Page 30 of Fractured Devotion (Tainted Souls #1)

Something in the air shifts when I return to the clinic. It’s not visible, not measurable, but it’s there. It’s a tightening, a heat under my skin like someone’s drawn a wire around my throat and is waiting to pull.

I park in the usual spot, third bay from the loading dock, and cut the engine. For a moment, I sit in silence, my hand resting on the gearshift as I watch the reflection of the fluorescent lights on the windshield. My jaw tenses.

Celeste hasn’t responded to my last message. I sent it before sunrise, something simple that says: Let me know when you get to the clinic. It’s nothing intrusive. Just enough to keep a thread between us.

But she’s quiet, which makes me itch.

By the time I make it through the east corridor and swipe into my private office, I’m already scanning the feeds.

The monitor in the center of the array flickers to life, and I toggle through the angles—hallways, external entrances, and top-floor cams. Her office light is off, and there’s no movement.

But I already know where she is.

Because I saw it last night.

The moment she walked into her backup apartment, alone at first, the tension in her shoulders as she closed the door, and then, twenty minutes later, the knock.

Alec.

He showed up like he belonged there. Like he had every right to be let in.

I watched as she hesitated, then slid the chain off the lock and let him in.

They didn’t talk near the kitchen camera, but I caught their shadows crossing the wall in the bedroom cam. I watched her curl tighter into herself as he spoke, watched the way he stepped forward once, too close, and watched her jaw clench and her hands clench tighter.

It was too far to hear words, but the body language was clear.

Secrets were shared. Dangerous ones.

He didn’t leave until this morning.

I didn’t sleep. I sat in front of the monitors, the hours blurring into each other, watching them pace, pause, and drift closer behind the weak glow of overhead lights. When she finally lay down, he joined her. Not on the couch and not across the room, but in her bed.

I froze.

He didn’t touch her, but he stayed too long, too close.

I watched the way his body curled slightly, protectively, like he had some right to be her shelter.

My fingers gripped the armrests so hard that my knuckles burned.

Her head turned toward him, and her breathing slowed in sync with his.

The sight of her folding herself into the safety of another man burrowed under my skin like glass.

I adjusted the volume and looped the bedroom cam footage. Every flicker of her hand and every lean of his body, I dissected it and cataloged it. My chest ached, and my head pounded, but I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. Not when he was there, in my space, with her.

I imagined what she looked like beneath the sheets, if she leaned into him in the dark, and if he whispered anything that made her laugh. Rage scraped me raw inside my ribs.

Not because she betrayed me.

But because she didn’t know yet.

She didn’t know that it’s me who watches over her, who’s seen the parts she hides from everyone, and who would burn this entire place to the ground before I let it swallow her again.

They left around nine. They didn’t leave together, but close enough to raise questions.

He left first, not rushed, but not exactly calm either.

He looked over his shoulder once before he stepped into the hallway, and even though the cams caught only a slice of his face, it was enough to see his tight jaw and his eyes, which were like a man walking out of a confession booth.

She followed three minutes later with no pause and no hesitation.

She adjusted her jacket at the door and walked out like she wasn’t carrying the weight of something new.

But she didn’t check her phone and didn’t glance at the cams the way she usually does when she’s on edge.

That calm and absence of her usual paranoia wasn’t relief. It was distance.

I watched the footage again. And again. I watched how Alec stood just inside the door before he left, pinching the bridge of his nose, his lips moving like he was muttering something to himself. And then he stepped out.

It was too clean, too careful. And it screamed of something rehearsed, something they didn’t want anyone to notice.

But I notice. I always do.

And what cuts deeper is the silence since. She hasn’t messaged back. Not even a simple reply.

And that tells me everything I need to know.

So when I toggle back to today’s feeds and see him again in Lab C with Reyes, it’s not a surprise. It’s confirmation.

I reach into the bottom drawer, pull out the secure box, and slide it open. The burner is exactly where I left it.

I type a string, a bypass code, into the administrative override. It’s risky, but it gives me a thirty-second window into internal diagnostics—the kind of peek Rourke would crucify me for.

There are new log entries. Alec’s ID pinged three different restricted points in the past 48 hours.

And Reyes? He’s tagged into a dormant sector. One tied to Trial 14’s archival sequences.

I sit back slowly.

So that’s how it’s going to be.

They’re not just talking.

They’re digging.

Well, fine.

Let’s play.

I don’t move from the chair. I just stare at the feed and let the sight smother me. The lights from the monitor cast a dull sheen on my skin, cold and synthetic. The feeling crawls beneath my shirt, down my spine, and into my ribs.

They think I’m not watching.

But I’ve always watched.

I shift, sit forward, and tap into the maintenance logs. It’s not just access this time, but movement. Alec’s pattern has changed. He’s circling higher-level access points, areas he never used to bother with. I trace the logs, slow and steady. Room 9B. Sector F. The old records vault?

Why the hell would Reyes need to be there?

Because that’s where they buried the Trial 14 backup models and behavioral cascade data. The real stuff, not the filtered summaries we’re all fed in board reviews.

I swipe open the system and trigger a silent ping to Rourke’s clearance. Just to see if he knows.

There’s nothing. No overlap.

Which means this isn’t sanctioned.

They’re doing it on their own.

Rogue.

A muscle ticks in my cheek.

And she hasn’t said a word to me.

I grip the burner tightly.

Alec is smart and methodical. Reyes is careful. And Celeste?

She’s slipping away.

The door creaks as I push out of my car.

The hallway is empty, but I walk with purpose, a controlled pace.

No rush. My face is neutral, unreadable.

I cut through Diagnostics, then turn right down the main observation corridor.

I make just enough movement to show I’m not hiding, but not enough to trigger questions.

If someone’s watching me, they’ll see exactly what I want them to see.

I head toward the records wing, but not to intercept Reyes. I already know I won’t catch him there. But I need to lay my own trail. Subtle, believable, and unremarkable.

Halfway down the hallway, I pass Harper.

Her eyes flick to me quickly, too quickly. Then away.

She’s back. After being unreachable for nearly two weeks—something Rourke made a point to mention—she just decided to reappear without fanfare, claiming a communication glitch and a family emergency. It’s plausible. But a little too plausible.

“Morning,” she says, a forced smile curving her lips.

“Morning,” I echo calmly.

She lingers a beat too long, like she’s deciding if she should say something else.

“Need something, Harper?” I ask.

Her smile tightens. “Just wondering how your report on the security upgrade is coming along. Rourke was asking.”

Of course he was. He didn’t hide the suspicion when he mentioned her disappearance. And now she’s back and playing polite, like her absence wasn’t timed suspiciously close to the breach.

“It’s almost ready,” I lie. “I’ll upload it to the shared drive tonight.”

“Good.” She nods, but her tone is clipped, her eyes too focused. “Don’t let him wait too long. He’s been on edge lately.”

Then, she walks off, her heels clicking against the tile. I watch her disappear before I slide into the empty admin lounge.

Inside, I lock the door and lower the blinds.

I pull out my tablet again.

If Alec and Reyes want to play this game, I need leverage. Not just data but pressure points. Weaknesses.

I start digging into Alec’s access record, pulling historical entry logs and correlating them with surveillance footage. Then, I isolate his comms usage.

He’s been using a secondary device.

An unregistered one.

Stupid.

I begin mapping out who he’s been calling. A few unknown pings route through Reyes’ lab, and one spikes from a city network.

It’s encrypted. But not enough.

I smile.

He thinks he’s careful.

But everyone slips.

And I’ll be there when he does.

She’s mine.

He just doesn’t know it yet.

I sit back, tapping the edge of the tablet with my knuckle. There’s a map forming in my head—one I didn’t plan for, but one I can use. Alec’s careless connections, Reyes’ persistent digging, Celeste’s silence… they’re all linked.

But there’s still too much noise. Too many blind spots.

I swipe to the mirrored overlay I rigged last month, a skeletal reconstruction of the clinic’s traffic patterns over time. Then, I highlight every off-schedule movement in the past week and cross-reference it with badge IDs, timestamped entries, and proximity alerts.

A pattern starts to emerge.

Alec’s visits to the storage level always follow Reyes’ by less than an hour. And Celeste? Her office lights are logged as powered even when her badge hasn’t officially been used. Someone’s letting her in.

I stare at the screen until the numbers blur.

It’s a collaboration. The three of them.

And I’m on the outside.

I clench the tablet so hard that the casing creaks.

This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

I exhale sharply and force myself to think, to strategize.

The obvious move is to tell Rourke.

But Rourke isn’t the one I care about.

I care about her.

And if I lose her trust now, if she finds out I’ve been watching, then everything I’ve built disintegrates.

I have to bring her back to me.

But not with force.

With necessity.

I rise, pocket the tablet, and straighten my coat.

Time to make her need me again. And this time, not as a watcher.

But as her only safe place left.