Page 25 of Devious Obsession
I’m barely able put a coherent sentence together in my mind when an alarm blares from his phone, and another from the laptop on the dresser. All the calm from a moment ago vanishes.
“What is that?” Elana leans over me, trying to get a look at the laptop screen.
“An alarm.” I turn off the one on my phone and switch over to the surveillance feed on the laptop to get the video pulled up.
I yank on my boxers while the feed boots up. Elana stands beside me, her shirt barely covering her bare ass.
“Is that my apartment?” She reaches for the computer, but I brush her hand away. I need to see who’s there.
The alarms trigger when the locks on the front door or any of the windows have been tampered with. Or as in this case, when someone busts open the door.
“That’s my living room!” She shoves at my shoulder. “You have cameras in my apartment? How the hell did you even do that?”
“You were at work,” I say clicking over to a new angle. One that shows me the hallway.
Three men are in her apartment. The hallway is clear, but when I check the exterior cameras I find their car, a black SUV with tinted windows double parked and idling on the street.
“You just broke into my apartment and set up cameras?” The irritation wanes with her next question. “You’ve been watching me when I was alone?”
I take the second to glance over my shoulder, and so fucking glad I did. A soft pink blush blooms on her cheeks. She’s realized what I’ve seen.
“I didn’t watch that.” I assure her. As much as I wanted to keep my eyes glued to the computer screen on those nights she spread her thighs and brought herself release, I let her have her privacy.
Even a monster like me can be respectful.
She didn’t belong to me yet, but she does now. There won’t be any privacy going forward.
A clamor rises from the video feed, and I turn back in time to see her bedroom being turned upside down. The dresser drawers are yanked out, the mattress is being flipped over.
“What are they looking for?” I ask her.
“Me. You said they would be coming for me.” She lifts a shoulder, avoiding my eyes.
I stand to my full height and look down at her. “Now is a bad time to lie to me, Elana. They wouldn’t be looking for you beneath a mattress. What are they looking for?”
She sinks onto the edge of the bed. “I don’t know, Artem.”
“You do.” Turn to face her, hooking my hands on my hips. Men have pissed themselves staring up at me the way she is now.Trying to hide secrets they know I’m going to extract from them one way or another.
Elana sits pretty, not talking.
“Elana.”
“I don’t know what they’re looking for.” She snaps. “I mean, they can’t know anything right? They work for Janis.”
“Nothing’s here.” A tense voice comes from the computer, and we both turn to watch the screen.
“She’s cleared out; she must have taken it with her.”
The third man pulls out a cell phone. “I’m making the call. Let’s head to the Devil’s Clover.”
Stepping over the mess they’ve made of the place, they file out of the bedroom. The screens change as they make their way through the apartment until they walk out the front door. It closes, but there’s no latch to catch anymore so it creeps open an inch.
Switching to the exterior cameras I zoom into the license plate on the SUV and snap a screen shot.
“What are you doing?” She asks when pull out my phone.
I point a finger at her. “Sit your pretty ass down while you still can.”
