Page 123 of Dark Billionaire Stalker
"Ah, but your business is so much more entertaining than anyone else's." Benedict's tone sharpens beneath the charm. "What happened, Gabriel? What did she find out that sent her running?"
"Nothing that concerns you."
"Everything concerns me. We're family, remember? What affects you affects all of us." A pause. "Does this have something to do with Zachary Mercer? I've heard he's been sniffing around your territory lately."
I don't answer. I don't trust myself to speak without revealing more than I should.
"Interesting," Benedict murmurs. "Very interesting. Well, if you need any assistance with your little problem, you know where to find me. I'm always happy to help a brother in need."
He hangs up before I can respond.
I set the phone down carefully, resisting the urge to throw it against the wall. Benedict's "help" is the last thing I need—his idea of assistance usually involves making situations worse in ways that benefit him.
But he's right about one thing: whatever happens with Poppy will affect the whole family. The Brotherhood. Everything I've built.
If she talks—if she goes to the police, if she exposes what she knows—it won't just be my life that unravels. It will be everyone connected to me.
Is she capable of that? Would she destroy me, knowing the collateral damage it would cause?
I don't think so. I don't want to think so.
But I've been wrong about her before.
***
Night falls, and still no word.
I've stopped drinking—I need my mind clear, need to be ready for whatever comes next. I sit in the darkness of my study, watching the shadows lengthen across the floor, and wait.
The sketch is in my hands again. Her serpent and dahlia, worn soft from handling. I've looked at it so many times I couldrecreate it from memory—every line, every curve, the way the serpent coils around the flower without crushing it.
She saw us before she knew us. She drew this image months before we met, before she had any conscious knowledge of who I was or what I would become to her.
What does that mean? Is it fate? Coincidence? Some deep recognition that transcends rational explanation?
I don't know. I've never believed in fate, never trusted anything I couldn't see and touch and control. But this sketch... this sketch suggests something beyond my understanding. Some connection that existed before either of us chose it.
Maybe that's why I can't let her go. Maybe that's why, despite everything—the lies, the violence, the impossible history between us—I still believe she'll come back.
She has to come back. Because whatever this is between us, it's not finished. It's not something that can be severed cleanly, discarded like a mistake.
We're bound together. By blood, by death, by a drawing she made before we ever met.
She'll understand that eventually. She has to.
My phone buzzes with a message from Hutton:Zach has checked into a hotel fifteen minutes from the mother's apartment. No direct contact with the target. Continuing to monitor.
Fifteen minutes away. He's close—too close—but he hasn't made his move yet. He's waiting, just like I am. Waiting to see what Poppy decides.
We're both circling her, predators who can't look away from the same prey.
Except she's not prey. She never was. That's what I failed to understand from the beginning.
She's something else entirely. Something that doesn't fit into the categories I've used to organize my world.
And that's why I can't control this situation. Can't manipulate it to my advantage. Can't do anything except sit in the darkness and hope.
Hope that she'll forgive me.
