Page 18 of Shared Obsession

Dean shakes his head sharply, pacing the room. “No, no, that’s reckless. You want us to get caught? We need something clean, something no one can trace. We don’t have a lot of options, Alex.”

For a moment, it’s just the three of us, tension stretching like a live wire. Then Zayn snaps his fingers. “Wait—what about that guy you know, the funeral home guy?”

Dean’s face clears. “Ryan. Yeah. My buddy Ryan owns a funeral home. If we can get the body there without anyone seeing, we can use the crematory—no trace left. It’ll buy us breathing room.”

It’s the only solid plan we have, and it kind of sucks, but it’s all we've got.

We don’t waste time. Zayn and I grab gloves and a tarp and head for his Jeep—blacked out, lifted, the kind of ride built for trouble. As we pull away from my place, Zayn glances over, tension sharp in his voice. “You saw that clause, right? In the contract? If Derek’s gone, his dad takes over everything. All authority—Ayla, her money, the whole mess—falls to him.”

My hands grip the dashboard tighter. “I saw it. I got rid of Derek, and all I did was hand her to a bigger monster. Over my dead fucking body.”

Zayn’s jaw ticks as he stares at the road. “We need more than a body dump, Alex. We need a real plan—one that actually gets her free.”

I let out a frustrated growl. “Believe me, I know. It’s not like she hasn’t tried to get out before. She went to the police, Zayn. Walked in, told them everything—what Derek does, what he’s done. But Derek’s dad owns half the city, and the police? They’re in his pocket. They called Derek straight to the station and handed her right back. Didn’t matter what she said, didn’t matter what he’d done to her. They just smiled, told her to go home, and watched Derek drag her out.”

Zayn shakes his head, fury in his eyes. “Jesus. That’s why she never tried to run.”

“Yeah,” I say, voice tight. “She’s not weak, Zayn. She’s just trapped, and she knows it. We’re her only shot. I am not going to fuck it up.”

The city blurs past, headlights streaking across Zayn’s tinted windows, and for the first time since the blood and chaos, I realize just how hard this is going to be.

We turn onto Ayla’s street and slam to a stop—the entire block is ablaze with red and blue lights. Police cruisers crowd the curb, an ambulance idles with its lights spinning, and news vans clog the sidewalk, reporters huddled behind their cameras. My stomach drops, a wave of panic and dread crashing into me so hard I can barely breathe. It’s chaos—sirens, radios, voices shouting, lights strobing through the dark. This is a nightmare.

“Fuck,” I mutter, my voice low and guttural, the stress so thick I can taste it. “New plan—get the fuck out of here. Now.”

Zayn doesn’t hesitate. His hands are white-knuckled on the wheel as he throws the Jeep into reverse, tension radiating off him. “You think they already found the body?” he whispers, barely moving his lips.

“I don’t know,” I grit out, heart pounding in my ears, “but if they have, we’re fucked. This is the worst timing imaginable. We need to vanish.”

My fingers are slick with sweat as I grab my phone and dial Dean, urgency sharp in every word. “Dean, I need you to remotely wipe any street or doorbell cam near Ayla’s place—anything that could show my face or Zayn’s Jeep. Cops are everywhere. And wipe her call and text records too—anything that could connect her to us, or to what happened to Derek.”

“I’m on it,” he says, all business, already typing away. I can hear the frantic clatter of keys and my own pulse thundering as Zayn speeds away from the chaos.

“One more thing—keep eyes on Ayla. If the cops or press start sniffing around, I want her safe. It won’t be long before everyone’s looking for her.”

“Copy that,” Dean replies. I hang up, adrenaline still pounding, watching the flashing lights and the panicked city shrink in the rearview as we disappear into the night, every muscle in my body taut with fear, stress, and the certainty that we’re running out of time.

Dean

I’m on it. The second I hang up, I slide into the desk chair and start running my security protocols. I spin up Tor, run through multiple VPN layers, and crack into the camera networks within a two-block radius of Ayla’s place. I use a custom script to ping every street and doorbell cam, spoofing admin credentials to log into the feeds. One by one, I download the last twelve hours, then overwrite the drives with random static and kill any backup logs. No way anyone’s getting a look at Alex or Zayn’s Jeep tonight.

But I’m not finished. I tunnel into Ayla’s phone carrier using an employee portal exploit, clone her SIM, and wipe every call and text record tied to her number and address—Alex’s too. I purge the cloud backups, clear her Google location history, and double-check for stray metadata in every system. When I’m done, there’s nothing left. No digital trail, no evidence for the cops, just a blank slate and a lot of questions for the forensics team. I lean back, heart still racing, praying it’s enough to buy us time.

Suddenly, a scream rips through the loft—sharp, desperate, and soul-deep. I bolt down the hall, my own heart in my throat, and find Ayla tangled in the sheets, thrashing and sobbing in her sleep. Her voice is jagged, choked with terror: “Daddy, please stop… no, it hurts…” The pain in her voice rips through me. Even in the grip of a nightmare, she’s heartbreakingly beautiful—face twisted with fear, her hair wild, tears streaming down her cheeks as she begs for mercy from ghosts I can’t fight.

I kneel beside the bed, careful not to startle her, and stroke her hair slowly, whispering, “Shhh, you’re safe, Ayla. I’m here. I’ve got you. It’s just a dream.” Slowly, her lashes flutter, her eyes huge and glassy, searching the dark for reassurance. She looks at me, lost and trembling, and my chest aches with the need to protect her from every nightmare—past or present.

“Hey, beautiful,” I murmur, my voice barely above a whisper as my fingers gently thread through her hair. She blinks up at me, eyes wide and glassy, her cheeks still wet with tears. “Hi,” she breathes, and the sound of it sends my heart into overdrive. I can’t look away—her long, tangled brown hair spills across the pillow, her face flushed, lips parted in confusion and relief. She’s heartbreakingly gorgeous, even undone by fear and sleep, her curves outlined in the soft glow of the bedside lamp. For a moment, I just stare, struck silent by how vulnerable and perfect she looks. I finally get it—why Alex can’t let her go. In this moment, I’m not sure I could either.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her voice tremulous, and my heart aches for her. I don’t think she even knows how much I wish I could pull every ghost out of her dreams and destroy them myself. Seeing her fighting in her sleep, I feel this deep, helpless fury—not at her, never at her, but at the world and the men who did this to her. I want to be the shield that keeps the darkness away, to fight off the shadows for her, even if I know I can’t win every battle, and the desire catches me off guard.

She sniffles and wipes her eyes, then looks away, her lashes fluttering. "Sorry for bothering you," she whispers, her voice so soft I almost miss it. Shame and exhaustion cling to her like a second skin.

I smooth my hand through her hair and shake my head, my voice gentle and certain. “You don’t ever have to apologize to me, Ayla. Not for this. Never for this. Nightmares like that… they don’t come from nowhere, and you don’t have to fight them alone.”

She draws in a shaky breath. “Yeah…” Her voice trails off, thin as a thread, and for a second I see her walls start to crumble. My chest aches with hope—hope that maybe, just maybe, she’ll let me be there for her.

I hesitate, torn between wanting to protect her and not wanting to push. But the need to understand is stronger. “Ayla, earlier… in your dream, you were saying something about your dad.” My words are gentle, careful, barely above a whisper. “You don’t have to tell me anything, but if you ever want to talk… I’m here. You’re not alone. I want to be here.”