Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Ember
I slept like shit.
First, the messages from… whoever he is.
The hot, tattooed badass with the mark of the Bratva on him. It’s… starting to feel more and more like he’s telling the truth.
He was on my roof.
But he didn’t hurt me. He didn’t even touch me. So far, all he’s done is shamelessly flirt, give me an insanely expensive camera I’ve been researching online, like he’s hacked into my search history.
Oh, god. If he looked into my search history… my cheeks flame.
No, wait. I shake my head and drop my forearm across my face. He came to my home, which means he looked me up and found my address.
I blink my eyes open, my vision blurry, and blink again.
This is…different. Shawn never leaves me alone. Shawn finds every one of my locations and even though he leaves me for months at a time, he always resurfaces like a relentless weed, immune to being plucked and destroyed.
But this guy…
I sit up in bed, staring at my phone plugged into the bedside table like it’s a snake coiled to bite me.
I’m kind of embarrassed he knows where I live. I don’t even know the guy, but there’s a reason I film all of my videos in front of the bookshelf or on the rooftop.
There’s a reason that one hundred percent of my friends are fellow influencers who share a mutual love of reading and bad boys.
In real life, I don’t make friends easily. I don’t trust anyone.
This apartment is a study in contradictions, a ridiculous blend of hope tangled with despair.
The kind of place that clings to the smell of mildew no matter how hard I scrub or how many candles I burn.
The walls are thin, the once-white paint now an uneven patchwork of peeling corners and smudges that won’t scrub out.
At night, the soft glow of the fairy lights I hang disguises the cracks spidering across the ceiling.
I’ve thrown down thrifted rugs to cover the worst spots of the cheap laminate flooring, little splashes of color I hoped would lend a vintage edge but sort of scream “flea market finds.”
My bed is crammed into the far corner of the studio, tucked beneath a window that rattles in its frame every time the wind kicks up.
The bedspread is soft and inviting, though, my one splurge after a recent shoot—a pricy comforter I bought on sale, the bright crimson fabric a rebellion against the drab apartment.
I pinned a sweet little string of lights made of tiny romance book covers on the wall above it, one of my favorite little bonuses from a sponsored ad. I love the little gallery of escapism and reminder of a world that’s fully within my control.
Unlike this one.
Sigh.
Before I get out of bed, my phone pings. My heart surges and I reach for the phone, only to realize… it’ s Shawn.
I close my eyes and will him to just go away. I don’t want to deal with him, with the memories he dredges up and the way he makes me feel.
Shawn
I want to visit dad’s grave together.
Of freaking course he’s tugging at my heartstrings. Just because he’s back in town, he wants to play nice. Wants to pretend that nothing ever happened, that I’ve forgiven him for what he did.
His dad wasn’t my father, but my mother’s husband. We buried him a decade ago, and I did love the guy. He was good to me—good to us.
Except for the day he moved his son into our home after his ex-wife gave up custody.
I toss the covers aside and head to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. It feels as if my phone has eyes on it, boring into mine.
Is he watching me?
Does he have cameras set up here, after all?
Why would he go through that much trouble for me?
I take the camera with me and prop it on the kitchen table, staring at it for a moment as if it’ll reach out and bite me.
My god, it’s a beauty.
I look away from it. It doesn’t belong in a place like this.
The kitchenette, if it can even be called that, sits on the other side of the room.
A single-burner hot plate balances precariously on the edge of the tiny counter, and the mini fridge hums loudly, drowning out the faint murmurs of my neighbor’s all-day TV fest. I tried to dress it up with dried lavender and baby’s breath from a farmer’s market, but it didn’t really help.
I really hate this place.
I should pack up and move.
But here’s where I have my connections. I can get a gig in a matter of hours, and I’ve finally started making a name for myself, booking clients. Now that the influencer gig is picking up, that’s less of a pressing need, though. I can, for once, be a bit more discriminating.
I have goals and aspirations, not the least of which is to sock away every penny I can so that I can move into a place of my own. Suffer for a bit, then buy my own place.
Wherever I want.
I look back at the camera. It rests on my kitchen table like a coiled snake—beautiful, dangerous, and impossible to ignore. Its black leather casing, weathered and soft, contrasts with the sharp glint of its brass accents. An antique. A collector’s dream.
A note, handwritten on textured paper, lies beside it: “Use it wisely.”
My stomach churns. It’s not signed, but it doesn’t need to be.
What’s his name?
“Um, excuse me.” I’m talking to dead air like a psycho, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s watching me. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
It’s ridiculous. But this feeling, the same one I got at the gym, is prickling the back of my neck and won’t go away.
My eyes flick to the corners of the room, to the window, even to the tiny blinking light on my laptop.
He’s been watching me. I know he has.
“Do you think this is a game?” I say out loud, again to no one.
What am I doing? I rub my temples. I’m losing it.
I pace the small space of my apartment, my steps muffled by the worn rug. He’s been watching me—closely enough to know my weak spots, to anticipate that I’d be drawn to the camera like a moth to a flame.
I should call the police. I should burn the thing and be done with him.
Instead, my fingers itch for the leather strap.
The thought makes me nauseous, and I push the chair back violently, sending it scraping across the floor. The sound jolts me, grounding me, and I take a shaky breath. This isn’t normal. This isn’t okay.
But damn it, if there isn’t a part of me—small, treacherous—that feels seen.
I stare at the camera, daring it to reveal the secrets it carries. What’s on the film? What has he captured?
Some modern photographers don’t use a dark room anymore, fully embracing the lure of digital art and eschewing the older methods. But me… I love it.
It takes less than five minutes to load the film into the developing tank, my hands working on autopilot, movements honed from years of practice.
Until the first image appears.
It’s me.
Walking down Melrose, oblivious that I’m being watched.
Me, sitting on a park bench, scrolling through my phone, completely exposed.
Me, entering my apartment building, keys in hand, shadowed by the late afternoon light.
I slam my fists against the table, the developing solution splashing over my hands as I head to use the bathroom. Surely he hasn’t set up a camera in there.
But when I get to the bathroom, the glaring, flickering fluorescent lighting reminds me that this is the worst part of this apartment.
A cramped space with tiles that perpetually feel damp and a shower curtain that clings to my skin no matter how hard I try to avoid it.
It’s a good thing I’m barely five feet tall because anyone bigger than me wouldn’t even fit in that shower.
I hung up a framed print of a sunlit forest on the wall, a hopeful touch, but even that can’t mask the reality of rust-stained fixtures and a cracked mirror.
God, I hate this place.
I flick off the light and march back to my room, coffee in hand, and check my messages.
I have a few choice things to say.
Sure enough, Shawn’s back at it again, and there are… wait. I blink. I look again.
That’s four times as many notifications as I normally get on one of my posts.
I stare, my eyes wide, as I flick open the app. My jaw unhinges.
Overnight, three different follower badges are tacked next to my name, thanks in no small part to the videos my stalker’s account tags me in.
My mouth goes dry as I quickly do the math. This is… this is going to bring in money. Good money, ten times faster than any photography gig I could bring in, all while sitting in the privacy of my home.
I could… if this keeps up, I could move out of this shithole and into a place of my own—
No.
NO!
I can’t allow myself to fall for this… I can’t.
There has to be another way.
My notifications tell me that he posted another video.
Last week, I was happily immersed in my fictional worlds, where it was…safe. And now…
My hands are shaking, and I can’t look away. I click the button.
I exhale. Now that I’ve seen him in person, the sight of him on-screen makes my heart slam so hard against my rib cage I hold onto the bed for support.
The camera shows his best angles, yes, but I know what it’s like to be next to him, to see those veins along his neck when he leans against the wall, to hear his low, dark voice in my ear, to see his broad shoulders and powerful frame, knowing he could and would have his way with me and I’d never be the same.
Also? He smelled so good.
Sigh.
My god. I’m wet and bothered—and he didn’t even touch me.
I swallow hard and let myself watch the video.
This one’s new, shot in the early morning light I am oh-so-familiar with on the rooftop. I narrow my eyes and look closer—no, he isn’t on my rooftop. Instead of the industrial pipes and sea of gray, I can tell this rooftop’s different. Higher end.
Of course it is.
The video’s both mesmerizing and unsettling, shot with the raw precision of someone who knows exactly what they’re aiming for.
He stands in the frame, his broad shoulders filling the screen.
This time, he’s not posed or polished—his stance is casual, almost lazy, though, like before, it’s somehow drenched in Bratva energy.
Maybe because he isn’t posing. Maybe because he is the real thing.