3. Fragile. Exhausted. Haunted.

LACHLAN

SHE didn’t see me watching her. She never does, unless I step out into the light and make myself visible. She thinks she has a stalker but she hasn't done anything about it. She either thinks she could handle it on her own or she just doesn't care. The latter one bothers me.

It had been almost too easy—her routine predictable, her life stripped down to the essentials. Half a day at Antonio’s hotel, and then the other half into the late nights at the diner. She was always moving, always working. Always running, though I doubted she even realized it.

I knew she feels me watching her, but I am too good at hiding. She never sees me unless I want her to. And the only time I allowed her to look at me was when I stepped into that diner around midnight. Tonight was no different—I watched her without hiding and caught her sneaking glances at me. I’m not blind to how I look or how women perceive me, but seeing the spark of attraction in her dual-colored eyes hit differently. She was a conundrum. What I was told about her and what I see on daily basis were two different things, and I didn’t know which one was the reality of her.

I was admiring her from afar, waiting for her to come to my table with my usual order, when the man I was already planning to punch in the face for eye-fucking her dared to touch her. I stayed still, suppressing the animal clawing to be let loose. There was no benefit in scaring her off when she admires me silently from a distance. Until she finds the courage to approach me, I will have to be the perfect, mysterious gentleman she thinks I am.

And with that thought I waited patiently, and for not interfering I even got cursed out by her coworker and friend if I could even call her that. Because my timid little kitten doesn’t have those: friends. The one friend she actually has was the one person I wanted her to stay away from, even though Riley was how we found her or Antonio found her and allowed us to hunt her at our own pace.

I finished my coffee and stood up, leaving the tip like I always do. As I made my way outside, I caught her stare. For a brief second, I felt like she was begging me to stay and I’d have stopped, my orders be damned, if she hadn’t turned away and severed the connection.

Once outside, I walked to my spot where I waited for her to lock up so I could follow her to her apartment. I might be the one she needed saving from but I was also the one who was protecting her every night without her knowing it. Just as that thought crossed my mind, my eyes caught the shadow behind the diner. And my hand automatically slipped to my gun tucked in my pants. The same gun that had scared my little kitten when she'd seen it in the bus.

My lips curved up at the memory and I realised it wasn’t the first time she had managed to make me smile. I just wished that she could do the same for the man who wanted to kill her with his bare hands.

Shaking the depressing thought away, I followed her as she stepped out of the diner and made her way down the road with Sheena, the other waitress, by her side. The women talked to each other, not knowing that there were two men that were following them.

At the next curb Sheena bid goodnight to her and without giving my little kitten any chance to escape hugged her before going her way. From what I’d gathered my little kitten didn’t like to be touched and yet I have seen the hunger in her eyes when she watched Antonio with his wife. She pretends she’s afraid of Antonio, but in reality she wants someone as powerful as him to take care of her. I could so easily make that happen for her but there were so many obstacles that she’ll have to overcome to make that a reality and unfortunately I couldn’t help her in that.

My little kitten started walking to her crappy apartment, her focus now on her mobile phone. I pulled out my own phone to see what she was looking at and saw the text messages from Mr Wrong.

My attention a little diverted, I didn't see when the bastard from the diner got close enough to touch her. But I was faster. Tucking my phone back in my pocket, my fingers curled around my gun to shoot him dead, but then I got the better idea to teach him a perfect lesson for daring to touch what wasn’t his.

__

Hands bloodied, and heart pumping from the bloodthirsty excitement, I pulled out my phone and clicked a picture of the arm lying by the unconscious man.

With blôody fingertips I typed a text and hit send. Slipping my phone back in my pocket, I kicked the man lying on the floor. “Are you alive?”

When there was no response, I pulled out my gun and bend down to press it on his forehead. “Am I going to put a bullet in you or are you going to be useful to me?”

“P-please, tell me w-what do you want me to do?”

I smiled. “Good.”

__

Ten minutes later, I was in my apartment in the opposite building of hers. What I couldn’t see from the window of my bedroom that faced hers, I watched it on my laptop screens from the cameras that I’ve installed everywhere in her apartment. Her face was as white as snow, and she was constantly glancing at her phone then at the door with three locks.

But unfortunately for her none of those locks had managed to keep me out. If only she knew how I was always there by her side when she slept. Watching her fight her demons in her nightmares and being utterly confused to how this woman who looked: Fragile. Exhausted. Haunted, could be the mastermind behind what happened to my Pakhan. The utterly pitiful image of her, the eyes that screamed to be saved, was something that didn’t sit well with what I know about her. Or, what I was told.

The first time I had seen her, I hadn’t expected much. She was younger back then and not so haunted looking like she was now. I had only ever seen her in pictures, heard about her from Jeremiah and then that one time he’d allowed me to touch her in the dark... The thought always leaves me wondering how and what could’ve gone wrong to bring us here now. The three of us could have ended up so differently but now here we were.

And, who’d have thought that after everything, the second time I’ll meet her was to seek answers and vengeance for the man I had promised my loyalty and heart to long time ago.

Jeremiah had been clear, he had given me a task: keep an eye on her, dig up whatever I could, and report back. He didn’t care about the details, only the results. He had become heartless, or more like cold to the bones after the incident. He was no longer the same man I’d fallen in love with. He wasn’t the same man who had looked at me with affection and like I solely belonged to him. Now, the only emotion I ever saw in his eyes was the fierce need for revenge. And this woman was going to pay for it. Either I want it or not, I will be leading her to her death because I made a promise to a man I loved above everything and I’ll do anything for him even if it meant subjecting an innocent to a fate worse than death.

She was the reason I had lost him for more than a decade. She was the reason the man I loved had suffered not just through physical pain, but it’d left mental scars on him.

But even as I knew all that, I couldn't bring myself to believe she single-handedly could’ve done all that. More than a month now I have watched her stumble through her shifts, her shoulders hunched as if an invisible weight was pressing down on her. I have watched her suffering through constant nightmares without any support of friends or family. She lived like there was no one for her in the world, working like a machine but never using that money on herself. It had made me wonder on more than one occasion if Jeremiah was suspecting the wrong person, but I couldn’t bring myself to doubt him again. Not after what had happened last time I did so.

And yet, I couldn’t not think— What if he was wrong?

What if she wasn’t the one behind it all—the one he claimed had betrayed him, left him to burn?

It didn’t matter. Or at least, it shouldn’t have.

My job was simple: observe, report, and keep my distance. But the distance was getting harder to maintain with each passing day.

From my shadowy bedroom, I watched her and waited for the right moment. I told myself I was just doing my job—keeping watch, ensuring Jeremiah’s suspicions weren’t confirmed. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to keep watching her and be as close to her as I could. Like I wasn’t counting down the minutes until she fell asleep so I could break into her apartment and watch her as she fights her nightmares.

I couldn’t deny all that because it was more than that now.

I’d spent too many nights breaking into her apartment after she’d fallen asleep and not just because Jeremiah ordered me to keep an eye on her. I just did it because I liked watching her.

I waited another ten minutes before making my move. Her apartment door was an easy lock to pick—too easy. The first time I’d done it, it had taken seconds. She should’ve had better protection. Maybe an army of pit bulls to stop me because I doubt any number of men will be able to stop me, except the one who sent me here to begin with.

Inside, the faint scent of lemon clung to the air, mixed with the ever-present undercurrent of her: lavender, and something uniquely hers, sweet like vanilla. I slipped into the shadows of her bedroom, where she lay curled up under a thin blanket. The moonlight spilled through the window, illuminating her face.

She was crying again. Silent tears streaked her cheeks as she whimpered, lost in the throes of another nightmare.

I’d seen her like this before—too many times to count. Her nightmares were violent, chaotic. She twisted under the covers, her hands clutching the fabric as if she were drowning. Her cries were muffled, but I could hear her whispering something unintelligible. A plea, maybe.

My jaw clenched as I watched her. It shouldn’t matter to me. Her pain shouldn’t dig under my skin like this. But it did. It made me wonder if she was remembering her past that she had forgotten, or maybe it was her memories that haunted her that she was pretending to forget.

But even as I doubted her, her tears felt too real to be fake. Her fear felt too tangible to be just a pretense.

Jeremiah didn’t see this side of her. He didn’t care to.

Don’t let her innocent act fool you. That’s what he’d told me. His voice echoed in my head, cold and sharp. She betrayed me, Lachlan. Don’t you see what she did to me?

But this woman? The one trembling in her sleep, clutching at the air as if she were fighting demons I couldn’t see? She didn’t look like the bloodthirsty witch Jeremiah claimed her to be.

I had to remind myself that this could all be an act, even when I didn't believe it. That maybe, somewhere under this fragile façade, she was everything Jeremiah said she was.

Still, I couldn’t stop watching her.

Once, I’d found her in an entirely different state. She’d been frozen, her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, her hands trembling but unmoving. Her body was stiff as a corpse, and for a moment, I’d thought she was dead.

But no, she was awake—trapped in her own body. Her chest rose and fell with labored breaths, her eyes darting around the room as if she were screaming inside her mind.

It had shaken me more than I cared to admit. That night, I’d done something I shouldn’t have. I’d touched her—just her hand, to see if it would break whatever spell she was under. But she hadn’t responded, not until the episode passed on its own.

Other nights were stranger still. I’d found her sleepwalking once, her steps slow and deliberate as if she were moving through a fog. She’d mumbled something under her breath—a name, I thought, though I couldn’t make it out. I’d followed her silently, making sure she didn’t hurt herself.

Each encounter chipped away at the walls I’d built between us. Walls that needed to stay intact if I didn't want to lose Jeremiah again.

Tonight, she calmed faster than usual, the nightmare fading as she fell into a deeper sleep. I stayed longer than I should have, leaning against the doorframe, my eyes tracing the lines of her face.

She didn’t deserve what Jeremiah had planned for her. But I wasn’t the one in control here.

I couldn’t protect her from what was coming. I couldn’t protect her from him.

As if summoned by my thoughts, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I stepped into the kitchen, answering it in a low voice.

“She asleep?” Jeremiah’s voice was as cold and detached as ever.

“Yes.” I answered, even though I knew he could see it himself. The cameras weren’t only for me.

“And?”

“She doesn’t leave any trails. No phone calls, no suspicious contacts. If she’s hiding something, she’s better at it than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

Jeremiah scoffed. “Don’t let her fool you. That woman is a snake. She’ll strike when you least expect it.”

I didn’t respond. What could I say? That I wasn’t so sure anymore? That I didn’t see the monster he described?

“I want results, Lachlan,” he snapped. “Yesli ty stanovish'sya myagkim, ya naydu kogo-nibud' drugogo, kto s etim razberetsya."

If you’re getting soft, I’ll find someone else to handle it.

The line went dead before I could reply.

I returned to her bedroom, glancing at her one last time. She’d rolled onto her side, her breathing even. She looked peaceful now, but I knew it wouldn’t last.

It never did.

I slipped out of the apartment, locking the door behind me. Whatever was coming, she had no idea how close it was.

And neither did I. Because the man I knew and loved twelve years ago was as good as dead, and the one that has returned was nothing but a revenge seeking heartless Pakhan who’ll stop at nothing to avenge himself. And I was going to stand by his side, and let him destroy the woman who had no clue to what she did wrong.

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A. Gupta

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