21. Cam
I should be focusing on the task at hand.
Mission logs. Surveillance feeds. Anything but her.
But my eyes keep drifting, following her movements like I’m waiting for the next minor catastrophe—another shattered glass, another poorly timed decision. She’s a walking storm wrapped in curiosity, and I can’t look away.
Then there’s her phone.
That’s been… revealing.
Not just the texts or the erratic call history—but the browser history. The kind of search results that linger. Explicit, yes—but dark, too. Unexpected; chains, restraints, punishment—entertainment I wouldn’t expect to find on the phone of someone so innocent.
I expected a chaotic mess. Bad decisions wrapped in sarcasm. But I didn’t expect this.
Turns out she’s not just unpredictable—she’s layered. Twisted in ways that echo something I recognise. Maybe even crave.
Maybe—just maybe—she’s a little more like me than I thought.
The texts raised a flag.
Adam.
He’s a problem. A walking complication I don’t need in the middle of this operation. But more than that—he’s dangerous. He’s already put his hands on her, and thinks he can do it again, probably. He thinks he’s untouchable.
I’m going to have to deal with him.
Not just for the mission’s integrity.
For her.
Because sure, she’s chaotic and messy and talks too much when she’s nervous—but she doesn’t deserve someone like him dictating the shape of her life. She’s not his to control.
And men like him?
They don’t like men like me. They prey on the soft ones. The vulnerable. They don’t do well when something bigger bites back.
I’ll talk to her tonight. Ease into it. Gauge just how much she’s willing to admit. But for now, I keep watching. Because I’m curious, too curious.
There’s something about her I still can’t untangle. The noise she brings. The defiance. The way she’s torn through every boundary I didn’t even realise I still enforced.
I’ve never met a woman who invited herself into my home like it was hers by default. And I’ve definitely never met one who managed to knock me out and tie me to a chair.
Yet here we are.
How can one woman be so consuming?
Kyla, my wife, would’ve liked her. She would have called her a whirlwind. She always had a soft spot for chaos like Nell.
And they’re so alike, or they were—she reminds me of the version of Kyla before the arguments and hatred. That’s the problem.
The laugh that starts in their chests. The stubbornness. The way both of them claim space without asking. It’s familiar. Too familiar. And familiarity feels like a loaded gun when you’ve already buried the thing you loved most.
Not that me and Kyla were on the best terms when she was taken, but still I owe her a lifetime of searching, to try and bring her home.
I keep telling myself that’s why I’ve been keeping my distance.
It’s not avoidance—it’s survival.
Twenty-four hours under my roof, and she’s already under my skin. Distracting me. Shifting the gravity in every room she enters.
I glance at the feed from the hallway camera—catch a flicker of ginger tail just disappearing around the corner. Straight into my room.
Boomerang.
Of course.
Can I go five minutes without someone blurring my lines or claiming a part of my life I didn’t offer?
Between Nell and that demon-cat, I’m stretched thin.
And the worst part?
I think I’m starting to enjoy it.
When Nell lunges for the cat and misses, I let out a long, exhausted sigh and rise from my chair.
Of course she’s in there. The one place I told her not to go. My room—like the rest of this house—has boundaries. Ones she either doesn’t hear or just cheerfully bulldozes past.
I push the door open without warning. She’s on her knees, half under my bed, arm outstretched toward the ginger menace crouched in the shadows. Boomerang meets my eyes with the smug satisfaction of a feline who knows he’s just thrown gasoline on an already simmering fire.
“Did I not say my room is off limits?”
My voice is calm, but she startles anyway—jerking up so fast she cracks her head on the edge of the bedside table with a sharp thud that even makes me wince.
“Shit,”
she hisses, pressing a hand to her temple.
“I was just trying to get Boomerang.”
Her face scrunches as she rubs the growing welt, glaring at me like this is somehow my fault.
Honestly? I’m more impressed than annoyed. It takes a special kind of determination to trespass, headbutt furniture, and still sound self-righteous in the aftermath.
Nell mutters something unintelligible as she tries to stand, still clutching her head. There’s a faint red mark blooming near her temple, and she glares at me like I’m the one who built the bedside table just to sabotage her.
“He just ran in here,”
she grumbles.
“I didn’t exactly have time to send a formal request.”
I huff a quiet laugh.
“And clearly no time to develop spatial awareness.”
She groans.
“Seriously?”
I gestures at the spot she hit.
“That’s going to swell, you know. I should probably get you a helmet if you’re going to keep charging through my house like a one-woman demolition team.”
She shoots me a look, half-defiant, half-exasperated.
“Are you always this charming, or is it just with me?”
I shrug.
“Just with you. Everyone else knows how doors work.”
Boomerang meows lazily from beneath the bed, clearly unbothered, as if he planned this chaos.
“Ha. You’re funny.”
She’s being sarcastic—obviously. But the curve of her mouth doesn’t quite match the tone, and it lingers longer than necessary.
There hasn’t been a woman in this room since Kyla. The air still feels like hers sometimes, like memory soaked into the walls.
Now we’re just standing here, suspended in a silence too tight to breathe in. Neither of us speaks. Neither of us moves. But something crackles at the edges.
Then, mercifully—or not—Boomerang bolts from beneath the bed like an orange blur of chaos, tail high, eyes wild, dashing for the door.
Cupid in fur.
She goes to follow. Or tries to. But my arm moves before I think—blocks her path, firm and unyielding across the frame.
And suddenly she’s close.
Too close.
She smells like something sweet and sharp, like citrus spiked with something softer—danger wrapped in sugar. And I hate how familiar it feels. How natural. How wrong.
She doesn’t flinch, and doesn’t try to push past. Just… waits, so still and expectant.
Is it fear holding her here? Or something else neither of us is ready to name?
Either way, I’m the one who should move.
But I don’t.
She turns to leave—shoulder brushing past mine, soft and determined, like she doesn’t feel this boulder of tension between us. Like the scent of her hasn’t threaded itself through the walls of this house.
And I let her.
Almost.
Until I don’t.
I don’t think—I move. Hand out, catching her waist before she can pass me fully. Her body stills beneath my touch, her breath hitching, but she doesn’t pull away. She waits. And that—God help me—is what undoes me.
One heartbeat. Two. The weight of what I shouldn’t want hangs heavy between us.
And then I’m kissing her.
Not carefully or slow. Just reckless contact—heat and guilt and something far more dangerous clawing its way to the surface. And Christ, it feels so damn good. She tastes so good.
She stumbles back, startled. Eyes wide, searching mine like she’s deciding whether to hit me or—
She grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me in.
And I fall.
The kiss turns hungry. Fierce. Her fingers curl into the fabric at my chest like she’s anchoring herself and setting fire to me all at once. Everything spins, and with it every line blurs.
And then just as suddenly, she pulls away. Slips past me without a word, without even a glance. Just gone as quick as it all happened.
The room feels too still in her absence. I stare at the space where she stood, heart pounding, already cursing myself for letting that happen. But I can’t pretend I didn’t want it. And worse—I already want more.