Page 14 of Fractured Devotion (Tainted Souls #1)

She doesn’t know I’m watching yet again.

She doesn’t know I know Alec slipped her that flash drive either. Of course she doesn’t.

But I know. And that knowledge curdles in my chest like spoiled wine. I keep playing the footage back, studying the moment she accepted it and how her fingers brushed his.

He wants to help her, protect her, and be her ally. All very noble.

But he doesn’t belong anywhere near her.

The thought builds like static under my skin. She leans in to study the screen again, and I lean in with her, from half a building away. Obsession isn’t even the right word anymore.

I don’t hear the first chime of the alert until the second one buzzes in harsher. It’s a message from Rourke. I open it without taking my eyes off her.

“I need you to retrieve a courier drop from the west gate. Time-sensitive.”

I curse softly under my breath, rising from the chair.

I grab the report that’s due for submission and head out of the office.

As I head toward the west exit, I tug my coat tighter and step into the dull corridor hum. The delivery is just a formality. Likely one of Rourke’s sealed briefcases with no name and even less context, but it gets me outside and gives me an excuse to walk off the heat burning beneath my skin.

The cold air bites the moment I step out.

It’s not freezing, but it’s sharp enough to jolt the mind clear.

I head for the drop point behind the west loading bay, the kind of place where shadows gather faster than sound.

The package is already there. It’s a plain gray case with a standard lock. Rourke’s usual stamp.

I crouch, retrieve it, and pause a moment longer than needed.

From here, I can see the edge of the path Celeste usually takes on her way home. I can’t see her now, but my mind fills in the rest anyway. Her expression in profile, the sharp way she pulls her sleeves over her wrists when she’s cold, the rhythm of her heels over concrete.

I breathe her in even when she’s not here.

When I turn back, the case is heavier than it should be. Or maybe it’s just me.

With the sealed case under my arm, I step back inside through the west corridor and let the sterile scent of the clinic wrap itself around me.

The transition from cold air to recycled warmth is stark, jarring in a way that only tightens the unease threading under my ribs.

The halls feel dimmed now. Midday slump.

The kind of lull where secrets find new cracks to settle in.

I pass a nurse wheeling a tray of sealed vials, nod at a technician adjusting a bio-readout screen, and take in the stale scent of industrial coffee wafting from the corner breakroom. But it’s all background noise.

I’m already threading through what I need to say and what I need to not say as I push through the office wing door and head for Rourke’s door.

I step in, tension coiled under my skin, and hand him the case, followed by the report with no preamble.

He accepts it without comment, and I stand silent, watching him skim through it.

The silence is intentional. He clicks his pen once, twice, each sound drawn out, then taps it against the desk as though weighing every word on the page.

“The backups were successfully installed?”

“Yes. Reinforced signal encryption on all main interfaces. The blind spots in her corridor have been minimized.”

Rourke nods. “And she hasn’t noticed anything?”

“No,” I lie, keeping my tone even. “She suspects nothing.”

His gaze lingers on me longer than I like. Then he nods again. “Good. I want deeper access to her auxiliary logs by next week. And Kade—”

“Yes?”

He pauses. “Don’t underestimate her. She might look fractured, but that woman built half this place from theory alone. She’s sharper than you think.”

“I’m counting on it.”

That earns me a brief smile. Rourke turns back to his screen, and I take that as dismissal. As I move toward the door, a knock lands on the other side.

I open it, and she’s there.

Celeste.

For half a second, neither of us moves. Her eyes flash with something unreadable before she smooths it over.

“Dr. Varon,” I say.

“Mr. Lorran.”

I step aside to let her in. We pass each other, our arms nearly brushing. I catch her scent again—clean linen, lab sterilizer, and something darker underneath. Something I can’t name but know I’d chase if it lingered longer.

I don’t look back. But I feel her.

Out in the hallway, I keep walking, but not fast. I walk just far enough to pretend I didn’t just inhale the moment like oxygen. Far enough not to turn around and burn whatever professional line still exists between us.

She’s in his office, presenting updates. Maybe lying through her teeth, maybe not. But something shifted in her today. I saw it the second our eyes met. She’s less guarded. More dangerous.

And I want to know why.

I slip down the service stairs and into my monitoring suite.

The office feeds blink to life, humming with the calm precision of machines at rest. Rourke’s office isn’t fully wired, just a single cam set at an oblique angle near the ceiling.

It doesn’t catch everything, not even close, but from the right feed, at the right moment, I catch her.

Celeste sits near his desk, the folder clutched in her arms like it might betray her if she loosened her grip. I watch the partial view of her from the reflection off the glass case behind Rourke’s chair—the curve of her spine, the tension in her jaw.

The conversation is short. She nods, says something I can’t catch, and then the chair shifts. She’s dismissed.

I switch feeds quickly, tracking her movement through the corridor as she exits. Her heels strike softly against the vinyl tile, each step calculated, each step practiced in a dance that she doesn’t know I’ve memorized.

She doesn’t know I’m watching.

She doesn’t know I always do.

My gaze holds on the sway of her hips and the slender tension in her shoulders. There’s a precision to her that’s maddening. Every motion is unhurried but tightly wound. I follow her through each camera handoff like a man chasing shadows.

When she reaches her office, I switch feeds again. The overhead cam outside her door catches her slipping inside. I don’t blink.

And then, I watch.

I have clearer angles from the internal cams installed discreetly in her office.

I switch back to her office camera as she enters.

She shrugs off her coat, and her blouse strains slightly when she bends forward to reach her screen.

My eyes trace the curve of her spine and the way her ribs rise under soft fabric.

She has no idea how she looks from this angle, and no idea what she does to me just by existing. It’s not even what she wears. It’s the way she’s made. Like temptation sculpted into flesh.

I shift in my seat, my jaw tight.

There are moments like this, when the hush drags on just long enough that my mind turns to her, and I wonder what her skin would feel like against mine and what her voice would sound like if I made her beg. If I made her whisper my name into the dark with no one else to hear.

I want to pull the light from her screen into my hands, wrap it around her throat like a collar, and make her look up at me. Not through a pane of glass, but for real. I want to make her understand what she is to me.

Mine.

Even if she doesn’t know it yet.

Then, through another feed—one angled just right—I catch a glimpse of Alec.

He’s moving down the hall. Toward her.

He’s heading toward her office.

There is no hesitation in his steps.

I don’t think. I rise. On my way out of the surveillance suite, I snag a file folder from the tray near the back corner.

It’s one I’d pulled earlier in the week from the review bin, labeled in her handwriting.

It’s something of hers that’s not urgent but familiar.

Just believable enough to pass as something she might have left behind in a rush.

She doesn’t need saving.

And she definitely doesn’t need him either.

By the time I reach the hallway, I hear Alec’s voice, faint and casual, the kind of tone he saves for people he wants to disarm. He’s not alone, saying something to one of the interns about new requisition forms. I can’t see him yet, but I know his gait and the way he tries to sound effortless.

It gives me a window. A sliver of time before he gets to her door.

I slip past the hallway bend and make my way to her office, not rushed, just timed. At her door, I pause. A subtle turn of my head confirms Alec has just come into view, still walking. I let our eyes meet for a brief second and let him see me reaching for her handle.

Then, I slip inside.

The second the door closes behind me, it hits me that I didn’t think this through. This is me slacking off control. This is not how I plan to start my move. It’s sloppy.

She’s startled, already half-risen from her seat. “Kade?”

I keep my voice smooth and steady. “I found this near Rourke’s desk. I figured it might be yours.”

I lift the file folder I picked up earlier—a decoy, but not completely random.

She blinks once, confused, then takes it from me slowly. “Thank you.”

I offer a small smile, just the right touch of sheepishness. “Didn’t mean to barge in. I just figured it might save you the trip.”

She doesn’t answer immediately, and her eyes linger on me a beat longer than necessary.

Perfect.

Every lie has to start with a truth buried deep enough to taste like honesty.

She flips the file open absentmindedly, thumbing through the pages, her gaze briefly skimming the content. “I must have dropped this,” she murmurs, but there’s no real certainty in her tone. Her fingers trace the edge of a dog-eared corner like it might explain something her mind can’t.

I nod, staying in place. Not too close, not too distant. Her eyes lift again, scanning my face with that unreadable tension that always makes her look like she’s seconds from unraveling or striking.

“You’ve been around the clinic a lot lately,” she says carefully.

“Part of the job,” I reply, giving a faint shrug. “Lots of holes to patch. Rourke wants everything secure.”

She nods. Her body shifts just slightly, no longer defensive but not quite relaxed either. A crack in the facade.

I take it in with a satisfaction that doesn't need to be spoken, then tuck the moment away for later. I’ve left a piece of me in her space now, and that’s enough for today.

“Well, thank you,” she says, the words clipped but sincere.

“Of course,” I say, then turn, slipping out before she can close the gap with more questions.

My pulse steadies only when the door shuts behind me. Her scent still clings to the air. It’s sharp, clean, and like something feral hidden beneath civility.

Perfect.

Back in the monitoring room, I take my seat. The screens hum softly, offering flickers of her in fragments, from the curve of her shoulder to the brush of her hand across her notes to the slight tilt of her lips as she exhales.

Tomorrow, I’ll make another move. Subtle and closer.

But tonight, I watch.

And I want.

It thrills me more than it should, the fact that I now have eyes in every corner she occupies—her office, the hallway, the lab, her apartments.

I’ve placed the pieces methodically, lovingly.

My screens are mosaics of her life, a gallery of stolen intimacy.

Every movement she makes is mine to see.

Every breath, every flick of her pen, or the way she glances over her shoulder when she thinks she’s alone.

And when she retreats to any of her apartments, I’ll be there, watching her too. For now, I make do with the clinic. With this.

It’s not just control.

It’s worship.

The kind that strips the distance between watcher and watched until there’s nothing left but heat and obsession.