14 - Isa
For three heartbeats, I can't process what I'm seeing. The familiar face where a stranger should be. Those warm brown eyes I've trusted for years, that easy smile I see every morning over Cuban coffee. My stalker wears Adrian's face, moves with Adrian's grace, breathes with Adrian's calm.
The shock of recognition floods through me like ice water.
This morning's warmth at La Sirena, the coffee ritual, the way he asked about my day.
Everything shifts, spoils, turns rotten in real time.
Every comfortable moment, every shared laugh, every time I let my guard down around him.
The one person who made me feel safe. He was watching me through holes in my wall.
"Isa." His voice carries no panic, no surprise at being caught. Just that same honeyed warmth he uses when greeting customers, when calling me carina across the bar. "Come in, mi amor. We should talk."
The casual invite, the endearment dropping from his lips like nothing's changed, snaps something loose in my chest. Rage floods in, clean and absolute.
He's not denying it. Not scrambling for excuses.
He's inviting me in like we're about to share drinks, like I've discovered something as mundane as his preference for bourbon.
My hand finds the knife in my boot, fingers wrapping around the familiar handle. "You drilled holes in my wall."
"I did." Simple acknowledgment, no shame in it. He steps back, opening the door wider, the invite still standing. That familiar scent drifts toward me. Tobacco and lime, the cologne that's meant comfort for years now revealed as the hunter's mark. "Please. Come inside."
The composure of it, the lack of any appropriate human response to being caught violating someone's sanctuary, makes my grip tighten on the knife. He's standing there like he's been waiting for this moment. Like he knew I'd figure it out eventually and has been rehearsing his calm.
I could run. Could call the cops. Could scream for help.
Instead, I walk through his door. Because I came here to confront my stalker, and by God, I'm going to get answers. Even if those answers come from the last person I expected. Even if they come from the one person whose betrayal cuts deepest.
His apartment mirrors mine in layout but nothing else.
Where mine is sparse and controlled, his breathes warmth.
Rich colors, comfortable furniture, the lingering scent of coffee.
With a sick twist in my stomach, I realize the whole space smells like our morning ritual, like the one moment of my day I thought was purely good.
The holes are everywhere.
Not just the three I found. More, carefully placed at different heights along our shared wall.
"You've been watching everything." My voice comes out steady despite the horror spreading through me. "My bedroom. When I sleep. You violated every private space I had."
"Yes." No elaboration, no excuse. Just acknowledgment in that warm voice that used to mean safety.
The scope of it hits fully. My privacy obliterated.
Every private moment, every unguarded second, every time I mistook locks and checked windows for safety.
He's seen it all. Watched me in my most vulnerable states, studied my routines, learned when I shower, when I dress, when I think I'm alone.
When I touch myself thinking about… God. Has he watched that too?
Heat flushes through me, unwanted and undeniable. The thought of Adrian watching me in those moments, seeing me come apart when I thought I was alone. It disgusts me. But my thighs press together involuntarily, my body betraying me with arousal I can't control.
"How long?" The question scrapes out of my throat.
"Through the wall? Since I moved in." He closes the door behind me with a soft click. "A few weeks."
A few weeks. Right when the watched feeling started, when things in my apartment began mysteriously improving. The timeline clicks into place with sickening clarity.
"The hinges." I turn to face him fully, listing each violation. "You oiled my squeaky door hinges."
"They were singing off-key, carina." Still that warmth, but something else underneath now. "I couldn't let them keep you awake."
"The lightbulbs."
"The flickering bothered you. I could tell by the way you'd pause under them, counting the stutters."
He noticed that. Of course he did. He's been studying me like I'm his favorite subject, learning every tell, every habit. The intimacy of it makes my skin burn.
"You were in my apartment. Multiple times." Each admission lands without shame, without even a flicker of remorse. "Following me on the street."
"Sometimes." He moves deeper into his apartment, and I track his movement. The way his shoulders roll, the flex of his forearms where his sleeves are rolled up. The same arms that have steadied me countless times. "You have good instincts. Almost caught me twice."
"That cologne at the bodega. The same scent when the movers came." The violations stack up, each one admitted with that same measured calm that's starting to crack at the edges. "You've been stalking me for weeks."
"Yes."
No justification. No 'but you don't understand' or 'let me explain.' Just simple agreement with every accusation I level. The lack of defensiveness is somehow worse than denial would be. Like he doesn't even think what he's done requires defending.
But under my fury, that broken place inside me pulses with sick recognition.
He's been watching me with the singular focus of obsession.
Learning me, studying me, wanting me enough to violate every boundary.
The intensity of it feeds something I've been trying to starve.
That need to be the sole focus of someone's entire world.
"My passport." The biggest piece clicks into place, and fresh fury floods through me. "The delays. The bureaucratic runaround. That was you."
For the first time, something shifts in his expression. Not shame. Something else. Pride, maybe. Satisfaction. The mask of easy charm starts to slip, revealing something rawer underneath.
"I couldn't let you leave for Lisbon." The warmth begins to fray, intensity bleeding through. "You think I'd let an ocean come between us? Every form, every delay. That was me keeping you close. Keeping you mine."
"You sabotaged my escape." The words come out sharp enough to cut. "You sat there at Ariele's, listening to me complain about the delays, comforting me about the blocks, knowing you were the reason."
The memory hits fresh. Him refilling my wine glass, his hand over mine, promising everything would work out. All of it lies. The one person I trusted to confide in was the architect of my cage.
"Yes." The single word carries weight, possession, an absolute lack of remorse.
The mask is falling now. The warm, charming Adrian I thought I knew is dissolving, revealing something more intense underneath.
His eyes have gone dark, focused on me with a hunger that makes my pulse race for all the wrong reasons.
This is the man I glimpsed that night at the bar, when he pinned me against it.
The one whose darkness flickered through before I dismissed it.
"You had no right…"
"I had every right." The interruption shocks me. Adrian never interrupts, never pushes. But this man in front of me isn't the Adrian I know. "You think you can just leave? Just pack up and vanish to Lisbon like the last five years mean nothing?"
"They don't mean…"
"They mean everything." He moves closer, and I should step back but I don't. Can't. The heat of his body reaches me, familiar and foreign at once. "Every shift watching you work. Every careful distance I maintained so you'd feel safe. All of it leading to this."
"Leading to what? To you violating…"
"To you being mine." The words come out with absolute certainty. "Every morning, every smile. All of it was love, Isa. My love. My claiming."
My body is betraying me completely. The intensity in his voice, the naked want in his eyes, the sheer audacity of his conviction.
It's hitting that broken place inside me, the one that responded in the chamber to being wanted so completely.
Heat pools low in my belly, my pussy clenching with need I hate myself for feeling.
"You're insane." But my voice wavers, and he hears it.
"I'm in love." He says it like fact, like physics, like something that explains and excuses everything. "And you're not leaving."
The coffee ritual I treasured was surveillance. Every moment of comfort was a lie. The realization cuts deeper than the holes in my wall. I lost the one safe person in my world, and he never existed at all.
"You need to apologize. Take it back. Say you're sorry for…"
"I refuse." His voice cuts clean. "I won't apologize for keeping you safe. For making sure you didn't vanish. For loving you enough to stop you from running."
"That's not love…"
"Isn't it?" He's close enough now that I can feel his breath. "I know you count in eights when you're anxious. Know you prefer your coffee bitter like medicine. Know that scar on your collarbone aches when it rains. I know you, Isa. Every part of you."
The arrogance of it, the absolute refusal to apologize, makes me want to gut him. But my knife dangles loose in my hand, and my nipples have gone hard against my shirt, visible through the thin fabric, and his eyes track down to notice. His gaze darkens further.
"You feel it too." Not a question. "This thing between us."
"I feel violated." The protest comes out weaker than intended, undermined by the flush spreading across my skin, by the way my body sways slightly toward his.
"Both things can be true, mi amor."
He refuses to apologize. Refuses to pretend what he's done is wrong. The conviction in him, the absolute certainty that keeping me was the right choice. It's terrifying and magnetic in equal measure.