Chapter 27 #3
Michael was already pulling out his phone. “I’m on it.”
“Good,” Callan grunted. “Because I want to check something else.”
His fingers flew over the keys, pulling up a second screen. He scrolled. Stopped. Leaned closer.
“Huh.”
Leland’s patience had ended. “What?” he snapped.
Callan didn’t answer immediately. “Remember those glitches?”
Nobody spoke.
“The timestamp drift. The sync problems. That happened here, too.”
“Which means?” Dev prompted.
Callan clicked again. “This is the access log. The suffixes identify authorization tiers,” he explained. “Devlin & Associates users are tagged zero-four. Devil’s Pointe personnel are zero-five.”
Dev pointed to one out of sequence. “And this one?”
“Zero-one.” Callan looked up slowly. “Strickland Security Systems.”
“I knew it,” Cari uttered, not gloating but with dread.
“It’s either him or someone on his payroll,” Callan stated. “But whoever it was, they accessed our system remotely at 9:08 tonight, just before we went dark.”
“Got the location,” Michael announced, already moving toward the door.
Leland was right behind him.
Dev slowed enough to say, “Call it into Deerfield Beach PD.”
***
The boat drifted just beyond the point, the engine idling low enough to get lost in the breeze. Light flared across the dock too late. Figures converged on the shoreline. The first ripple of panic. Even from this distance, he could sense it building. Confusion first. Then fear.
He would’ve liked to stay longer. To see the moment Hale understood. To watch Devil’s carefully constructed world crumble beneath the weight of something he hadn’t predicted and couldn’t contain.
But timing mattered and by the time they grasped what had happened, he needed to be gone.
He glanced at the woman stretched along the cushioned bench behind him. A strand of blonde hair shifted across her cheek as he accelerated slightly. Her breathing stayed slow and steady—for now.
After dragging her aboard, he’d secured her wrists and injected the sedative. Enough to keep her quiet until they reached their destination. Her last.
A shame. She was beautiful. But beauty had never been the point.
He had watched her with Hale at the club. Watched the way she responded to his dominance: open, unguarded, the kind of submissive who gave freely once she chose someone.
Outside the Pointe, that had changed. The softness had sharpened. There was hesitation, defiance, and “no” had appeared where compliance once lived.
The corner of his mouth lifted. He preferred resistance. Breaking a weak-willed submissive held little appeal.
Resistance made the process cleaner. Slower. Made every reaction more deliberate, more meaningful. And incredibly rewarding.
His grip tightened on the wheel as his gaze drifted over her again.
Tonight hadn’t been planned. Not precisely. But opportunity rarely arrived wrapped in a ribbon. When the opening appeared, he took it.
That was the difference between him and men like Jack Parker. Knowing when the moment came and having the discipline to act without hesitation.
Security down. Devil’s woman in the water, out of the way. Julia, standing alone on the dock.
He couldn’t have designed it better.
He cast one last look toward the shoreline, the glow from the house dimming with distance. They would be searching. Frantic, confused, trying to understand how, where, and why.
He had taken her from the one place they believed untouchable. From the center of their illusion of control. The chaos he’d unleashed filled him with satisfaction.
Julia shifted behind him, a faint sound from her throat. The sedative would wear off soon enough. That was good. He wanted her conscious and fully aware. Punishment meant nothing otherwise.
She’d made him wait. Slipping beyond his reach. Turning what should have been simple into a prolonged irritation he couldn’t forgive.
His gaze moved over her once more, slower this time. Taking in the line of her throat, the delicate bones of her wrists, the way she would need to be restrained—properly this time. Not clumsily, or emotionally, or with the reckless lack of control he’d seen from lesser men.
Precision mattered. Control required intention. That was where others failed.
He would not.
The boat rocked gently as he eased the throttle forward, turning away from the last traces of light and into the darker stretch of water beyond the Pointe.
Julia stirred again, as she drifted closer to consciousness.
He had imagined this moment more than once. The fear in her eyes when she realized no one was coming for her in time. The resistance before she gave in. Her pleas for mercy. The inevitable surrender that always followed.
And she would surrender. They all did.
They would search for her. Of course they would. Especially Hale.
There was an attachment there. Far more than he’d initially assumed.
That would make what came next even more satisfying. Because pain and fear were never limited to just the victim. They touched everyone connected to them.
That was the real art. Not the taking but the slow unraveling.