Page 37 of Shadowed Vows: Ghost (Nightfall Syndicate #1)

thirty

Kade

I check my watch for the hundredth time. One hour and forty-eight minutes since Alina's last check-in. The digital display mocks me with each passing second.

I gaze out the floor-to-ceiling glass of my top-floor apartment, San Francisco's lights twinkling below like fallen stars. But the stunning nighttime vista fails to captivate me tonight. Instead, I pace the hardwood floors, my footsteps echoing in the empty space.

"She's fine," I mutter to myself. "The team has eyes on her. Her parents' building is secure."

But the reassurance does nothing to quiet the restlessness crawling under my skin. I drop onto the leather couch, pull out my secure tablet, and open the encrypted folder labeled "AB surveillance."

Scrolling through footage from Alina's apartment feels like picking at a scab—the very behavior that had created this rift between us. Yet I can't stop myself. I study the familiar rooms, looking at details I'd memorized weeks ago.

My attention catches on her living room shelves. The collection she'd carefully curated over years—each piece with its own history, its own significance. I pause the footage, zooming in on one particular item.

That one.

The phone's ring slices through my thoughts. I snatch it up before the first tone completed.

"Bennett." Her name comes out like gravel.

"Checking in as ordered." The edge in her voice tells me she isn't over our earlier argument.

"You're three minutes late." I immediately regret the words.

"Are you serious right now?" Fatigue makes her voice raspy. "I've been listening to my grandmother's stories about her activist days for the last hour. Consider yourself lucky I remembered at all."

I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Is everything secure?"

"Yes. Your team is outside in their very obvious black SUV. My father's made them coffee twice already."

She sighs. "Listen, I need to ask for a modification to our agreement."

My spine stiffens. "What kind of modification?"

"I need sleep, Kade. Real sleep. Not the interrupted kind where I'm waking up every two hours to check in with my overly paranoid... whatever you are."

"Handler," I supply flatly.

"Not even close to the word I was thinking of." The hint of amusement in her voice loosens something in my chest .

"You agreed to check in."

"And I've done it twice. But it's almost midnight, and if I don't get some actual rest, I'll be useless tomorrow." Her voice softens. "Your team is literally twenty feet away. The building has more security than most government facilities thanks to you. Just... let me sleep through the night."

I should insist. Should maintain protocol. Instead, I find myself murmuring, "Fine."

"Really?" The surprise in her voice almost makes me smile.

"Call me when you wake up. First thing."

"I will," she promises. A pause. "Thank you."

The line goes dead, and I set the phone down, my gaze returning to the tablet screen. The item I paused on seemed to stare back at me—rare, valuable, and perfectly preserved despite its age.

Just like Alina's stubborn resolve.

I know what I need to do. This won't fix everything, but it might be the key to showing her I understand something fundamental about who she is, beyond the journalist I'd been monitoring.

I reach for my phone again, typing a quick message to Jax: Need acquisition, high priority. Sending details now.