Page 90 of Guarded Knight

I cross my arms. “Wow, you two must have been stuffed from all that food.”

Anton peers up at Gabriel, now standing, looming over Cam.

“G, the new owners of Lara’s place found the photos around eight in the morning.”

“Some of the guys or dancers on the floor might recognize me, too.” Cameron is desperate now. “I messed up, okay? I shouldn’t have texted her that much. I shouldn’t have shown up here. But I swear I never did any of this shit. It’s disgusting. It’s…”

I deadpan, “Beyond even you?”

Cameron pleads, “I just… I knew she didn’t deserve what I did and I didn’t want her to get sick or something and think of me badly. I thought maybe…”

I cross my arms and knit my eyebrows, trying to protect myself from his words that tear at my confidence. He feels sorry for me…

Gabriel grits his teeth and forces Cameron by the chin to look at me. “You thought maybe that angel overtherewould forgive you?” G speaks through gritted teeth as if he can barely hold back tearing Cameron apart. “You’re lucky I have things to live for or I’d happily drag you to Hell with me.” He lets Cameron’s head go with a snap. “Alibi or not, you’re a fucking entitled piece of shit. And you better hope your story checks out.”

Relief at being alive washes over Cameron. “I didn’t think it would get this far.”

The silence that follows stretches too long.

Gabriel stands. Walks toward me. His eyes scan my face, like he’s trying to decide if this changes anything.

“What do you think?” he asks.

It’s so obvious now. “The same thing I’ve thought all along. He’s not smart enough to pull all this off.”

My gut tells me it isn’t Cameron, and if it is… then he’s better at hiding the truth than I ever gave him credit for. But the disgust in his eyes when Gabriel showed him those photos? That wasn’t smugness. Or pride. They made him almost as sick as they did me.

Gabriel puts his hand on my arm, and a wave of chaos rips through me.

He’d die for me. Kill for me. But we’re saying we can’t be together? That somehow, we’d hurt each other? His gaze is intense, like I’m the only thing in the world and he’s happy to keep it that way.

He said he had things to live for…me?

Gabriel slides his hand down my arm and squeezes my hand. “You say the word and we’ll stop the interrogation. Or you give us the nod…” He darts his eyes down to where Cameron is still on the floor. “And we’ll make sure he confesses.”

Cameron gulps.

My gut says it’s not him. But if Cameron’s not lying, this could be even worse than I thought it was. I never thought Cameron was capable of truly hurting me. Scaring me, yes. Hurting me, no. But if someone else is out there, someone I don’t even know of… they might be preparing to dish out worse than photos, a nasty note, and a smoke bomb.

Gabriel lowers his voice beside me, taking action for me when the new revelation has paralyzed me.

“We’ll put him in custody until we figure it out,” he says reassuringly. “He trespassed. We’ve got that.”

I nod, but it’s a mechanical feeling, my body’s still operating on backup power.

Behind him, Anton keys the radio. “Suspect secured. Ready for transport.”

And just like that, the trap is closed.

And my mind wanders back to the silence and that long, empty pause outside the cabin when I thought Cameron had disappeared. When I thought I was alone.

When maybe… it wasn’t just Cameron out there.

Tonight was supposed to be the end. The answer. The closure.

But all it gave me was a new kind of fear. A new question. And the terrible, skin-prickling truth.

This isn’t over. My stalker is still out there, and he has an invisibility cloak. Who would do this? What could I have done to get the attention of someone capable of following me, breaking in multiple times without a trace… threatening to put me in a hospital bed?