keep being a dick?” Finn asks dryly, clearly unamused by me.
I shake Liev’s shoulder. He rolls over, eyes instantly sharper when he sees my expression.
“Putting you on speaker,” I tell Finn.
A faint snort comes through the line. “Wouldn’t want your husband to miss anything.”
“Finn,” I growl.
He laughs. “Couldn’t help it. It’s just so weird.”
“It’s not weird.”
“Sera, you don’t even date—”
“You’re one to talk. Now tell me what you found, or I swear I’m going to spill my coffee on your keyboard the next time I’m in the office.”
“Fine.” He huffs. “There was a hidden app on your phone transmitting your location. That’s what’s been killing your battery.”
I’ve known Finn long enough to read the sympathy under his flat delivery. He comes across as closed off, but I’ve spent enough time with him in the cyber room to know it’s just that he’s terrible at communicating how he feels. Big emotions make him extremely uncomfortable.
Liev props himself on an elbow, all traces of sleep gone, expression hard. “Who?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Were they listening to me?” My stomach clenches.
“No.” Finn hesitates, his voice softening. “But the spyware was monitoring your texts and emails.”
My mind races, trying to remember if any of my recent messages contained anything sensitive.
“And they accessed your home alarm app, which is most likely how they got into your apartment.”
“How long has the tracking app been on her phone?” Liev asks.
“Hard to say. The account was created a few years ago. This isn’t the first person they’ve tracked.”
“You can’t find the account holder?” Liev’s voice has a hard edge. “If you can’t, I’ve got one of the best hackers in the world on our payroll.”
“Of course, I can,” Finn snaps, clearly stung. “I already ran the number attached to the account through OSINT. It’s linked to a burner. I’m tracing the batch those phones came from. We’ll narrow it down. It looks like the texts you got were sent from the same batch of phones.”
I frown. “So, the same person who was tracking me, is also the person who sent me the texts?”
“That’s what I said.” Finn sounds annoyed.
“You said the account has been open for a few years, right?”
“Yeah.”
I push my tongue into my cheek, thinking. “That sounds like the kind of thing Brady and I used to do, before he turned Elite into a full-blown security operation.”
“You mean before you hired me,” Finn says smugly.
Liev’s mouth curves. “You used to bug people?”
“Not all the time,” I mutter. “Shut up—this isn’t about me. But it could be a private investigator, right, Finn? That’s the level of tech you’re describing.”
“Yeah,” he says thoughtfully. “Not your average operator, but someone without Elite’s resources.”
“Did you find anything else?” I ask.
“Like what?”
“A hidden bitcoin password.”
The line goes quiet for so long that Liev and I exchange a look.
“Finn?”
“Seed phrase or numbers?” he asks tightly.
“I don’t know what a seed phrase is. I’m looking for a string of numbers.”
“Yeah… I found something like that.”
“Is there a problem?” Liev’s voice is low.
“No, I deleted it, but I can recover it.”
My brows snap together. “Why would you delete it? Where did you find it?”
“There was a file AirDropped to your phone from another device a little over two years ago. He must have had access at some point and hid the file in Utilities and set it to invisible.” He clears his throat, uncomfortable. “It was a photo.”
“Of the number?”
Finn doesn’t answer.
“Finn, what the fuck aren’t you telling us?”
“It was a photo of you with a piece of paper on your stomach with the numbers written across it and that piece of shit leaning over you.”
I shake my head with a frown at Liev. “I don’t remember—”
“You were asleep in your bed,” Finn continues, voice furious.
I glance down at my bare torso, and the bottom drops out of my stomach. “I was naked, wasn’t I?”
Liev sits up fast, a snarl ripping out of him.
“I deleted it right away,” Finn hurries to assure me. “I didn’t know you were looking for anything other than the spyware or tampering—would have been helpful if someone mentioned it—but I figured you didn’t want it since he was in it. And it was a weird place to put it.”
My friend seeing me naked is the least of my problems right now. “But you can recover the photo, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Recover it,” Liev orders, already sliding out of bed. The mattress dips, cold air rushing into the warm space he leaves behind.
“I’m on it. Give me ten minutes.”
“Five,” Liev corrects.
Finn hangs up without argument.
Silence stretches between us.
When the phone buzzes again, Liev snatches it, scans the screen, and goes completely still. He hands it to me without a word.
There I am… sprawled naked, asleep across my old mattress in the condo. A piece of paper is centered on my stomach, numbers scrawled in black marker. Aaron’s head and shoulder are visible in the frame, selfie-style, his face smug even in profile as I lie oblivious next to him.
I pull in a slow, deliberate breath, fighting the sick crawl under my skin. “Well,” I say evenly, “that’s disturbing.”
To put it mildly.
Liev has gone dangerously quiet. The nightstand creaks under the force of his grip.
A worse thought claws up my throat. “You don’t think he had other pictures of me, do you? Ones he took with his own phone?”
Liev’s jaw locks so tight the veins in his neck stand out. His whole body is vibrating with barely leashed fury.
“Hey.” I catch his face between my hands. “Don’t stroke out, Gangster.”
He doesn’t blink.
“At least I look hot,” I add weakly.
“Your brother is going to tell me where the body is.”
“What? Why?”
Blazing dark eyes meet mine. “Because I’m going to grind it into dust and then set that on fire. Obliterate his presence on this planet.”
I feel him shaking under my palms.
“Okay,” I say, forcing a small smile. “Pretty sure it was somewhere in Central America. We’ll call it a vacation.”
He stares at me for a beat, then a rough laugh bursts out of him. Some of the terrifying color fades from his face.
“If he had other pictures, he would’ve used them when he was stalking me,” I say quietly, logic kicking in. “Trying to get me to take him back. No one else ever saw me like that.”
“I don’t care if you have nudes, Seraphina.” Fury still simmers in his voice. “I care that he took them without you knowing. That he used you like some sick, fucking prop.”
“I know.” I tilt my head. “Don’t you have any psycho exes we can talk about? It’s kind of annoying to only talk about mine.”
He gives me a look. “I’m never letting you leave me.”
“Are you insinuating I would be a psycho ex?”
“If the bunny fits.” His lips lift a little.
I smile back. “The two of us might be psychos,” I say, emphasizing the word. “But at least we’re psychos with a sense of humor.”
He grunts.
“I should probably loop Brady in.”
“We need to decide what to do first.”
I nod. “I need coffee for this. Please tell me you have—”
“Yes.” He drops his T-shirt over my head, then pulls on sweatpants. “I have coffee.”
“Thank God!”
I follow him to the kitchen and climb onto a stool at the island, watching the flex of muscle under the elaborate ink that decorates his back. Even now—with everything going on—my body responds.
Calm down hormones. He’s not going anywhere.
Business first.
Liev sets a steaming mug in front of me.
“If someone hired a private investigator to spy on me, it has to be the Taggerts,” I say. “Believe it or not, I don’t have a long list of enemies waiting in the wings.”
He nods. “They were hoping you’d mention the bitcoin—or what happened to Aaron.”
I wrinkle my nose and take another sip. “But why the tracker? Why would they need to know where I was?”
Liev doesn’t answer right away. When I glance up, he’s gripping the edge of the marble so hard his knuckles are white.
“They wanted to take you.” He sounds like he’s chewing glass.
“Take me?” I shake my head. “Why would they—”
Realization crashes in. The man in Chicago grabbing my waist. The two security guards in Vegas. “They thought they could make me tell them,” I finish quietly.
Air saws in and out of Liev’s chest, loud in the stillness. “I’m going to kill them all.”
“Always with the homicide.” The joke falls flat, coming out barely more than a whisper.
I try to make sense of it. Would they really have tortured me? The family I spent so much time with. It doesn’t make sense.
I don’t realize I’m shaking until Liev lifts me into his arms, carries me to the sofa and settles me on his lap.
“I couldn’t have told them if I wanted to,” I whisper. “I didn’t know about the bitcoin…”
“And you never would have given up your brother,” he says gruffly, stroking my hair.
“Fuck.” I blow out a breath and burrow into the warm skin of his chest. “Let’s rethink the homicide angle.”
We sit in silence for a long minute. I feel his heart gradually slow under my cheek.
“I’ll call Mikhail and give him the password,” he says. “Then I’ll pay these assholes a visit.”
I shift to look at him. “We aren’t giving it to Mikhail.”
“It’s his money,” Liev says firmly.
“No, it’s not. It’s the Taggerts’ money. They owe Mikhail. It’s not the same thing.”
He opens his mouth to argue.
“They want the money, not me. Once they have it, I won’t be surprised if they drop the lawsuit. Even if they don’t, it’s going to get thrown out anyway.”
I shift so that my knees are on either side of his hips and settle my weight on him. “Plus, I’m sure my gangster husband can scare them enough so that they’ll leave me alone.”
I press a kiss to his lips.
“They might still want revenge.”
I lick my lips, and his gaze drops to my mouth. “I have faith in your ability to be scary.”
His forearm locks around my hips, dragging me down against him.
“I’ll make you a deal.” I swipe my tongue across his lower lip, then pull back just before he can catch me.
His eyes narrow. “You’re playing with fire, malyshka.”
“Ooh, I’m so scared. I’m shaking.” I shimmy on his lap.
He groans, bucking up against me.
“Talk fast,” he rasps, hands clamping my hips, and guiding me in a slow, torturous grind.
I suck in a breath as pleasure spears through me.
“You can tell Mikhail after I’ve given it to them. I’ll tell them that the bratva knows they can now repay their debt. They’ll have to give it to him.”
I moan when he tips my body, rubbing hard against my clit with every stroke. “You can go with me to hand it off, and then make your thre—”
He leans forward and sucks my nipple into his mouth through the cotton of his T-shirt. My words scatter.
“And…” He smirks up at me before switching to the other breast.
I struggle to hold on to the thread of thought as his hand slips between us, tugging his waistband down. Then he’s hot and thick against me.
“C’mon, Little Warrior,” he teases, guiding himself, notching just at my entrance. “Finish what you were saying.”
I circle my hips, desperate for more, but his fingers bite into my hips, holding me still.
“If they don’t seem appropriately scared…”
I mewl as he rocks up, pushing in a little deeper, stretching me.
“You can kill them.”
“Good girl,” he praises, and thrusts up in one deep, claiming stroke, filling me completely.
I cry out against his mouth, and he swallows the sound.
His hands grip my hips, setting a hard, relentless rhythm that has me trembling and clenching around him.
Every thrust drives the air from my lungs, pleasure winding tighter and tighter until it snaps and I shatter with a broken moan, nails digging into his shoulders as I come apart.
Liev follows seconds later with a guttural groan, burying himself deep, pulsing inside me, arms locking around my back like he’ll never let go.
After a long minute, he brushes the damp hair from my face and murmurs against my lips, “You’ve got a deal, Seraphina. But if they so much as look at you wrong…”
He doesn’t finish the threat. He doesn’t need to.
I smile, boneless and sated, and kiss him slowly. “Do your worst, Gangster.”