11. Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
EMMA EASTON
The house feels quieter tonight. After everything happened with Jude this morning, Micah and Heather went to nap, and I’ve been reading one of Adela’s romance books she finished yesterday.
Well, romance is an understatement. I just read a scene where the guy chased her through the woods and had wild, crazy sex right on the ground.
Adela, you animal.
Dinner had come and gone without much conversation. It doesn’t help that it’s been super cloudy today, and everyone seems pretty tired because of it. Now we’ve drifted into the living room and dining area, close enough to each other to feel connected.
Rafe leans back against the couch, one arm stretched along the back, his posture relaxed as he drinks his honey whiskey.
Heather is beside him, her attention shifting between the room and her phone.
Micah stands behind where I’m sitting at the table with a drink in his hand that he hasn’t touched, his focus locked in the same place as mine.
Adela.
She and Nico sit side by side at the dining table as they work. The glow of the screen lights their faces, and the quiet, steady rhythm of typing is the only sound aside from a video from someone’s phone.
I don’t realize how tightly my hands are clasped in my lap until my fingers start to ache, my entire focus fixed on that stupid fucking screen.
Adela exhales slowly, leaning in just a little closer. “There’s something here,” she murmurs quietly.
Nico shifts beside her immediately. “What kind of something?”
“I’m not sure yet. It’s buried under another partition, but it’s not as heavily encrypted as the others.” Her fingers move faster now. “If I can just get through this layer…” She trails off, her hand stilling on the keyboard.
The shift is immediate.
“What?” I ask, already halfway out of my seat without realizing it.
Adela doesn’t answer right away. Her eyes scan the screen, sharp and focused. Then, quietly, almost disbelieving, “I’m in.”
A sudden weight lifts from my chest.
Micah straightens. “In what?”
“Alexei’s system. Nico is working on Nolan’s. But I’m in a subfolder. It’s connected to the main archive, just…not as protected.” Her voice tightens slightly, that flicker of hope threading through it despite her effort to stay controlled. “There are timestamps. Organized files…”
Nico leans in closer, his attention sharpening. “Open it.”
Adela hesitates for the briefest second, like she understands exactly what she might be about to uncover. Then she clicks. The screen shifts, and rows of files populate the folder, neat and structured. They’re labeled with dates, times, and names.
“Jude,” I whisper, the word barely making it out of my throat.
Everyone is suddenly behind Adela and Nico, staring at the screen. The only exception is Adriana, who remains staring out the glass doors like a ghost haunting the cabin.
Adela scrolls slowly, her expression tightening as the reality of what she’s looking at settles in. “They’re segmented,” she says under her breath. “Different sessions, maybe.”
Rafe’s voice cuts through the tense silence. “Can you open one?”
She moves her hand, the cursor hovering for just a moment before she clicks. For a second, nothing happens. Then the image loads. It’s grainy and dim, but the subject is clear as day. Jude, chained, bloody.
The air leaves my lungs in a rush.
His head is slightly bowed, his hair falling forward, his body tense like he’s bracing for something that hasn’t happened yet. Or something that already has…
A soft, broken sound comes from somewhere to my right. I think it’s Heather, but I can’t look away long enough to be sure. I lean forward, my body drawn toward the screen, toward him.
Adela scrolls again, and another image replaces the first. The same room, but a different angle.
“Stop,” Nico says quietly, his voice tightening. “That’s enough.”
But Adela’s focus has shifted. “There’s metadata,” she says quickly, her tone sharpening with urgency. “Tags, cross-references…if I can isolate this, it might help us separate his files from Alexei’s.”
Hope sparks again, and I’m chewing my lip.
She clicks. And everything freezes.
“Adela?” Rafe asks, already leaning closer over her shoulder.
“Wait,” she says under her breath, her fingers moving quickly now. “No, no—just give me a second—”
The image distorts, warping slightly before vanishing altogether. The screen goes black, and a single line of text appears.
UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED.
The temperature in the room seems to drop all at once. Adela goes completely still. Another line follows beneath it.
INITIATING SECONDARY ENCRYPTION.
“What does that mean?” I ask, my voice tightening despite my effort to stay calm.
Adela remains quiet, gaze locked on the screen as the system begins to shift in real time. The folder restructures itself, file names scrambling, timestamps disappearing, everything collapsing inward like it’s being rewritten faster than we can process.
Nico leans closer. “What’s happening?”
Her hands hover above the keyboard, no longer moving. “It’s reactive,” she says quietly. “It’s not just protected. It responds.”
The screen refreshes. And when it comes back, the folder is still there, but everything inside it is different. They’re blurred, locked, and sealed. The silence that follows is suffocating. My body is trembling, hoping to god that she didn’t just trigger something we can’t undo.
“Can you get it back?” Micah asks.
Adela doesn’t look away from the screen. “I don’t know.”
I stare at the space where his face had been just moments ago, my thoughts struggling to catch up with the reality of what just happened.
We were close. Closer than we’ve been since this started.
And now it’s gone.
A soft vibration pulls my attention downward, my phone lighting up in my hand. My blood runs cold when I see it’s a message from an unknown sender. Still, I swipe the screen.
There’s no text. Just a single video file. And beneath it, is a timer.
01:59:12
My fingers tighten around the phone, my pulse thudding loudly in my ears as the realization settles in. “He knows,” I say quietly.
And whatever we just touched…it touched back.
Rafe glances over my shoulder at my screen. “There’s another video attachment. Click it.”
“You’re not going to want to,” Adriana calls from the couch, her voice flat. She’s not even bothering to look at us.
Micah turns my phone slightly so he and Heather can see the screen.
I don’t think. I don’t prepare. I just…tap. For a second, the screen is black. Then it flickers, and a dark concrete room shifts into view.
“Looks like a basement,” Heather says.
“Oh, you’re really not going to want to see it,” Adriana warns.
My chest tightens, a frigid cold curling through me as the camera steadies. And then there’s Jude, restrained in a chair, his wrists bound and his head hanging forward. His hair is damp, clinging to his forehead, and his chest rises and falls in wild, shallow breaths.
“This looks like the video version of what was in that folder,” Adela murmurs. “Must be a connected video file that he sent the moment I tripped this wall.”
For a moment, I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I just stare, because he looks like someone took everything that made him who he is and crushed it. And then, a slightly distorted voice breaks the silence.
“Let’s try this again.”
My entire body goes rigid. Alexei.
The camera doesn’t show him, but you can tell he's there because of the way Jude’s shoulders tighten at the sound of his voice. He stirs, his head lifting just enough to show the strain in his expression. His eyes don’t fully open, but I can see the awareness. The dread.
“Attention,” Alexei says.
Jude doesn’t respond.
Then, quieter, almost amused, “No? That’s fine.”
There’s movement off-camera. And then a man holding a phone is brought into frame. He looks like the blonde man who shot Adriana during the rescue. It takes my brain a second to process what I’m seeing.
Because it’s a photo of me.
My breath stutters. “No…” I whisper, my fingers tightening around my phone.
Jude’s reaction is immediate. His entire body locks violently. His head jerks back like he’s been struck, and a sharp gasp escapes him. After that, his breathing remains frenzied as he tries not to look.
“подчиняться,” Alexei commands.
“Obey,” Rafe mutters, grabbing my phone from my trembling hand since I’m about to drop the damn thing. “Shit.”
I lift my hand to my mouth, my heart racing. No.
And the second his eyes land on my face, a crack of electricity snaps through the room, and his body convulses. A choked scream rips out of him as the current hits, his back arching against the restraints, every muscle in his body seizing at once.
I almost drop to my knees. “Stop.” The word escapes me, even though I know it won’t do any good. “Stop it—”
But the video keeps playing in Rafe’s hand. Adela’s jaw drops, horrified.
Jude is shaking now, his breathing coming in sharp, broken gasps, his head thrashing like he’s trying to get away from something that’s already inside him.
“Good boy,” Alexei murmurs.
The screen with my face is pushed closer.
“Again.”
Jude lets out a sound I’ve never heard before. It doesn’t sound like anger or fear…but like he’s destroyed. “Don’t.” His voice is hoarse, barely there. “Don’t, please—”
Another jolt.
His body jerks again, harder this time, the scream that follows ripping my heart open.
“подчиняться,” Alexei repeats calmly.
Jude’s eyes squeeze shut, his entire body trembling, his head shaking weakly like he’s trying to refuse. But it doesn’t matter. The blonde man grips his jaw, forcing his gaze up to look at my face again. At something that once brought him joy. And love.
Another crack of electricity. Another horrific sound.
I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe.
“See?” Alexei says softly, almost conversational. “Once she’s out of you, you won’t have to feel this anymore, little rockstar.”