Page 28 of The Scars We Keep
SECURITY ALERT — MOTION DETECTED ON OFFICE CAMERA 3.
My spine snaps straight.The chill hits first, slicing through my chest like cold steel.My blood spikes, rage flickering beneath the surface.
I access the surveillance feed, fingers steady despite the adrenaline rushing through me.
The office.My office.
No one enters there.Not staff, not even the men I trust with my life.That space is locked, monitored, and sacred.And there she is.Isabella.My black-dress-wearing, sharp-tongued, chaos-wrapped-in-skin wife.My political pawn with eyes full of war.
How the hell did she get in there?
The thought hits hard, but I don’t pursue it now.Not yet.I’ll review the footage later.I’ll analyze every second, every angle, every blind spot she might have used.I’ll figure out how she broke through my security and who helped her, if anyone did.That issue can wait.
Right now, I am just watching.
The camera feed remains steady as she moves further into my office.She isn’t rushing or nervous, which annoys me more than anything.She looks relaxed.
That space is sacred.It’s the one room in the house where I let the monster breathe and where I stop pretending I’m anything other than what this world shaped me into.
She stops in front of the back wall.
The corkboard dominates that side of the room, cluttered and honest in its rawness.Pins stuck deep in the surface.Red thread connecting names and places.Photos curling at the edges from too much handling.It’s ugly.Obsessive.Necessary.
Matteo.Alessandro.Emery.
Every contact I’ve questioned.
Every rat I’ve interrogated.
Every loose end I’ve tracked across cities and borders.Safehouses marked.Ports charted.Dates jotted in the margins.
That wall is my mind exposed.
I watch her eyes scan over it as she reads it.Studies it.
She turns away, and for a moment I think she’s finished, but then she pauses.
My fingers curl around the phone as she reaches for the framed photo on the side table.The glass catches the light as she gently lifts it.
My family.
My mother’s smile.My father standing proud.My little sister pressed into my side, laughing at something I said just before the shutter clicked.The last photo ever taken of us together—days before blood soaked the floors and I was shattered into pieces.
Something hot and vicious coils in my gut.I fucking hate that she’s in there.That she’s seeing parts of me I kept locked away for a reason.
She puts the frame back carefully, exactly where it was, down to the millimeter.Her fingers linger for half a second on the frame before she steps back, her eyes flicking once more to the board on the wall, before she turns and walks out.
She shuts the door behind her and I exhale through my teeth, as my pulse still pounds frantically.
I switch cameras.
Rewind.Fast forward.
The feed jumps back, skips, then steadies.
I’m watching the hallway camera now as she comes into view further down the corridor, moving slowly.She pauses when she reaches the corner and glances over her shoulder once.She’s sharp, alert, checking for shadows, guards, and cameras she doesn’t know about.
Smart girl.
