Chapter 32
ERYX
Caine’s laptop hums in the dark of his room. Screens stacked, tabs open, code scrolling like some modern spell. I lean against the desk, arms crossed, watching him work.
“Show me the messages again,” I say. He pulls up the thread on a separate screen. Her number sits at the top, every new text highlighted in red. Short, specific, and threatening without saying names.
“They know her schedule,” I mutter. “Her steps. Whoever this is… it’s not random.”
Caine clicks through headers and meta. “Yeah. And they’re careful using a burner number. Whoever it is knows what they’re doing.”
I grind my teeth. “They’re wrong.”
“Do you want me to trace it, or smash their setup?” Caine asks.
I laugh, low and dark. “Trace first. Make them sweat.”
He taps keys like he’s orchestrating chaos. Lines of code turn into IPs, locations, app fingerprints. A trail flickers, then vanishes.
“Signal bounced through three countries,” he mutters, eyes narrowing. “But… last hop? Completely masked. Burner, probably virtual SIM. Ghost in the system. We’re hitting a wall.”
I pace. “Can you get anything? A name? An account?”
Caine shakes his head. “Nothing solid. It’s designed to vanish. Even if we traced the last hop, it’s just another burner waiting to pop up somewhere else. Whoever this is… they planned for this.”
I punch the desk lightly, frustration tight in my chest. “They can’t just hide forever. She’s not theirs to fuck with.”
Caine smirks, though it doesn’t hide his own frustration. “We’ll keep watching. Pattern analysis, delivery times, style of text. Eventually, they’ll slip. Everyone slips.”
I run a hand over my face, breathing out slow. “I hate feeling helpless.”
Caine leans back, fingers drumming. “Helpless isn’t our style. We’ll get them. Just… not tonight.”
I nod, staring at the screen. The burner number sits there, blinking. Red. Threatening. Anonymous. Invisible.
And I can’t do anything about it. Not yet.
I don’t sleep that night. Not really. Caine keeps the laptop open, feeding me every detail, every microsecond the burner number sends a message. Every time it pings, it’s like a heartbeat I can’t ignore.
“I’ve set up a script,” Caine says, eyes bloodshot from staring at lines of code. “Every time it sends a text, every server it touches, it logs it. We’ll know if it resurfaces.”
I nod, pacing the office. “Keep it real-time. Every ping, every attempt. I want to see them. Even if it’s just a trace, I want to see their shadow before I strike.”
Caine smirks. “You’re obsessed.”
“Obsessed keeps her safe,” I say, and he knows better than to argue.
We watch together. Midnight bleeds into one a.m., one a.m. into three. The burner is silent for hours, then pings again. Nothing personal, just another text landing on her phone, harmless on the surface, but I know better.
I lean over Caine’s shoulder, fingers drumming. “Patterns. Timing. Style. Anything.”
He taps keys. “It’s consistent, almost ritualistic. Same phrasing. Same small delay before they hit send. Whoever this is… they want her thinking they’re everywhere.”
I growl low, frustrated. “They’re testing her. Trying to make her afraid.”
“Then we test them,” Caine says. “Digital leash. We’ll follow every hop, every signal, until they trip up.”
I nod. My hand drifts to the gun at my side, not because I’ll use it tonight, but because I need the weight of it. Comfort. Protection. She deserves that much.
The burner pings again. I watch the screen, pulse quickening. Every detail logged, every byte accounted for. Anonymous. Invisible. But not untouchable. Not for long.
I lean back, voice low, more to myself than anyone else. “We’ll find you. And when we do…”