Page 4 of Marked to Be Mine (Erased #1)

More memories flooded then. I stared at Xavier’s photo again, remembering the exact moment I refused to believe he was dead.

A body was one thing I needed to convince my tortured mind that he was truly gone.

Standing in that prison warden’s office as he explained the “unfortunate cremation error” while avoiding my eyes.

The subtle shift in his chair when I pressed for details.

The missing paperwork. The refusal to let me speak to the doctor who pronounced him dead.

The pieces assembled in my mind like one of the crime boards I built as a rookie reporter. Subject 7. M-Project. Reaper. The missing military personnel. The operational language. The way he moved—not human, but not quite machine either. Programmed .

So many questions flooded my mind. How was something like this even possible? And, more importantly, why were people not looking into this?

My fingers steadied completely as I typed, adding tonight’s encounter to my file.

I added in his description, as well as any details about his personality I could recall, though there was not much to include.

Like I suspected. Every movement of his was perfectly calculated and almost mechanical.

Whatever they were doing to these people…

it was fucked up. I could see it firsthand now.

And I wouldn’t stop until I got my answers.

The air conditioner rattled to life, its drone matching the steady hum of my laptop. My breathing had synchronized with its rhythm—calm, measured, purposeful.

The trembling in my hands had stopped completely.

I checked the time: 2:17 AM. Sleep wasn’t an option, not with adrenaline still coursing through my system.

My fingers moved across the keyboard, checking the secure channels I’d established with my source. Silence on all fronts. I tried the primary encrypted messaging app. Nothing. The backup channel. Nothing. The emergency forum where we’d arranged to leave coded messages.

Error message: This account has been suspended.

“Damn it.” I slammed my palm against the desk hard enough that my laptop jumped. Did the operation get to them somehow? What the hell was going on?

Three more channels. All dead ends. Either blocked or showing clear signs of tampering—login attempts from unknown IP addresses, password reset notifications I never requested. Someone had been busy .

These weren’t random attacks. Someone was systematically cutting off my communication lines, one by one. The same precision I saw in Reaper’s movements was evident in this digital assault.

I rubbed my eyes and reached for the energy drink in my bag. The familiar burn of caffeine did nothing to quiet the alarm bells in my head. This wasn’t ordinary digital interference. Someone was trying to isolate me…and, so far, they seemed to be doing a good job.

My journalism career had earned me enemies, but nothing like this. This was Xavier-level opposition. Military-grade.

I could almost hear my brother’s voice: “When someone cuts off all your exits, they’re preparing to move in.”

I pulled up the last functional VPN on my system and routed through it to a rarely used email address—one I’d registered using public Wi-Fi and a burner phone on my first day in Brazil. It was the digital equivalent of a message in a bottle, but it was all I had left.

I sent a quick SOS to my source—three characters that meant “compromise imminent” in our pre-established code. My finger hesitated over the send button. If my opposition was as sophisticated as they seemed, even this could be monitored. I hit send anyway.

The notification chime startled me enough that I knocked over the drink onto the floor, liquid splattering across the thin carpet.

A single message sat in the inbox, sent thirty seconds ago:

GET OUT NOW. M-PROJECT APPROACHING. ARMED.

The timestamp: 2:19 AM.

Oh, fuck.

My pulse spiked. I scanned the message twice, trying to process it.

My source not only knew I was compromised but had visual confirmation of an approaching threat.

That meant they were either nearby or had access to surveillance I didn’t know about.

Under other circumstances, that would have terrified me.

Right now, it was the least of my concerns.

A follow-up message appeared before I could respond:

ONLY TAKE WHAT YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED. TRUST NO ONE. GO NOW.

My mind shifted gears instantly. No time for fear.

My hands moved before my mind fully processed the information, muscle memory from Xavier’s paranoid drills taking over. I grabbed my go-bag from under the bed—pre-packed with essentials, cash in multiple currencies, two burner phones, and a pre-paid international transport card.

I swapped my laptop for the weathered journal containing my most crucial notes—handwritten, nothing that could be remotely accessed or tracked. The photo of Xavier went into my pocket.

I made a mental inventory. Passport. Knife. The thumb drive with scanned evidence. The emergency contact numbers memorized.

Fifteen seconds gone.

My movements were steady, practiced. Xavier’s voice guided me: “Fifteen seconds to gather essentials. Thirty seconds to clear evidence. Forty-five seconds to exit. ”

Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.

It was thirty-seven seconds when I spotted it: the bathroom door standing slightly ajar.

I froze.

I always close doors fully. Always. It’s a habit Xavier drilled into me.

When I entered this room, I checked the bathroom first thing. I’d closed that door completely. I had a sequence of things I did wherever I went, just to keep myself safe, and there was no way I would’ve missed something like this. Someone was in here. With me. Right now.

My heartbeat sounded like thunder in my ears.

My fingers inched toward the knife in my pocket.

The silence in the room suddenly felt wrong.

Too complete. The dripping faucet I’d noticed earlier had stopped.

The hum of the air conditioner continued, but beneath it—nothing.

My breath hitched in the back of my throat, and a single drop of sweat rolled down my forehead.

My entire body pulsed with adrenaline. There was no way I could make it out before whoever hid there got to me first.

The air shifted—a subtle change in pressure that raised the fine hairs on my arms and the back of my neck. That primal sixth sense recognized a predator’s presence, and it had never been wrong before.

My hand wrapped around the knife handle as I pivoted slowly toward the window. I gripped it tightly, ready for use. Fire escape. Four steps away. Three. Two.

The bathroom door swung open without a sound.

I stopped breathing .

Reaper filled the doorway like death personified. His tall frame shouldn’t have fit through the bathroom’s narrow window—I’d assessed it as an eight-inch gap, far too small for a man his size. Yet, there he stood, not a hair out of place, as if he had materialized from the shadows themselves.

The overhead light illuminated what darkness had hidden during our first encounter—broad shoulders beneath a fitted black jacket.

Dark hair cut short. A face carved from stone—no warmth, no emotion, just cold symmetry designed for nothing but efficiency.

But it was his eyes that paralyzed me—dark blue like the deep sea, and just as lethal.

He stepped forward. I stepped back. A predator-prey dance began. I gripped my knife tighter, holding it right in front of me, but Reaper didn’t even let his glance land on the blade—as if it wasn’t even a threat.

“How did you...” My voice betrayed me, cracking before I could finish.

His head tilted slightly, studying me with clinical detachment. “Interesting.” The word carried no inflection. “Your survival instincts are so minimal.”

He moved toward me with liquid grace, each step unhurried.

The bed stood between us, but it might as well have been tissue paper for all the protection it offered.

He glided around it in a single fluid motion that brought him three feet closer without seeming to exert any effort at all.

Every movement spoke of lethal efficiency, of a body trained to kill with maximum efficacy and minimal waste .

My odds didn’t look too good right now, but Xavier had taught me to put up a fight. To not go down without a struggle. If it came to that, that was what I’d do.

My breath came in audible gasps, while his breathing remained imperceptible. A chill emanated from him, as though his very presence lowered the surrounding temperature. I forced myself to focus through the panic. Exits, weapons, options—all the things Xavier taught me to catalog instantly.

“You should be dead already.” His voice held a question beneath the statement. There was something new there—a hint of confusion or irritation that wasn’t present during our first encounter. He was talking to himself as much as to me.

My eyes darted to the window—twelve feet away, third floor, concrete below. Bathroom—he’d already proven that wasn’t an escape route. Door—blocked by six feet of lethal operative.

“Why didn’t I kill you?” He circled closer, eyes never leaving mine. It wasn’t a taunt but a genuine question, as if he was searching for an external explanation for his failure.

My back met the wall with a soft thud. The plaster felt cold against my shoulders. I opened my mouth to speak, to say anything at all, but no words came out.

A flicker of something crossed his face—so brief I almost missed it. Not emotion, but… curiosity? He took another step closer, close enough that I could feel the chill radiating from him.

“You asked me a question.” Another statement wrapped around an accusation. “In the garage. No one asks questions. ”

The memory of that moment burned bright—his hand at my throat, death in his eyes, my desperate words thrown out like a lifeline: What’s your name? Your real name, not your designation.