Chapter 54
ROMAN
As Sean berated me, an uncomfortable feeling crawled over my skin, like eyes watching me. The hair on the back of my neck stood to attention, and I turned, glancing back the way we’d come earlier, knowing she was there before I even saw her.
Hana.
She looked furious, her nostrils flaring and her hand resting at the base of her throat as if my admission was choking her. I swallowed hard, my reaction making Sean flick his gaze in the direction I was looking.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath.
Shit indeed.
“I’m going to leave you two to talk,” he said, louder this time.
“Maybe you should spill all your secrets. Start afresh.” He slapped his hand on my shoulder, leaning in to whisper, “Good luck. You’re going to need it.
” His parting words echoed along the corridor as he walked away, leaving Hana and me alone.
She didn’t hang around, storming back into the room we came from. I followed, closing the door behind us and locking it before hitting the button that closed the blinds, making the room totally private and soundproof.
“Six years,” she yelled, her hands on her hips, her chest heaving like she’d run a marathon. “You’ve been spying on me for six years?”
I nodded.
“Like… how, where… I’m so confused.”
I grabbed the back of my neck, puffing out my cheeks as I blew out a long breath before answering, “It started on your flat… the front door, the outside of your building, and your work. Then it was your car, your phone, inside the crappy places you worked and then, about four years ago, I had cameras in your home.”
“Inside my home?” Her words were whispered, as if she didn’t dare speak them out loud.
“I had to keep an eye on you.”
She wrenched out a chair, collapsing into it like my admission was too heavy to hear. “Let’s start with that, shall we? You knew my brother… he went to prison because of you?”
It dawned on me that she must have heard the entire conversation with Sean, and there was no hiding my past now. I sat two seats down from her, wary of getting too close.
“I knew your brother. We were friends. We were in the same gang—I told you I was in a gang—and I was on that job when he got arrested. I was in the van, being the lookout, and he told me to run through our comms. I watched the building from the end of the road like a coward as he got dragged out by the cops.” The memories resurfaced, as did the guilt I felt about my actions that day.
“I had no idea about Preston or that you existed until Tony called me from prison. The morning of the riot. He was panicked, and he asked me to ‘watch you’. Made me promise. I was already playing around with the surveillance stuff when I met him, and he obviously knew I could look out for you. He trusted me to take care of you.”
She pushed her tongue over her teeth, her expression fixed somewhere between curious and murderous. She looked hot as hell.
“So what? You started searching for me?”
I nodded. “I did, but there was no sign of you.”
She raised her brows. “Preston kept me well hidden. It was only when I walked away that I really existed in the world. Got my driver’s licence, a bank account…”
I thought back to the day I found her driving licence, like it had been there forever, even though I’d been looking for years.
“And then, you just started watching my life like some fucked up TV show.”
“I was keeping you safe,” I huffed out, folding my arms over my chest defensively.
“From what? I’d walked away from Preston, and Tony had no idea how bad things got, so what did he want you to protect me from?”
I tutted. “After everything I’ve learnt, maybe he said, ‘watch out for Hana’ rather than ‘watch Hana’. It’s clear you never needed my protection.”
Her eyes widened. “Protection? What from?”
I didn’t reply straight away, running the pad of my thumb back and forth over my bottom lip.
“Roman Black, what the fuck did you do?” Her tone was deadly.
“The dates… the reason you never had a second one, the ones that ghosted you… none of them were right for you, so I did some stuff.” Her mouth fell open, but her glare told me I needed to explain.
“Hacked their phones, sent evidence of their doucheness to their employers, their wives… yes, some of them had wives… threatened them. I may have even got one knocked over because the traffic lights ‘failed’.”
Silence stretched between us like an endless desert road, but I jumped in my seat at the unexpected sound of Hana’s long, loud laugh.
“I’m dreaming. It has to be a dream. None of this is real.” She sniffed as if she was trying to control herself. “And all the times you showed up since I moved here…”
“Were because I’ve been watching you.”
“You have cameras in my house now… since I moved to town?” She didn’t even sound shocked anymore, and I was starting to be concerned she wasn’t really taking any of this in.
“Everywhere but your bathroom.”
“You watch me sleep?”
“It’s my favourite time of day,” I told her honestly.
Hana pushed up from her chair so fast it tipped back, hitting the floor loudly. “You have been stalking me?”
I wasn’t sure where her disbelief was coming from. She’d been onto me since we first met. Granted, she didn’t know the extent of my stalking, but she knew something was off. “You know I have. You’ve been saying it since we met.”
“I was joking,” she cried, exasperated.
I tilted my head. “Where you though? Maybe on some level, you knew I was watching. Maybe your inner criminal recognised mine.”
Her brows lifted so high they almost met her hairline. “Really? Really, psycho? You’re blaming me… the victim in all this?”
“You’re hardly a victim, Hana.” She winced like my words hurt, and I regretted them instantly.
“You lied to me… about everything,” she yelled, stepping closer. I stood too.
“You lied about everything too. I thought I knew you.” Our anger bounced off each other like two jousting knights.
“You stalked me. You watched me without my knowledge or consent. That’s so fucked up, Ro.” Her voice grew louder, her words carrying more power.
“I was protecting you.” I punctuated each word, trying to drive home that I was trying to take care of her.
“I don’t need your fucking protection.”
I coughed sarcastically. “Er, I think the fake kidnapping story to get me to help you suggests differently.”
“Fuck you.” She stormed to the door, unlocking it and flinging it open.
“Where are you going?”
She glanced back over her shoulder as she left the room. “Away from you. I don’t need your help. I can sort this on my own.” She hurried away from me, but I chased her down as she stood in front of the elevator. “Why doesn’t this just have a call button like a normal lift?”
“Because we don’t want any Tom, Dick, or Harry wandering in off the street. Can you not use the keycard you cloned?”
She turned and flipped me her middle finger. “I didn’t bring it. Just let me out.”
“No,” I replied as a couple of Thomas’ team wandered past, giving us a strange look.
“No?”
“No. It’s not safe.”
“Says the stalker,” she fired back as she turned her back on me and stared at the lift doors like her anger could summon them to open.
I stepped closer, leaning in so my lips ghosted her ear. “Come back to the office, Hana.” She shook her head. “You can walk there, or I can make you.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” She twisted to glare up at me, her eyes burning with defiance. It took everything in me not to lean forwards and capture her lips, but instead, I grabbed her and flung her over my shoulder.
“Roman,” she screamed. “Put me down.”
I wrapped my hands around her thighs, pinning her in place as I stormed to the tech room, passing Lacy on the way. “Meeting, five minutes. Let everyone know.”
Lacy chuckled. “Right away, Roman.”
“Arsehole. I’ll make you pay for this,” Hana muttered.
“Oh, little menace, I’m counting on it.”