All Chapters of SIR: Chapter 231 - Chapter 240

268 Chapters

#91: It Wasn’t About Him

I text Eli four times before noon and get nothing back. Not even the clipped, professional one word responses he’d normally manage even when he’s furious with me, the kind of restraint that used to make me want to throw something at his head purely for the audacity of staying composed while I fell apart. Nothing. I know exactly why, obviously. I’ve known since the second I saw his face through that glass partition, frozen for half a beat too long before he disappeared, and I’ve spent every hour since then sitting with a private kind of shame I haven’t handed to a single person, not Danielle, not my mother, not even Zeke, who was standing directly in the middle of the thing I’m currently ashamed of. Zeke, for his part, has gone quieter than I’ve ever seen him. He still shows up for training, still drives me to school, still does his job with the exact competence he’s always brought to it, but there’s a distance in it now that feels less like anger and more like guilt wearing the

#92: The Entire List

Elias watches her face while he explains everything – the shell corporation, the staffing filings, the single occupied room repeated down the entire length of a logbook he had no business reading through a window. He tells her about the four guards rotating a wing built to look like nothing, and about standing in the treeline at midnight cataloguing every detail he could get without crossing a line he wasn’t ready to cross alone. Lucia goes quiet or a while as she absorbs all the information and processes it. “We can’t go back there,” she says finally. “At least not without some backup.” Elias knows exactly who she means, and he knows what saying it out loud is going to cost both of them. “You’re talking about telling your father everything.” “I’m talking about not running this alone anymore,” she says. “You know what’s in that facility. I know what’s been happening at my house. If we keep sitting on separate halves of this and trying to solve it in secret, someone’s going to get

#93: Ghost

Author’s Note (I know y’all are sick of this. I’m sorry, I just love talking to you guys): Hi, my lovelies! First of all, I’m so sorry for disappearing over the last five days. I’ve been buried under tests and preparing for my exams, which officially start on Monday. 🥲 But I’m back now, and I come bearing chapters! Now for the bittersweet news… I’ve officially outlined the rest of I Hate You Too, and I’m both excited and a little heartbroken to say that the story will be coming to an end by the end of this month. The Reids have been such a huge part of my life since last year, so it’s honestly hard to imagine saying goodbye to them. But every story deserves its ending, and I think it’s finally time to put SIR to rest. On a happier note, I also have a brand-new book on my profile called His Undercover Submissive! I’ve poured just as much love, time, and chaos into that story as I have this one, so I’d absolutely love it if you checked it out and showed it some love. Leave a few

#94: Right Back Where They Started

Rourke gave them one usable thing before they took him downtown – a drop location, a mailbox rental two towns over where the payout had been left in cash, no camera coverage, no forwarding address on file, the kind of dead end that would have stopped most investigations cold if Elias hadn’t spent months learning exactly how men like Carver structured their money trails. Zeke insisted on running it together. Neither of them says it out loud, but Elias understands the reasoning without needing it explained. David wants this contained to the smallest circle possible, and right now that circle consists of exactly two people with the skill set to actually work a stakeout properly, and one of them happens to be a man the other one still doesn’t trust. The first night in the car is almost entirely silent. They sit parked a block from the mailbox facility with a clean line of sight to the entrance, coffee going cold in the cupholders, and for six hours the only sounds are the occasional cr

#95: I Believe You

My father takes the news about Carver’s condition with a stillness that scares me considerably more than shouting would have. He doesn’t slam his hand on the desk. He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t demand anyone repeat themselves, doesn’t do any of the things I’ve watched him do when a business deal falls through or a rival tries something petty. He just sits there for a long moment, absorbing it, his eyes going somewhere distant like he’s already three moves ahead in a chess game the rest of us haven’t even realized we’re playing. “A machine keeping him alive, you said,” he says finally, mostly to himself. “He’s in a coma,” Eli confirms. “Apparently, the bullet grazed his brain not bad enough to kill him but bad enough to out him on life support. There’s no version of that man giving orders from a hospital bed, not for weeks, maybe longer.” “Then someone else has been,” my father says. “Which means everything we’ve been calling Carver’s operation for the last several months was

#96: A Ghost In More Than Name

A/N: Ok guys, where the hell is Coco?? I've been working my ass off to publish 2 chapters a day even while writing exams and my favorite reader isn't here to see it😭. Where the hell's my girl? I hope you're okay sweetheart! P.S. I really need to create a groupchat or... something. Anything to keep in touch with you guys outside these damn Author's Notes. ~ I hear Zeke’s footsteps outside my door around eleven, already used to the specific rhythm of his final round for the night, and I have the door open before he’s fully passed it. He stops and looks at me for a second, still fully dressed, hair a mess from pushing my hands through it repeatedly over the last hour of failing to sleep, and something in his expression shifts from professional to something closer to resigned amusement. “You’re not going to bed anytime soon, are you,” he says. “Not remotely.” He chuckles lightly. “Then you might as well be awake somewhere better than this house.” I assume he’s joking. I laugh, ac

#97: Tell Me I'm Wrong

The prank was supposed to hit me. Chloe rigged a bucket of water balanced against the top of the science wing door, an old trick that I taught her, admittedly not my most sophisticated act of war, but effective enough historically that I signed off on it without much thought.But unfortunately for her, things didn’t go as planned and it gets Garvin instead.He walks through that door just before I do (his fault, honesty. I always tell him ladies first is the gentlemanly thing to do) and the entire bucket comes down on him in one clean, brutal wave, soaking him from the collar of his blazer down to his shoes while half the hallway erupts into laughter. He stands there for a second, dripping, blinking water out of his eyes.I shoot Chloe a coy look, crossing my arms with a victorious smirk as I await the outrage I know is about to be headed her way.Surprisingly though, he let’s out a loud booming laugh, shaking his head as he wrings out one sleeve.Chloe, standing a few feet away with

#98: High Praise

Our faces are inches apart, coming even closer. I can feel his breath against my lips, he's so close I can basically taste him again. This boy who has loved me and hurt me in equal measure. This boy who I want more than anything else. This boy who has saved my life more times than I can count. This boy who taught me what love was… but also taught me what pain was. I pull back at the very last second. It costs me something physical to do it, a small, involuntary sound escaping before I can stop it, and Eli goes completely still, watching me with a question written across his face that he doesn’t ask out loud. I force actual distance between us, crossing my arms over my chest like they might hold something together that’s currently threatening to come apart. “You should go,” I say when I find my voice. “Lucia–” “I remember exactly what it cost me the last time I let myself want something like this from you,” I say, cutting him off before he can find a way to talk me out of my own

#99: We Know Where Ghost Is

He kisses me back. For a second, maybe two, his mouth moves against mine carefully, one hand coming up to rest lightly against the side of my jaw like he’s not entirely sure he’s allowed to be doing this and wants to leave himself room to stop. It’s gentle in a way that catches me off guard, nothing urgent in it, nothing demanding, just quiet and searching and entirely unlike anything I braced myself for when I leaned in. But then he pulls back first. Not fast. Not like he’s fleeing the moment. He draws away slowly, his hand still lingering near my jaw for a second longer before he lets it drop, and when I open my eyes properly he’s watching me with an expression I can’t fully place. Not hurt exactly. Something quieter than that. Something that looks almost like a man confirming a thing he’d already worked out the answer to and was simply waiting to hear it said out loud. “I already knew,” he murmurs softly, “what you were going to feel, the second it happened.” “Zeke–" “W

#100: Am I Doing This Alone?

I call Eli before Zeke’s even finished putting his own phone back in his pocket. He picks up on the third ring, his voice thick and slow with sleep, mumbling something that sounds vaguely like my name before the rest of the sentence catches up to him. “Lucia? What’s–” “We have him,” I say, cutting straight through it, my heart already going too fast for pleasantries. “We have Ghost. Zeke got a hit.” There’s a pause, followed by the rustle of him sitting up fast, the sleep draining out of his voice within a single breath. “Where.” “A warehouse on the east side, near the old rail yard. Zeke’s already pulling the address up now.” “Okay.” His voice sharpens further, and I can practically hear him swinging his legs off the bed, the sudden shift from asleep to alert something I’ve watched happen in person more times than I want to count. “Okay, but don’t move yet. We need to verify the source properly first, then we need to pull in actual backup.” “We don’t have time for proper verif

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