Page 15 of To Love a Monster (Oaths & Obsessions #1)

A beat of need pulses through me like blood through a wound. I want to go back. Slide beneath the sheets, press my mouth to her spine and breathe her name into her skin. I want to be there when her eyes open. But now isn’t the time.

This is the moment I’ve been waiting for. So I cross the lawn like smoke, every step measured. Every movement made with purpose.

Carl’s living room window still bears the wreckage of what I did to it.

Glass shattered, jagged teeth along the edges.

I don’t need to pry anything open, don’t need to force my way in.

I reach up, tug a jagged shard of glass from the edge of the frame, and let it fall into the grass with a soft clink.

One boot up on the ledge, then I swing myself through, careful, controlled. And just like that, I’m inside.

The air still carries the faint trace of Lila’s perfume, her scent, woven between the sharp tang of cologne and old whiskey. I smell her in his house, and it makes something in me burn. Every inch of this place feels wrong. But that’s why I’m here. To tear the truth from it.

I move through the space like a storm waiting to strike, fingerprints gloved, mind sharp, absorbing every detail as I go.

It’s my first time inside, but I already know the layout.

I’ve studied it from the outside. Counted steps between rooms based on where voices drifted.

When she was here, I watched every angle, every shadow she disappeared into.

The kitchen is off the hallway, pale countertops cluttered with dishes, a coffee cup half full beside a bowl of untouched cereal.

The kind of mess someone leaves when they expect to come back quickly.

The laptop sits on the dining table. Open and charging. I cross the room and stand over it, watching the screen blink to life. It’s password-locked but not encrypted. Typical. Arrogance disguised as confidence. I pull the clone drive from my pocket and connect it. Then I dial Elias.

He answers with a groan. “Jesus. Do you ever sleep?”

“No. You sound hungover.”

“That’s because I am hungover,” Elias mutters. “Some of us have lives outside of our careers. You should try it sometime. You know—fun. Ever heard of it?”

I roll my eyes, even though he can’t see it. “Must be nice,” I mutter. “Are you done complaining?”

“Depends. What are we working with?” There’s a rustle on the other end. Bed sheets maybe. A muffled sigh followed by the creak of a mattress shifting beneath weight.

“Mid-range HP. Running warm. Looks like he’s been using it recently.”

“Good. Plug in your clone drive, boot up the console, and give me a minute while I get the script pulled.” I’m already on it before he finishes speaking. The screen glows pale against the low light.

“Laptop’s live. Locked but not encrypted.”

I hear the faint clink of a mug being set down, the click of a keyboard powering to life. “Okay, start with your bypass tool. Clone the entire root directory—documents, emails, download logs. Scrub it clean after.”

I launch the interface. The screen flares and file trees blink to life.

It’s all there, weeks of activity. Downloads.

PDFs. Encrypted messages. The cloning process starts slow, lines of code crawling across the screen as the directories unlock.

Data flows into the drive, silent and clean. “Transfer active,” I mutter.

“Good,” Elias says. “While that’s running, start ghosting the activity logs. System registry first. Disable auto-backups. Anything local gets pulled and burned. Anything cloud-tethered gets mirrored with a corrupt dummy.”

“Already on it.” I scrub the registry and flush the logs. Wipe the most recent user keystrokes and browser trails. Carl won’t know I touched this machine unless he’s watching with God’s eyes. The transfer finishes.

“Cloning complete. Ejecting.”

“Nice. Do a soft reboot to bury the clone signature.” I do. The screen goes dark, then blinks back to life with the same generic lock screen it had before. Untouched and undisturbed.

I slide the clone drive back into my coat, eyes scanning the room one last time. That’s when I see it, his phone.

Sitting beside the half-empty bowl of cereal like an afterthought. Charging cable still plugged in. The screen is black, but it hums with potential. I stare at it for a beat, then speak quietly into the receiver.

“What’s your take on hijacking a personal device, assuming the target isn’t some clueless civilian?

Think trained and paranoid. The kind who might know what to look for if someone’s watching his screen in real time.

” This isn’t like Lila’s. She doesn’t know the signs.

He might. One flicker, one delayed response, and he’ll burn it before I get what I need.

Elias pauses. “Wait. Are you saying there’s a phone? Right there?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I want control. Keystrokes, messages, calls, GPS. I want to see it as it happens, not after. I want to watch him without him being able to detect a thing.”

A low whistle from the other end. “Ballsy.”

“Thanks.” I say, picking the phone up and switching it on.

“That wasn’t a compliment.” Elias says. “No biometrics on the phone?”

“Nope. Just a standard passcode.”

“All right. Then listen carefully. You’ve got two options, and only one won’t tip him off. Go for a silent overlay. Keystroke ghosting. It’s slower, but if the passcode’s cached, you’ll pull it without triggering anything.”

“And if it’s not cached?”

There’s a beat. Then Elias exhales like he already knows I’m not going to like the answer. “Then you’re screwed, and the phone probably gets melted the second something lags or blinks out of rhythm.”

Exactly what I thought. Carl might look like a guy playing house, but everything about him has been too smooth. Too careful. The kind of man who doesn’t take chances unless he already knows the outcome. If he’s been trained, even loosely, he’ll feel it the second something’s off.

But I’m already reaching for the rig. I link the decryptor to my burner, connect it to the phone, fingers moving in practiced, silent rhythm. The soft green interface flares to life, lines of code blooming across the screen like a heartbeat.

“Loader’s up,” I mutter, eyes fixed on the flickering sequence.

“Let it breathe,” Elias says. “This isn’t smash-and-grab. You rush it, you trip it. Be patient. Let the system open itself up.”

I watch the loader crawl across the screen, line by line, unlocking cached data like it’s peeling back skin. “You’re in range,” Elias says. “System’s vulnerable. Time-stamped cache just popped. If the last unlock was recent—”

“It was.”

“Then you’ve got a shot. The tool just needs another minute to validate the sequence.” The decryptor hums softly beside me, running silent, lights blinking in steady rhythm. My hands hover over the keys, ready to dive in the second I’m inside.

While the program works, I reach for the small external transceiver in my pack. Compact, signal-secure, already configured. I slot it into the side of my burner and initiate the sync protocol.

Not just a crack. A mirror.

The second the phone opens, everything it does will echo to a secure interface on my second device.

Real-time reflection. Passive monitoring.

Any call, message, GPS ping, it will register there, not here.

Nothing touched on the original. No traces.

Set it up right, and he’ll never know I was inside his world. The unlock comes a moment later.

Click . The screen blinks. Access granted. A pulse flares down my spine, cold and electric. Directories appear. Text threads. Contact logs. Audio notes. GPS history. There’s a web here. Names I don’t recognize. A few flagged codes. Outgoing messages buried under dummy folder names.

I’m just starting to scroll, digging into a thread of messages marked with aliases I don’t recognize when a flicker of movement catches my eye. My other phone, resting beside the laptop, lights up softly.

Not a buzz. Just a shift, a motion alert. I glance down at the live feed of her house. One of the exterior cameras mounted near the porch just triggered. I tap into it instantly to see Carl standing at her front door with damp hair, no tension in his posture.

His hand hovers over the wood, like he hasn’t decided whether to knock or kick the door in.